AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Papua New Guinea says Friday's landslide buried more than 2,000 people and formally asks for help

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A Papua New Guinea government official has told the United Nations more than 2,000 people were believed to have been buried alive by Friday's landslide and has formally asked for international help.

The government figure is roughly triple the U.N. estimate of 670 killed by the landslide in the South Pacific island nation's mountainous interior. The remains of only six people had been recovered so far.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday, the acting director of the South Pacific island nation’s National Disaster Center Luseta Laso Mana said the landslide “buried more than 2000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” at Yambali village in the Enga province.

Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived the number of people affected.

The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.

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Palestinian medics say Israeli airstrikes kill 35 in Gaza's Rafah as displaced people are hit

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian health workers said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 35 people Sunday and hit tents for displaced people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and “numerous” others were trapped in flaming debris. Gaza's Health Ministry said women and children made up most of the dead and dozens of wounded.

The attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million population had sought shelter before Israel's incursion earlier this month. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled.

Footage from the scene of the largest airstrike showed heavy destruction. Israel’s army confirmed the strike and said it hit a Hamas installation and killed two senior Hamas militants. It said it was investigating reports that civilians were harmed. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was in Rafah on Sunday and was briefed on the “deepening of operations” there, his office said.

A spokesperson with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the death toll was likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continued in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood about two kilometers (1.2 miles) northwest of the city center.

The society asserted that the location had been designated by Israel as a “humanitarian area.” The neighborhood is not included in areas that Israel’s military ordered evacuated earlier this month.

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EU-Israel relations take a nosedive as Spain, Ireland set to formally recognize a Palestinian state

BRUSSELS (AP) — Relations between the European Union and Israel took a nosedive on the eve of the diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by EU members Ireland and Spain, with Madrid suggesting sanctions should be considered against Israel for its continued attacks in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israeli Foreign Minister Katz told Spain that its consulate in Jerusalem will not be allowed to help Palestinians.

At the same time, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, a Spaniard, threw his full weight to support the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, including the leaders of Hamas.

“The prosecutor of the court has been strongly intimidated and accused of antisemitism," Borrell said. “The word antisemitic, it's too heavy. It's too important.”

Angry words abounded Monday, with Katz accusing Spain of “rewarding terror” by recognizing a Palestinian state, and saying that “the days of the Inquisition are over.” He referred to the infamous Spanish institution started in the 15th century to maintain Roman Catholic orthodoxy that forced Jews and Muslims to flee, convert to Catholicism or, in some instances, face death.

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Latest deadly weather in US kills at least 18 as storms carve path of ruin across multiple states

VALLEY VIEW, Texas (AP) — Powerful storms killed at least 18 people, injured hundreds and left a wide trail of destruction across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after obliterating homes and destroying a truck stop where dozens sought shelter in a restroom during the latest deadly weather to strike the central U.S.

The storms inflicted their worst damage in a region spanning from north of Dallas to the northwest corner of Arkansas, and the system threatened to bring more violent weather to other parts of the Midwest. By Monday, forecasters said, the greatest risk would shift to the east, covering a broad swath of the country from Alabama to near New York City.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency early Monday in a post on social media platform X, citing “multiple reports of wind damage and tornadoes.”

Seven deaths were reported in Cooke County, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado Saturday night plowed through a rural area near a mobile home park, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Sunday. The dead included two children, ages 2 and 5. Three family members were found dead in one home, according to the county sheriff.

Storms also killed two people and destroyed houses in Oklahoma, where the injured included guests at an outdoor wedding, eight people in Arkansas and one person in Kentucky. Tens of thousands of residents were without power across the region.

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Here's what every key witness said at Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Closing arguments are coming

NEW YORK (AP) — After 22 witnesses, including a porn actor, tabloid publisher and White House insiders, testimony is over at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.

Prosecutors called 20 witnesses. The defense called just two. Trump decided not to testify on his own behalf.

The trial now shifts to closing arguments, scheduled for Tuesday.

After that, it will be up to 12 jurors to decide whether prosecutors have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified his company’s business records as part of a broader effort to keep stories about marital infidelity from becoming public during his 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.

A conviction could come down to how the jurors interpret the testimony and which witnesses they find credible. The jury must be unanimous. The records involved include 11 checks sent to Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as invoices and company ledger entries related to those payments.

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China premier agrees on cooperation with Seoul, Tokyo but issues veiled rebuke against their US ties

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — China’s premier agreed Monday to revive three-way cooperation with South Korea and Japan in the face of shared challenges, but issued a veiled rebuke against the two countries’ expanding security cooperation with the United States.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang met South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Seoul in what was their countries’ first such trilateral meeting in more than four years.

Many experts say just restarting the countries’ highest-level annual meeting and agreeing on the need to improve ties is a positive sign for cooperation among the three Northeast Asian neighbors, as they all face economic uncertainties caused by wars and instability around the world. But how drastically their cooperation will be promoted is unknown as the three countries have a range of long-running complex issues.

In a joint news conference after the meeting, Li said China wants to cooperate with South Korea and Japan on economic issues, especially on supply chains and the restart of talks on a three-way free trade deal.

Yoon said the three leaders agreed to promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges, establish safe supply chain networks and work together to tackle shared environmental, health and other issues. Kishida said the three countries share a big responsibility for regional peace and that Japan will chair the next round of the trilateral leaders’ meeting.

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China has threatened trade with some countries after feuds. They're calling 'the firm' for help

WASHINGTON (AP) — Business is good at “the firm.”

The eight-person team at the State Department is leading Washington's efforts to ease the economic blowback for countries targeted by China.

It emerged in the scramble to help Lithuania during a spat with China over Taiwan two years ago. Today, “the firm” is helping growing numbers of nations cope with what diplomats call economic coercion from Beijing.

Countries “knock on the door, they call,” Undersecretary of State Jose Fernandez told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “We run a consulting firm that does not have to advertise for clients, as they come.”

Led by State Department senior adviser Melanie Hart, the group reviews vulnerabilities and develops responses for countries that are cut off or fear losing trade with global powerhouse China. Since the group's launch with Lithuania, more than a dozen countries have approached the Biden administration for assistance, Fernandez said.

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Russian POWs get to make phone calls home. Ukrainians don't. A growing movement wants that to change

FAR WESTERN UKRAINE (AP) — Precious few choices are available to Alexander, a 26-year-old Russian soldier, since his capture: Clothes, meals and the hours of his day are rigidly accounted for in the camp for prisoners of war.

But Ukraine allows Alexander to call home to his family in Kursk, a Russian city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Ukrainian border, and he says that has kept him grounded.

It is a lifeline unavailable to Ukrainian POWs. Now, infuriated Ukrainian families are demanding an end to the phone calls imprisoned Russian soldiers get to make.

“To be able to talk to your loved ones is worth a lot. I’ve already been in prison for almost a year. I’m losing my mind,” Alexander told The Associated Press during a recent visit for several news outlets to Ukraine’s main POW camp, as he completed his work shift. “People are not made of steel.”

He said the brief conversations, closely monitored by his Ukrainian captors, pulled him from the brink of despair – even though for him and all Russian POWs, the calls are growing rarer by the week.

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Forced to rebuild a life at 12, a Haitian girl joins thousands seeking an escape from gang violence

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — For 12-year-old Juliana St. Vil, life begins every afternoon.

She bounds out of the crowded shelter where she’s been sleeping on the concrete floor for 10 months, a smile on her face despite harsh surroundings. Not yet a teenager, Juliana must navigate a Haiti oppressed by gangs that killed her father and drove her family out of their home.

An acting workshop held daily in a big house with a leafy yard is her escape.

“I lived well,” Juliana said, remembering her old neighborhood. “I could always eat when I was hungry. I could go to school without a worry."

Millions across Haiti are struggling to rebuild their lives in a country with no president as gangs who want full control of the capital and beyond kill, rape and injure thousands.

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Military labs do the detective work to identify soldiers decades after they died in World War II

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AP) — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts.

But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are steadily answering those lingering questions, aiming to offer 200 families per year the chance to honor their relatives with a proper burial.

“They may not even have been alive when that service member was alive, but that story gets carried down through the generations," said Carrie Brown, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab manager at Offutt. "They may have seen on the mantle a picture of that person when they were little and not really understood or known who they were.”

Memorial Day and the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 are reminders of the urgency of Brown's work. The forensic anthropologists, medical examiners and historians who work together to identify lost soldiers are in a race against time as remains buried on battlefields around the globe deteriorate.

But advances in DNA technology, combined with innovative techniques including comparing bones to chest X-rays taken by the military, mean the labs can identify more of the missing soldiers every year. Some 72,000 World War II soldiers remain unaccounted for, along with roughly 10,000 more from all the conflicts since. The experts believe about half of those are recoverable.

The Associated Press