AP Top News at 10:59 p.m. EDT

Strikes in Gaza kill 85 overnight, bringing the total since Israel broke ceasefire to nearly 600

DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Local health officials said Israeli strikes killed at least 85 Palestinians across he Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, bringing the total to nearly 600 killed since Israel shattered a truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January. Hours later, Hamas fired three rockets at Israel without causing casualties, in the first such attack since Israel broke the ceasefire on Tuesday. Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the records department at the Gaza Health Ministry, said Israeli bombardments have killed at least 592 people in the past three days.

Israeli hostage freed after 491 days asks: Where was the United Nations, the Red Cross, the world?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi, who was beaten, chained and starved while held for 491 days by Hamas, expressed his anger during an appearance at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday for having to suffer for so long and worry every day about being killed. “Where was the United Nations? Where was the Red Cross? Where was the world?” Sharabi asked. He challenged the U.N.’s most powerful body: “If you stand for humanity prove it” by bringing home the 59 hostages still in Gaza, many of whom are believed to be dead. The fate of the remaining hostages became more uncertain after Israel on Tuesday ended a six-week break in the fighting that had allowed for the return of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives. Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce legislation to achieve that, while Democrats have quickly lined up to oppose the idea. The order says the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.” It offers no detail on how that work will be carried out or where it will be targeted, though the White House said the agency will retain certain critical functions.

DOGE blocked in court from Social Security systems with Americans’ personal information, for now

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from Social Security systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans, calling their work there a “fishing expedition.” The order also requires the team to delete any personally identifiable data in their possession. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland found that the team got broad access to sensitive information at the Social Security Administration to search for fraud with little justification. “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” she wrote.

Judge calls Trump administration’s latest response on deportation flights ‘woefully insufficient’

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge instructed the Trump administration on Thursday to explain why its failure to turn around flights carrying deportees to El Salvador did not violate his court order in a growing showdown between the judicial and executive branches. U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg demanded answers after flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants alleged by the Trump administration to be gang members landed in El Salvador after the judge temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime law. Boasberg had directed the administration to return to the U.S. planes that were already in the air when he ordered the halt.

Military leaders discuss Ukraine peacekeeping force as partial ceasefire plans are worked out

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Senior military officers from more than 30 countries across Europe and beyond met in England on Thursday to flesh out plans for an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine as details of a partial ceasefire are worked out. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he didn’t know whether there would be a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war, but “we are making steps in the right direction” as a “coalition of the willing” led by Britain and France moves into an “operational phase.” “We hope there will be a deal but what I do know is if there is a deal, the time for planning is now,” he said during a visit to the meeting of military planners at a British base in Northwood, just outside London.

What’s next for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was highlighted in Ukraine-US talks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — During a call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, the U.S. leader apparently suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy consider transferring ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to the U.S. for long-term security, according to a U.S. statement. Briefing the media later, Zelenskyy said the discussion with Trump had focused specifically on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, ZNPP, in southern Ukraine. While the facility remains connected to Ukraine’s energy grid without producing electricity, it has been under Russian control since the early days of the war, making it unclear what future U.S. involvement could look like. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is one of the world’s 10 largest and Europe’s biggest.

The release of a 1961 plan to break up the CIA revives an old conspiracy theory about who killed JFK

A key adviser warned President John F. Kennedy after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 that the agency behind it, the CIA, had grown too powerful. He proposed giving the State Department control of “all clandestine activities” and breaking up the CIA. The page of Special Assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s memo outlining the proposal was among the newly public material in documents related to Kennedy’s assassination released this week by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. So, too was Schlesinger’s statement that 47% of the political officers in U.S. embassies were controlled by the CIA.

No. 11 seed Drake holds on after blowing big lead and beats Missouri 67-57 in March Madness opener

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Bennett Stirtz scored 21 points and No. 11 seed Drake, a team relying heavily on Division II transfers, held on after blowing most of a 15-point lead to beat sixth-seeded Missouri 67-57 on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Tavion Banks added 15 points and nine rebounds for the Bulldogs (31-3), who along with first-year coach Ben McCollum advanced to a second-round matchup with third-seeded Texas Tech or No. 14 seed UNC Wilmington on Saturday. “We just fought. That’s kind of what we have to do, is just continue to grind and compete,” said McCollum, who won four D-II national titles at Northwest Missouri State before taking the Drake job last April.

Mariah Carey didn’t steal ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ from other writers, a judge says

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Mariah Carey did not steal her perennial megahit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” from other songwriters. Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani granted Carey’s request for summary judgment on Wednesday, giving her and co-writer and co-defendant Walter Afanasieff a victory without going to trial. In 2023, songwriters Andy Stone of Louisiana — who goes by the stage name Vince Vance — and Troy Powers of Tennessee filed the $20 million lawsuit alleging that Carey’s 1994 song, which has since become a holiday standard and annual streaming sensation, infringed the copyright of their country 1989 song with the same title.