AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Flooding forces people from homes in some parts of Iowa while much of US broils again in heat

Floodwaters forced people out of their homes in parts of Iowa, the result of weeks of rain, while much of the United States longed for relief Saturday from yet another round of extraordinary heat.

Sirens blared at 2 a.m. in Rock Valley, Iowa, population 4,200, where people in hundreds of homes were told to get out as the Rock River could no longer take rain that has slammed the region. The city lacked running water because wells were unusable.

Mayor Kevin Van Otterloo said a state helicopter was on its way to help but was called off when boats were able to reach stranded residents.

“We’ve had so much rain here,” he said. “We had 4 inches last night in an hour and a half time. Our ground just cannot take anymore.”

Gov. Kim Reynolds declared a disaster for 21 counties in northern Iowa, including Sioux County, which includes Rock Valley. In drone video posted by the local sheriff, no streets were visible, just roofs and treetops poking above the water.

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At least 39 people killed in Israeli strikes across northern Gaza, officials say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — At least 39 people were killed by Israeli strikes across northern Gaza on Saturday, as rescue workers scrambled to find survivors beneath the rubble, according to Palestinian and hospital officials.

Fadel Naem, director of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that more than three dozen bodies arrived at the hospital. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency group active in Gaza, said its emergency workers were digging for survivors at the site of a strike in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City and that it had pulled several dozen bodies from a building hit by an Israeli strike in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City.

Israel said Saturday that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.

The deaths come a day after at least 25 people were killed in strikes on tent camps and 50 wounded near the southern city of Rafah. Israel said Saturday that it was continuing to operate in central and southern Gaza and has pushed ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water or medical supplies.

A separate Israeli strike Saturday in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, according to the group. The member was the seventh killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.

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Yemen’s Houthi rebels target ship in the Gulf of Aden as the Eisenhower aircraft carrier heads home

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden but apparently caused no damage, authorities said Saturday, in the latest strike on the shipping lane by the group.

The Houthi attack comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of strikes on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home after a twice-extended tour.

The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. A later briefing by the U.S.-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center said the vessel initially reported two explosions off its port side and a third one later.

“The vessel was not hit and sustained no damage,” the center said. “The vessel and crew are reported to be safe and are proceeding to their next port of call.”

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Biden and allied Republicans are trying to rally GOP women in swing-state suburbs away from Trump

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Thirty miles north of Philadelphia, upscale subdivisions such as Colonial Commons interrupt dairy farms, centuries-old roadside stone houses and the winding Neshaminy Creek that flows between Doylestown and Newtown. Both cities were once rural outposts that have morphed into fashionable commercial, dining and shopping hubs.

This is one of the most closely watched areas in U.S. politics. President Joe Biden ran up his numbers in Bucks County, which includes both cities, on the way to flipping Pennsylvania from Republican Donald Trump four years ago, and won among suburban women in the state by a substantial margin.

Biden and his allies are trying to replicate Democrats’ success with suburban women this year and signaling they can win a small number of Republican women who may be opposed to a second Trump presidency. But in dozens of interviews this month in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, there was little evidence that traditional Republicans were ready to abandon Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in significant numbers.

“I feel like I have to vote for the policies, not the person,” said Lynn Natale, a 62-year-old interior designer. While Natale criticized Trump’s rhetorical style — “It’s like he doesn’t have the words to speak directly to women” — she said she supported Trump’s ideas on the economy and immigration.

“The alternative is unacceptable,” she said.

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Now an abortion rights advocate, woman raped by stepfather as a child will campaign with first lady

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 22-year-old woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child will campaign with first lady Jill Biden in Pennsylvania this weekend as part of a 2024 election push around the anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Hadley Duvall of Owensboro, Kentucky, first told her story publicly last fall in a campaign ad for the governor’s race in her home state, discussing the consequences of abortion restrictions, particularly those without exceptions for rape or incest.

In the ad supporting Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, Duvall spoke of how she was raped by her stepfather at age 12, became pregnant and miscarried. Her stepfather was convicted of rape and is in prison.

In the ad, Duvall called out the anti-abortion Republican candidate by name and said that “anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it’s like to stand in my shoes.”

Beshear won reelection, and Democrats have said Duvall’s ad was a strong motivator, particularly for rural, male voters who had previously voted for Republican Donald Trump for president.

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Trump endorses Ten Commandments in schools, implores evangelical Christians to vote in November

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!”

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???”

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016.

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LGBTQ+ librarians grapple with attacks on books – and on themselves

Idaho librarian June Meissner was closing up for the day at the downtown Boise Public Library when a man approached her asking for help.

As an information services librarian, answering patrons’ questions is part of Meissner’s day-to-day work, and serving the community is one of her favorite parts of the job.

But when the man got close enough, “he took a swing at me and tried to punch me in the head,” said Meissner, a transgender woman. “I blocked it and he started yelling slurs and suggesting that he was going to come back and kill me.”

Worldwide Pride Month events are well underway to celebrate LGBTQ+ culture and rights. But it is coming at a time when people who identify as LGBTQ+ say they are facing increasing difficulties at work, ranging from being repeatedly misgendered to physically assaulted.

Gender nonconforming library workers in particular, like Meissner, are also grappling with growing calls for book bans across the U.S., with books about gender identity, sexual orientation and race topping the list of most criticized titles and making the attacks all the more personal.

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A U.S. envoy visits Hanoi days after Putin, saying US-Vietnam trust is at ‘all-time high’

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A senior U.S. diplomat held talks in Vietnam on Saturday and said that the trust between the two countries was at an “all-time high,” just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Hanoi.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink insisted that his trip was unrelated to Putin’s visit on Thursday. Vietnam had elevated the United States to its highest diplomatic status, comprehensive strategic partner, last year, putting it at the same level as China and Russia. The elevation of the U.S. ties suggested that Vietnam wanted to hedge its friendships as Western companies look to diversify their supply chains away from China.

Kritenbrink was speaking at a briefing for selected media in Hanoi. A recording of the interaction was reviewed by The Associated Press.

Putin’s trip to Hanoi had triggered a sharp rebuke from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, which said that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities,” referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year.

The American East Asia envoy echoed those concerns but said that he made it clear to Vietnamese officials that the “main reason” for his trip was the partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam. He met Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son.

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Rescuers find family of 6 dead in landslide in eastern China, as severe weather warning extended

BEIJING (AP) — A family of six was found dead by rescuers in Fujian province, state media reported Saturday, adding to the extreme weather deaths after downpours caused landslides in the area, even as authorities extended a warning of more severe weather ahead.

The six people, who had previously been reported missing, were found dead in a temple near their home by rescuers after days of searching in Fujian’s Shanghang county, according to the state-backed Hongxing news. They had gone to the temple seeking shelter, as it was on higher ground, but the building was toppled by a landslide, killing the family.

Authorities on Friday had said 47 people were dead in neighboring Guangdong province, which has seen historic flooding caused by the rains. The weather damaged more than a hundred bridges and flooded farmland, and destroyed roads connecting rural townships.

The heaviest rains were from Sunday into Tuesday, toppling trees and collapsing homes, and authorities estimated billions of dollars in damage.

China’s National Meteorological Center issued a warning for more extreme weather across a swath of provinces in the south on Saturday, extending a warning from Friday, and for a few areas in the north.

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South Africa’s new government brings Black and white together. It’s also reviving racial tensions

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — In a country where racial segregation was once brutally enforced, South Africa’s new coalition government has brought a Black president and a white opposition leader together in an image of unity.

Yet the power-sharing agreement sealed a week ago between President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party and the Democratic Alliance, one of South Africa’s few white-led parties, has unwittingly renewed some racial rifts.

Many Black South Africans have expressed discomfort with a white-led party being back in power, even in a coalition. The country is haunted by the apartheid system of white minority rule that ended 30 years ago but is still felt by millions among the Black majority who were ruthlessly oppressed by a white government and remain affected by unresolved issues of poverty and inequality.

South Africa is now faced with the likelihood of seeing more white people in senior government positions than ever since apartheid ended. White people make up around 7% of the country’s population of 62 million.

The ANC liberated South Africa from apartheid in 1994 under Nelson Mandela, the country’s first Black president. Its three-decade political dominance ended in the landmark May 29 election, forcing it to form a coalition. The DA, with its roots in liberal white parties that stood against apartheid, won the second largest share of votes.

The Associated Press