By RENATA BRITO

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Activists on board a flotilla of vessels sailing toward Gaza said they were prepared for the Israeli navy to intervene as they approached the besieged Palestinian territory on Wednesday, after a tense night in the Mediterranean Sea.

Related Articles

Israel orders Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying those who stay will be considered ‘terror supporters’

3 alleged Hamas members arrested in Germany on suspicion of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions

Denmark warns that Russia is waging a hybrid war on Europe, as EU leaders gather for security talks

Police say security sweep ends and Oktoberfest is reopening after bomb threat

US military starts drawing down mission in Iraq, officials say

The Global Sumud Flotilla, with Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, and several European lawmakers aboard, consists of nearly 50 boats and 500 activists and is carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid. It has remained undeterred in its mission to break the Israeli blockade of the coastal strip and reach Palestinians.

“Every minute we advance a little more,” Thiago Ávila, one of the flotilla leaders and spokespeople, told reporters Wednesday in an online news conference from aboard the Alma, one of the flotilla’s motherships.

The vessels were sailing in international waters north of Egypt on Wednesday afternoon and had entered what activists call a “danger zone,” which Israeli authorities had warned them not to cross and where the Israeli navy had stopped attempts by other flotillas in the past.

This map shows the location of the pro-Palestine activist flotilla as of October 1, plus two locations it has allegedly been targeted by drone attacks. (AP Digital Embed)

Overnight, the activists said two Israeli warships aggressively approached two of their boats, circling them and jamming their communications, including the live cameras on board.

“It was an intimidation act. They wanted us to see them,” said Lisi Proença, another activist who was on board the Sirius, a vessel that was targeted alongside the Alma.

After the close encounter overnight, the military vessels eventually left and the flotilla continued on its journey, broadcasting live cameras from many of its boats.

By Wednesday afternoon, the atmosphere appeared to be more relaxed on board the decks of some of the sailboats that broadcast their journeys live. Some activists held up messages of solidarity with people in Gaza and chanted “Free Palestine!” on camera. Music could be heard playing in the background.

If undisturbed, the flotilla, which began its journey from the Spanish port of Barcelona a month ago, was to reach the shores of Gaza by Thursday morning, the group said. However, activists said that was unlikely and that they were expecting Israeli authorities to try to stop them at any moment, as they have done in past attempts.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the flotilla a provocation and warned them to stop and transfer their aid through other channels into Gaza. “It is not too late,” he posted on X.

The Italian fleet of the Global Sumud Flotilla departs from the port of Siracusa, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. (Sebastiano Diamante/LaPresse via AP)

Israel’s government has accused some of the flotilla members of being linked to Hamas. Activists have strongly rejected the accusations and said Israel was trying to justify potential attacks on them.

European governments, including Spain and Italy, which had sent their navy ships to escort the flotilla during part of its journey, urged the activists to turn back and avoid confrontation. But while Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni said late Tuesday the flotilla’s actions risked undermining U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent proposal for resolving the war in Gaza, Spain’s prime minister defended them.

“We must remember it is a humanitarian mission that wouldn’t be taking place if the Israeli government had allowed for the entry of aid,” Pedro Sánchez told reporters on Wednesday. Spaniards taking part would benefit from full diplomatic protection, he added.

“They present no threat nor danger to Israel,” he said.

By JOEAL CALUPITAN and AARON FAVILA

BOGO, Philippines (AP) — Rescuers used backhoes and sniffer dogs to look for survivors in collapsed houses and other damaged buildings in the central Philippines on Wednesday, a day after an earthquake killed at least 69 people and injured more than 200 others.

Related Articles

Israel orders Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying those who stay will be considered ‘terror supporters’

3 alleged Hamas members arrested in Germany on suspicion of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions

Denmark warns that Russia is waging a hybrid war on Europe, as EU leaders gather for security talks

Police say security sweep ends and Oktoberfest is reopening after bomb threat

US military starts drawing down mission in Iraq, officials say

The death toll was expected to rise from the 6.9 magnitude quake that hit at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday and trapped an unspecified number of residents in the hard-hit city of Bogo and outlying rural towns in Cebu province.

Sporadic rain and damaged bridges and roads have hampered the race to save lives, officials said.

A dangerous quake

On Wednesday night, rescuers in orange and yellow hard hats used spotlights, a backhoe and bare hands to sift through the rubble of concrete slabs, broken wood and twisted iron bars for hours in a collapsed building in Bogo city. No survivor was found.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said in a morning news briefing in Manila, the country’s capital. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”

The epicenter of the earthquake, which was set off by movement in an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 3 miles, was about 12 miles northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

Rescuers search for survivors underneath rubble in Bogo, Philippines, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

The Philippine government is considering whether to seek help from foreign governments based on an ongoing rapid damage assessment, Alejandro said.

The United States, Japan, Australia and the European Union expressed condolences.

“We stand ready to support the Philippine government’s response as friends, partners, allies,” MaryKay Carlson, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, said in a post on social media platform X.

A desperate search

Workers were trying to transport a backhoe to hasten search and rescue efforts in a cluster of shanties in a mountain village hit by a landslide and boulders, Bogo city disaster-mitigation officer Rex Ygot told The Associated Press early Wednesday.

“It’s hard to move in the area because there are hazards,” said Glenn Ursal, another disaster mitigation officer, who added that some survivors were brought to a hospital from the mountain village.

Deaths also were reported from the outlying towns of Medellin and San Remigio, where three coast guard personnel, a firefighter and a child were killed separately by collapsing walls and falling debris while trying to flee to safety from a basketball game in a sports complex that was disrupted by the quake, town officials said.

The earthquake was one of the most powerful to batter the central region in more than a decade and it struck while many people slept or were at home.

A traumatized region

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology briefly issued a tsunami warning and advised people to stay away from the coastlines of Cebu and the nearby provinces of Leyte and Biliran due to possible waves of up to 3 feet.

No such waves were reported and the tsunami warning was lifted more than three hours later, but thousands of traumatized residents refused to return home and chose to stay in open grassy fields and parks overnight despite intermittent rains.

Cebu and other provinces were still recovering from a tropical storm that battered the central region on Friday, leaving at least 27 people dead mostly due to drownings and falling trees, knocking out power in entire cities and towns and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Schools and government offices were closed in the quake-hit cities and towns while the safety of buildings were checked. More than 600 aftershocks have been detected after Tuesday night’s temblor, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Teresito Bacolcol said.

Rain-soaked mountainsides were more susceptible to land- and mudslides in a major earthquake, he warned.

“This was really traumatic to people. They’ve been lashed by a storm then jolted by an earthquake,” Bacolcol said. “I don’t want to experience what they’ve gone through.”

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year.

Associated Press journalist Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has intervened for the first time in an abortion dispute roiling the U.S. Catholic Church by raising the seeming contradiction over what it really means to be “pro-life.”

Leo, a Chicago native, was asked late Tuesday about plans by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich to give a lifetime achievement award to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his work helping immigrants. The plans drew objection from some conservative U.S. bishops given the powerful Democratic senator’s support for abortion rights.

Leo called first of all for respect for both sides, but he also pointed out the seeming contradiction in such debates.

“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Leo said. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

Leo spoke hours before Cupich announced that Durbin had declined the award.

Church teaching forbids abortion but it also opposes capital punishment as “inadmissible” under all circumstances. U.S. bishops and the Vatican have strongly called for humane treatment of migrants, citing the Biblical command to “welcome the stranger.”

Pope Leo says mutual respect is needed

Leo said he wasn’t familiar with the details of the dispute over the Durbin award, but said it was nevertheless important to look at the senator’s overall record and noted Durbin’s four-decade tenure. Responding to a question in English from the U.S. Catholic broadcaster EWTN News, he said there were many ethical issues that constitute the teaching of the Catholic Church.

“I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them but I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics to say we need to you know really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward in this church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear,” he said.

Cupich was a close adviser to Pope Francis, who strongly upheld church teaching opposing abortion but also criticized the politicizing of the abortion debate by U.S. bishops. Some bishops had called for denying Communion to Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights, including former President Joe Biden.

Biden met on several occasions with Francis and told reporters in 2021 that Francis had told him to continue receiving Communion. During a visit to Rome that year he received the sacrament during Mass at a church in Francis’ diocese.

Durbin was barred from receiving Communion in his home diocese of Springfield in 2004. Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki has continued the prohibition and was one of the U.S. bishops who strongly objected to Cupich’s decision to honor the senator. Cupich claims Durbin as a member of the Chicago Archdiocese, where Durbin also has a home.

Senator Durbin declines his award

In his statement announcing that Durbin would decline the award, Cupich lamented that the polarization in the U.S. has created a situation where U.S. Catholics “find themselves politically homeless” since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party fully encapsulates the breadth of Catholic teaching.

He defended honoring Durbin for his pro-immigration stance, and said the planned Nov. 3 award ceremony could have been an occasion to engage him and other political leaders with the hope of pressing the church’s view on other issues, including abortion.

Related Articles

Trump administration puts on hold $18 billion in funding for New York City infrastructure projects

Supreme Court lets Lisa Cook remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now

Trump signs an executive order vowing to defend Qatar in the wake of Israel’s strike

Texas’ redrawn US House map that boosts GOP begins a key court test

How the government shutdown will affect student loans, FAFSA and the Education Department

“It could be an invitation to Catholics who tirelessly promote the dignity of the unborn, the elderly, and the sick to extend the circle of protection to immigrants facing in this present moment an existential threat to their lives and the lives of their families,” Cupich wrote.

Paprocki, for his part, thanked Durbin for declining the award. “I ask that all Catholics continue to pray for our church, our country, and for the human dignity of all people to be respected in all stages of life including the unborn and immigrants,” Paprocki said in a Facebook post.

The dispute came as President Donald Trump’s administration maintains a surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By TIM REYNOLDS

MIAMI (AP) — Not even half of the spots in the 48-team field have been claimed. The schedule of matches won’t be finalized until December. And other than host nations U.S., Canada and Mexico, nobody has any idea where or when they’ll be playing.

Related Articles

PWHL champion Frost announced 2025-26 schedule

The Loop Fantasy Football Report Week 5: As top receivers drop, no-names can catch on

Kirill Kaprizov show rolls on as Wild rally in preseason home finale

St. Paul renames 7th Street ’97th Street,’ temporarily, for Wild star Kirill Kaprizov

Trump administration says Minnesota violates Title IX by allowing trans athletes in girls sports

Millions of soccer fans worldwide evidently don’t seem to mind any of those points.

Tickets to next year’s FIFA World Cup officially go on sale Wednesday. The buyers will be those who were selected, out of 4.5 million applicants in a lottery that took place last month, to have the first formal chance to purchase tickets over the next few days. FIFA said lottery winners have been, or will soon be, informed by email.

There are unique questions for consumers heading into the tournament, particularly about how they’ll get visas, if necessary, to visit the U.S. as the country cracks down on immigration. There are also more traditional concerns such as who, when and where — and none of those will be answered until the draw on Dec. 5. FIFA knows many fans won’t fret about those answers; they just want tickets now and will figure out the rest later.

“These are not only outstanding figures, but also a strong statement,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said on social media, reacting to the 4.5 million applicants for a spot in the purchase window that opened Wednesday. “The whole world wants to be part of the FIFA World Cup 26, the biggest, most inclusive and most exciting event ever. From Canada, Mexico and the United States, to countries big and small across every continent, fans are proving once again passion for football truly unites.”

In divided times, the notion of soccer being something that “truly unites” will be put to the test.

Here are some things to know as tickets go on sale.

What’s for sale?

Fans can purchase seats in one of four categories; Category 1 is the best seats, Category 4 is somewhere around the tops of stadiums. Ticket prices will range initially from $60 for group-stage matches to $6,730 for the final but could — and almost certainly will — change as soccer’s biggest event utilizes dynamic pricing for the first time.

There are other ways to get tickets other than shelling out big bucks. American Airlines announced last month that its AAdvantage loyalty program members can redeem miles for World Cup tickets, starting Oct. 13 for executive platinum and concierge key members, then Oct. 14 for platinum pro, platinum and gold members, followed on Oct. 15 by all members.

And starting Thursday, some Verizon customers will have access to free World Cup tickets and other perks. The telecommunications giant is a World Cup sponsor and will simply start dropping free ticket chances to its customers through its app.

“For me, there are few things as exciting as experiencing football live, whether that’s on or off the pitch, and so I am proud to partner with Verizon to celebrate their plans to give fans unprecedented access to the tournament,” said soccer icon David Beckham, part of Verizon’s promotion for the World Cup.

Who’s in?

The U.S., Mexico and Canada all automatically qualified as host nations. Also in so far: defending champion Argentina, Japan, New Zealand, Iran, Uzbekistan, Jordan, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Tunisia, Colombia, Paraguay and Morocco.

That leaves 30 spots still unclaimed.

FIFA said fans from 216 countries and territories applied to be part of the first ticket lottery. The top three nations of interest, to no surprise, were the hosts: the U.S., Mexico and Canada, in that order. The rest of the top 10, also in order of application totals: Germany, England, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Spain and Italy.

Nobody has said how many tickets FIFA plans to sell in this first window. Availability won’t be depleted; based on the listed stadium attendance figures, there are roughly 7.1 million seats to fill for the 104 matches around 16 North American venues, though it’s unknown how many of those seats will be available for sale to the public.

Will visitors travel to the US?

There is an immigration crackdown unfolding across the U.S., which could dampen overseas interest in traveling to the country. U.S. tourism officials already have noted a drop in overseas visitors this year and even organizers in some U.S. host cities have acknowledged that political dynamics may have an impact on attendance.

Adding to some of the uncertainty, President Donald Trump, who has a close relationship with Infantino, has suggested that the host cities could be changed if he wants to move some events away from places his administration considers unsafe.

The U.S. cities that are scheduled to host are East Rutherford, New Jersey; Inglewood, California; Foxborough, Massachusetts; Houston; Arlington, Texas; Atlanta; Seattle; Santa Clara, California; Philadelphia; Kansas City, Missouri; and Miami Gardens, Florida.

“If any city we think is going to be even a little bit dangerous for the World Cup … we won’t allow it to go there,” Trump said last week. “We’ll move it around a little bit. But I hope that’s not going to happen.”

The State Department says that “the safety and security of the United States” along with “World Cup matches, athletes, fans, and venues” are the top priorities with regard to its role in the World Cup process. It also suggests that travelers who need a visa should start applying now, and officials have said the U.S. is trying “to ensure an efficient, smooth, and effective visa process.”

What’s next?

A second phase, called an early ticket draw, likely will run from Oct. 27-31, with purchase time slots from mid-November to early December. A third phase, termed a random selection draw, will start after the final draw of teams on Dec. 5 determines the World Cup schedule.

Tickets also will be available closer to the tournament “on a first-come, first-served basis.” FIFA also said it will start an official resale platform.

Some tickets already have been snagged; hospitality packages have been sold since May.

“The world will come together in North America,” Infantino promised, “like never before.”

The tournament runs from June 11 through July 19.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer