By KATIE WORKMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — If you have a cocktail scene in your neck of the woods (and it’s safe to say that I do in NYC), you might have noticed the words “pickle juice” appearing more often on drink menus.

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Pickles and pickle brine have been an ingredient that mixologists — and chefs — have played with for a long time, but they’re finally getting a star turn in beverage menus around the world.

Pickle juice is salty, tangy acidic, and sometimes a little spicy. It adds zing to all kinds of cocktails.

“Pickles are a great gateway into savory cocktails,” says Camille Goldstein, managing partner of Muddling Memories, a Brooklyn-based hospitality company that promotes beverages as an experience.

“The sweet-salty brine of a pickle really creates an interesting depth of flavor for your margarita, martini or even a highball.”

A drink called the Pickleback has been popular for years. Said to have originated at a Brooklyn bar called Bushwick Country Club, it consists of a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle brine. Word spread.

Now, pickle juice has been making its way into all kinds of cocktails, from margaritas to martinis to micheladas. The pickle juice martini, in particular, has taken off; it’s kind of a twist on a dirty martini (usually made with olive juice).

It’s all part of a pickle and fermentation renaissance in many food categories.

The many variations of the pickle martini

Watering holes known for their pickle martinis include Rizzo’s Bar & Inn in Chicago; Belle’s Bagels, Delicatessen and Bar in Los Angeles; Maison Pickle and The Penrose in New York; Reata in Forth Worth, Texas; The Loutrel in Charleston, South Carolina; and Old Pony Martini Pub in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, among other places.

At The Penrose, they serve up about 100 pickle martinis a day, made with McClure’s Pickles spicy brine and ALB vodka, says bartender Heaven Cluesman. Once shaken, he says, the brine creates a foamy layer on top of the drink. A garnish of a couple of pickle slices on a skewer makes it clear what’s in the glass.

Casa Thirteen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (where Jewish immigrants sold pickles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) makes a spicy pickle martini with pickle juice spiked with hot peppers, vodka and vermouth (recipe below). The bartender, Reinaldo Maria, says the restaurant makes its own pickles, and cocktails are a good way to use the spicy brine — a nice little restaurant-kitchen ecosystem.

And beyond martinis

Pickle juice is a great foil to fatty foods, so a pickle juice cocktail is a nice accompaniment to burgers, steaks, chops, duck and other rich meals. But note: It contains a lot of sodium, so if you are reducing salt in your diet, keep that in mind.

Other pickle-juice drinks of note:

The “Mr. Pickles” shooter at The Barbershop Cuts and Cocktails in Las Vegas is a shot of whisky served with a hollowed-out pickle filled with pickle brine.

You’ll find a Pickle Negroni with gin, aquavit, vermouth, bitter bianco, cucumber and dill brine at Little Bear in Atlanta.

And at the Hollywood Lounge at Disneyland in California, there’s a Pickle Michelada, made with beer, pickle juice, tomato mix and chile lime seasoning, garnished with a pickle spear.

“The beauty of pickle brine is that it plays nicely and favorably with all the other aspects of flavors in a cocktail, aka bitter, sweet, salt, sour and spicy,” says Goldstein.

Fast-food restaurants put pickles in drinks

Pickle juice is appearing in more non-alcoholic drinks as well. Popeyes Chicken introduced Pickle Lemonade this spring as part of a limited-time-only pickle menu.

And V8 Grillo’s Pickles has partnered with Sonic on a limited-time, pickle-centric menu including the “Picklerita Slush,” a sweet-tart beverage made with pickle juice, lime and fizzy pickle “flavor bubbles” (topped with a Grillo’s Pickle Chip).

Making one at home

If pickles aren’t your thing, then it’s unlikely a pickle juice cocktail will be either. But if you like pickles, don’t knock it ’til you’ve sipped it.

To try a pickle cocktail at home, pick up a pack of Spritz Society’s Pickle Spritzers, made with wine, carbonated water and Claussen’s pickle juice. Or look for canned Dill Pickle Bloody Mary mix (non-alcoholic) from V8 Grillo’s Pickles. Enjoy it as a mocktail, or use it as a mixer and add a shot of your favorite spirit.

A spicy pickle martini, made with jalapeno pickle juice, vodka and vermouth, appears Casa Thirteen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. (Jack Barbour via AP)

Here’s one recipe:

Casa Thirteen’s Spicy Pickle Martini

The bar enhances their pickle juice with hot peppers, but you can use the strained brine from any store-bought spicy pickles. You could also add a splash of brine from pickled hot peppers to bump up the heat in your cocktail.

Ingredients:

.75 ounce spicy pickle juice

1½ ounces vodka (the bar uses Grey Goose, but any vodka will do)

.5 ounces dry vermouth

Pickled basque pepper or pickled jalapeno to garnish (optional)

Directions:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the pickle juice, vodka and vermouth and shake until the outside of the shaker is ice cold. Strain and pour into a martini glass. Garnish with the pickled pepper, if desired. Serve cold.

Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, “Dinner Solved!” and “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at Katie@themom100.com.

For more AP food stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/recipes.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Legally mandated U.S. national climate assessments seem to have disappeared from the federal websites built to display them, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their backyards from a warming world.

Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and lives. Websites for the national assessments and the U.S. Global Change Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere. The White House, which was responsible for the assessments, said the information will be housed within NASA to comply with the law, but gave no further details.

Searches for the assessments on NASA websites did not turn them up. NASA did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the information in the assessments, did not respond to repeated inquiries.

“It’s critical for decision makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is. That is the most reliable and well-reviewed source of information about climate that exists for the United States,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report.

“It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available,” Jacobs said. “This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts.”

Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was President Obama’s science advisor and whose office directed the assessments, said after the 2014 edition he visited governors, mayors and other local officials who told him how useful the 841-page report was. It helped them decide whether to raise roads, build seawalls and even move hospital generators from basements to roofs, he said.

“This is a government resource paid for by the taxpayer to provide the information that really is the primary source of information for any city, state or federal agency who’s trying to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who has been a volunteer author for several editions of the report.

Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in NOAA’s library. NASA’s open science data repository includes dead links to the assessment site.

The most recent report, issued in 2023, included an interactive atlas that zoomed down to the county level. It found that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American communities often disproportionately at risk.

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The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires a national climate assessment every four years and directs the president to establish an interagency United States Global Change Research Program. In the spring, the Trump administration told the volunteer authors of the next climate assessment that their services weren’t needed and ended the contract with the private firm that helps coordinate the website and report.

Additionally, NOAA’s main climate.gov website was recently forwarded to a different NOAA website. Social media and blogs at NOAA and NASA about climate impacts for the general public were cut or eliminated.

“It’s part of a horrifying big picture,” Holdren said. “It’s just an appalling whole demolition of science infrastructure.”

The national assessments are more useful than international climate reports put out by the United Nations every seven or so years because they are more localized and more detailed, Hayhoe and Jacobs said.

The national reports are not only peer reviewed by other scientists, but examined for accuracy by the National Academy of Sciences, federal agencies, the staff and the public.

Hiding the reports would be censoring science, Jacobs said.

And it’s dangerous for the country, Hayhoe said, comparing it to steering a car on a curving road by only looking through the rearview mirror: “And now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead to do everything it takes to make it around that curve safely. It’s like our windshield’s being painted over.”

Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SAMY MAGDY

CAIRO (AP) — Dozens of international charities and humanitarian groups called Tuesday for disbanding a controversial Israeli- and U.S.-backed system to distribute aid in Gaza because of recurring chaos and violence against Palestinians seeking food at its sites.

The call by groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International was made as at least seven Palestinians were killed while seeking aid in southern and central Gaza from late Monday to early Tuesday. On Monday, Israeli gunfire left 23 people dead as they tried to get desperately needed food, witnesses and health officials said.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 people Tuesday in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. Those deaths came a day after witnesses and health officials said 30 Palestinians were killed in a strike on a seaside cafe in Gaza City.

Next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and other administration officials. Trump has signaled he is ready for Israel and Hamas to wind down the war in Gaza, which is likely to be a focus of their talks. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Speaking to a meeting of his Cabinet on Tuesday, Netanyahu did not elaborate on plans for the visit, except to say he will discuss a trade deal.

Iran, following the 12-day war with Israel, is also expected to be a main topic of discussion. After brokering a ceasefire between those two countries, Trump has indicated that he’s turning his attention to ending the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

That war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes were brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the ministry said Tuesday afternoon.

The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and resulted in 251 others being taken hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.

Charities and NGOs call for end to Gaza Humanitarian Fund

More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organizations called Tuesday for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which the U.S. and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.

“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the group said in a joint news release.

The call by the charities and NGOs was the latest sign of trouble for the GHF, a secretive U.S.- and Israeli-backed initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Trump.

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The GHF started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade that pushed Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people to the brink of famine.

In a statement Tuesday, the organization said it has delivered more than 52 million meals over five weeks.

“Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,” the statement said. “We are ready to collaborate and help them get their aid to people in need.”

Last month, the organization said there has been no violence in or around its distribution centers and that its personnel have not opened fire. It has called for the Israeli military to investigate allegations from Gaza’s Health Ministry that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed at or near the aid distribution program over the past month.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Fund is linchpin of new aid system

The GHF is the linchpin of a new aid system that wrested distribution away from aid groups led by the U.N. The new arrangement limits food distribution to a small number of hubs guarded by armed contractors. Currently four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions. Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access the hubs.

Israel demanded an alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The United Nations and aid groups deny there is significant diversion. They reject the new mechanism, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and will not be effective.

The Israeli military said it recently took steps to improve organization in the area.

Israel says it only targets combatants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the group of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.

At least 7 Palestinians killed seeking aid

At least seven Palestinians were killed late Monday and early Tuesday in three separate locations while seeking aid, hospitals said.

Three of the deaths by Israeli fire occurred in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, while four were killed in central Gaza.

More than 65 others were wounded, according to the Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties.

The casualties were among thousands of starved Palestinians who gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route in central Gaza.

In other developments, an 11-year-old girl was killed Tuesday when an Israeli strike hit her family’s tent west of Khan Younis, according to the Kuwait field hospital that received her body.

The U.N. Palestinian aid agency said the Israeli military also struck one of its schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Monday. The strike left no casualties but caused significant damage to the facility, UNRWA said.

2 killed in the occupied West Bank

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in separate events.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing the shooting of the teen, saying it appeared to happen when people threw rocks toward soldiers. In the second death, military officials said a “suspicious individual” was seen trying to cross into Israel from the southern West Bank, prompting soldiers to open fire.

Elsewhere, the Shifa hospital in Gaza City suspended services at the dialysis unit amid a shortage of fuel for generators, the Health Ministry announced Tuesday. The unit provides treatment to dozens of kidney failure patients in northern Gaza.

It called for international agencies to press Israel to quickly allow the delivery of fuel to Shifa and other overwhelmed hospitals across Gaza.

“The continued lack of fuel means the inevitable death of all patients and wounded in hospitals,” it said.

Funeral prayers for 7 family members killed in airstrike

Mourners held Muslim funeral prayers Tuesday for seven people from the same family who were killed in an airstrike the previous day in central Gaza.

The strike hit a family house in the central town of Zawaida late Monday, killing two parents, two siblings and three grandchildren, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, which received the casualties.

Associated Press Writer Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Follow the AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

By DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pro-Iran hackers have threatened to release emails supposedly stolen from people connected to President Donald Trump, according to a news report, a move that federal authorities call a “calculated smear campaign.”

The United States has warned of continued Iranian cyberattacks following American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the threats those could pose to services, economic systems and companies.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said late Monday that the threat to expose emails about Trump is “nothing more than digital propaganda” meant to damage Trump and other federal officials.

“A hostile foreign adversary is threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit, and divide,” CISA spokeswoman Marci McCarthy wrote in a social media post, linking to a report from Reuters about the threat. “These criminals will be found, and they will be brought to justice.”

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Reuters reported that it contacted the alleged hackers online. They told the news organization that it held a large cache of emails from Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles, other top advisers and porn actor Stormy Daniels, to whom a hush money payment led to Trump’s criminal conviction.

Federal prosecutors charged three Iranians last year on allegations of hacking into Trump’s presidential campaign. Hackers also targeted the campaign of Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and unsuccessfully tried to leak material supposedly taken from Trump to Democrats and members of the media.

The threat to release more hacked emails was reported the same day that CISA, the FBI and National Security Agency issued a public bulletin warning that hacking groups supportive of Tehran may attack U.S. interests despite a fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

The hackers, authorities warned, could seek to disrupt or disable critical infrastructure systems such as utilities, transportation and economic hubs. They also could target defense contractors or other American companies with ties to Israel, the agencies said.

The bulletin outlined recommendations, including the use of regular software updates and strong password management systems to shore up digital defenses.

Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and energy companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — but so far have not caused widespread disruptions.