Iran, Turkey lash out at UAE over agreement with Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran and Turkey lashed out at their regional rival the United Arab Emirates on Friday over its decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel in a U.S.-brokered deal, accusing it of betraying the Palestinian cause.

Iran's Foreign Ministry called the deal a “dagger that was unjustly struck by the UAE in the backs of the Palestinian people and all Muslims.” Turkey said the peoples of the region “will never forget and will never forgive this hypocritical behavior” by the UAE.

The UAE, which has never fought Israel and has quietly been improving ties for years, said the agreement put a hold on Israel's plans to unilaterally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians view as the heartland of their future state.

But the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the UAE had no authority to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians or “to make concessions on matters vital to Palestine.”

The agreement would make the UAE the first Gulf Arab state — and the third Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan — to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. The Palestinians say the deal amounts to “treason” and have called on Arab and Muslim countries to oppose it.

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Trump gives credence to false, racist Harris conspiracy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday gave credence to a false and racist conspiracy theory about Kamala Harris’ eligibility to be vice president, fueling an online misinformation campaign that parallels the one he used to power his rise into politics.

Asked about the matter at the White House, Trump told reporters he had “heard” rumors that Harris, a Black woman and U.S.-born citizen whose parents were immigrants, does not meet the requirement to serve in the White House. The president said he considered the rumors “very serious.”

The conspiracy theory is false. Harris, who was tapped this week by Joe Biden to serve as his running mate on the Democratic ticket, was born in Oakland, California, and is eligible for both the vice presidency and presidency under the constitutional requirements. The question is not even considered complex, according to constitution lawyers.

“Full stop, end of story, period, exclamation point,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School.

Trump built his political career on questioning a political opponent’s legitimacy. He was a high-profile force behind the so-called “birther movement” — the lie that questioned whether President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was eligible to serve. Only after mounting pressure during his 2016 campaign did Trump disavow the claims.

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Harris bringing energy, dollars and more to Biden's campaign

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — In her first two days as Joe Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris has fired off the campaign's sharpest criticism of President Donald Trump's shortcomings. She has vouched for Biden's character on race and more. And the enthusiasm surrounding her historic candidacy has brought in a record $36 million, including contributions from 150,000 new donors.

The campaign hopes it is just the beginning.

With less than three months before the election, Harris is rapidly embracing her new role. Democratic operatives and Harris allies believe she'll energize what has been a relatively quiet campaign that has often preferred to keep the attention on the turbulence of Trump's White House. She's already making a vigorous case for Trump's defeat, allowing Biden to focus more on his own policy prescriptions and less on direct attacks.

“We always look for surrogates and validators that help close the deal and can speak to voters who needed another reason to say, ‘Yes, I’m gonna support Joe Biden,’” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair who also ran Al Gore's 2000 campaign. “She fills in the gap.”

Harris was known during the Democratic presidential primary for wearing Converse sneakers and dancing with staff and supporters in unscripted moments. Biden allies expect her to deliver enthusiasm among some Democrats who oppose Trump but aren’t yet energized to vote by a candidate they feel may be out of touch with their concerns.

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For Harris, memories of mother guide bid for vice president

NEW YORK (AP) — Speaking from the Senate floor for the first time, Kamala Harris expressed gratitude for a woman on whose shoulders she said she stood. In her autobiography, Harris interspersed the well-worn details of her resume with an extended ode to the one she calls “the reason for everything.” And taking the stage to announce her presidential candidacy , she framed it as a race grounded in the compassion and values of the person she credits for her fighting spirit.

Though more than a decade has passed since Shyamala Gopalan died, she remains a force in her daughter’s life as she takes a historic spot on the Democratic ticket besides former Vice President Joe Biden. Those who know the California senator expect her campaign for the vice presidency to bring repeated mentions of the woman she calls her single greatest influence.

“She’s always told the same story,” said friend Mimi Silbert. “Kamala had one important role model, and it was her mother.”

Her mother gave her an early grounding in the civil rights movement and injected in her a duty not to complain but rather to act. And that no-nonsense demeanor on display in Senate hearings over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and more? Onlookers can credit, or blame, Gopalan, a crusader who raised her daughter in the same mold.

“She’d tell us: ‘Don’t sit around and complain about things. Do something.' So I did something," Harris said Wednesday in her first appearance with Biden as his running mate.

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Belarus authorities free detainees amid protesters' pressure

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belarusian authorities have released about 1,000 people detained amid demonstrations contesting the results of the presidential election, in an attempt to assuage public anger against a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests.

Around midnight, scores of detainees were seen walking out of one of Minsk's jails. In the early morning, volunteers also saw at least 119 detainees being released in the city of Zhodino just northeast of the Belarusian capital. Ambulances arrived to carry those who apparently were unable to walk on their own.

Many of those who were released talked about brutal beatings and other abuse at the hands of police, and some showed bruises. Some wept as they embraced their relatives.

The releases came hours after Belarus' top law enforcement official apologized on state television for the indiscriminate use of force by police. “I take responsibility for what they say was violence against those people, who happened to be nearby and failed to back off quickly enough,” Interior Minister Yuri Karayev said late Thursday.

The move comes on the day that European Union foreign ministers are due to meet to discuss possible sanctions against Belarus. Lukashenko's main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has been given refuge in neighboring Lithuania, posted a video statement contesting the results of the vote and demanding that the government start a dialogue with protesters.

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Lebanese have little hope blast probe will lead to truth

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s judicial investigation of the Beirut port explosion started with political wrangling over the naming of a lead investigator, military threats to jail leakers and doubts over whether a panel appointed along sectarian lines could be fully impartial.

So for many Lebanese, their greatest hope for credible answers about the blast that wrecked much of their capital may lie with outsiders: the French forensic police who have joined the probe and FBI investigators are expected to take part.

French teams have pressed ahead at their work, sending divers into the underwater crater, taking explosives samples and preparing recommendations for both French and Lebanese magistrates. Among the French judicial police on the case are men and women who responded after the 2004 tsunami in Japan, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the November 2015 and Bastille Day 2016 terror attacks in France.

The Beirut explosion lies at the crossroads of a disastrous accident and a crime scene. It still was not known what sparked the fire that ignited nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that were stored for years in Beirut’s port next to densely populated residential areas. Documents have emerged that show the country’s top leadership and security officials were aware of the stockpile.

Search and rescue crews flew in from around the world in the immediate aftermath and found themselves looking at a scene that was both familiar and yet strangely alien.

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Trump admits he's blocking postal cash to stop mail-in votes

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump frankly acknowledged Thursday that he's starving the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.

In an interview on Fox Business Network, Trump explicitly noted two funding provisions that Democrats are seeking in a relief package that has stalled on Capitol Hill. Without the additional money, he said, the Postal Service won't have the resources to handle a flood of ballots from voters who are seeking to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.

“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”

Trump's statements, including the false claim that Democrats are seeking universal mail-in voting, come as he is searching for a strategy to gain an advantage in his November matchup against Joe Biden. He's pairing the tough Postal Service stance in congressional negotiations with an increasingly robust mail-in-voting legal fight in states that could decide the election.

In Iowa, which Trump won handily in 2016 but is more competitive this year, his campaign joined a lawsuit Wednesday against two Democratic-leaning counties in an effort to invalidate tens of thousands of voters’ absentee ballot applications. That followed legal maneuvers in battleground Pennsylvania, where the campaign hopes to force changes to how the state collects and counts mail-in ballots. And in Nevada, Trump is challenging a law sending ballots to all active voters.

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North Korea lifts lockdown in city, rejects flood, virus aid

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un lifted a lockdown in a major city near the border with South Korea where thousands had been quarantined for weeks over coronavirus worries, state media said Friday.

But Kim, during a key ruling party meeting on Thursday, also insisted the North will keep its borders shut and rejected any outside help as the country carries out an aggressive anti-virus campaign and rebuilds thousands of houses, roads and bridges damaged by heavy rain and floods in recent weeks.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency also said Kim replaced Kim Jae Ryong as premier following an evaluation of the Cabinet’s economic performance and appointed Kim Tok Hun as his successor.

Entering the last year of an ambitious five-year national development plan, Kim Jong Un in December declared a “frontal breakthrough” against international sanctions while urging his nation to stay resilient in a struggle for economic self-reliance.

But experts say the COVID-19 crisis likely thwarted some of Kim’s major economic goals by forcing the country into a lockdown that shut the border with China — the North’s major ally and economic lifeline — and potentially hampered his ability to mobilize people for labor.

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75 years later, Japan war orphans tell of pain, recovery

TOKYO (AP) — For years, orphans in Japan were punished just for surviving the war.

They were bullied. They were called trash and left to fend for themselves on the street. Police rounded them up and threw them in jail. They were sent to orphanages or sold for labor. They were abandoned by their government, abused and discriminated against.

Now, 75 years after the end of the Pacific War, some have broken decades of silence to describe for a fast-forgetting world their sagas of recovery, survival, suffering — and their calls for justice.

The stories told to The Associated Press ahead of Saturday’s anniversary of the war's end underscore both the lingering pain of the now-grown children who lived through those tumultuous years and what activists describe as Japan’s broader failure to face up to its past.

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Cohen's book foreword: Trump 'wouldn’t mind if I was dead'

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Cohen's memoir about President Donald Trump will be released Sept. 8 by Skyhorse Publishing, which confirmed the news Thursday to The Associated Press. The book is called “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.”

“‘Disloyal’ is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century,” according to a Skyhorse statement shared with the AP. “It is a story that you haven’t read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for a decade — not a few months or even a couple of years — could know.”

Earlier in the day, Cohen had released the book's foreword, writing of his estranged former boss, “He wouldn’t mind if I was dead.” He did not list a publisher for the book and, as of midday Thursday, it was not listed on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com.

Cohen is completing the last two years of a three-year prison sentence at home after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress. He was released from prison in May amid coronavirus fears, only to be returned in July after making it known that he planned to publish “Disloyal.” The U.S. government dropped its effort to silence Cohen late last month after an agreement was reached between government lawyers and Cohen attorney Danya Perry that lifted a ban on Cohen speaking publicly.

Cohen’s charges stemmed from his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from speaking out about their alleged extramarital affairs with Trump, who has denied the affairs. He has said that Trump directed him to make the payments.