Lightning Likely To Blame For Westbrook Fire

By MOLLY QUELL, Associated Press THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas officials, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively. Netanyahu condemned the arrest warrant against him, saying Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” In a statement released by his office, he said: “There is nothing more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza.” The decision turns Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects and is likely to further isolate them and complicate efforts to negotiate a cease-fire to end the fighting.

By HANNA ARHIROVA and ILLIA NOVIKOV, Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine claimed Thursday that Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile overnight at one of its cities. If confirmed, it would be the first time Moscow has used such a weapon in the war. Ukraine did not provide any evidence that an ICBM was used in the attack on the central city of Dnipro, apparently armed with conventional warheads. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a missile used “matches the speed and altitude” of an ICBM.

By MARTHA MENDOZA, BRIAN SLODYSKO and JULIET LINDERMAN, Associated Press SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday. Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said. News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey. Hegseth’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday.

Broward County appears to be on a roll in persuading aviation-related and pharmaceutical companies to expand — or even move their headquarters to South Florida. The latest aviation industry entry is VSE Corp., a publicly traded provider of aftermarket distribution and repair services. The company announced Thursday the relocation of its corporate headquarters to Miramar from Alexandria, Va.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Associated Press Technology Writer U. S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade. The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our town is a typical suburb of a large city. It was originally settled by German farmers, but over the years, it has become an affluent sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls. Many of the original family farms have been honored in street names. Lingering descendants of the families, or those who knew them, adhere to the original pronunciations, but the majority of the community no longer does.