Today in history:

On Aug. 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York; more than 460,000 people attended the three-day festival, which would become a watershed event in American music and culture.

Also on this date:

In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.

In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

In 1947, India gained independence after nearly 200 years of British rule.

In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire.

In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned as the result of a power struggle within the National Party.

In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh (OH’-mah), Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.

In 2003, bouncing back from the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to Manhattan restored power to tens of millions of people.

In 2017, President Donald Trump, who’d faced harsh criticism for initially blaming deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on “many sides,” told reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the confrontation and that groups protesting against the white supremacists were “also very violent.” (In between those statements, at the urging of aides, Trump had offered a more direct condemnation of white supremacists.)

In 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan capital of Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Jim Dale is 89.
• Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 86.
• U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is 86.
• Author-journalist Linda Ellerbee is 80.
• Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 78.
• Actor Phyllis Smith is 75.
• Britain’s Princess Anne is 74.
• Actor Tess Harper is 74.
• Actor Zeljko Ivanek (ZEHL’-koh eh-VAHN’-ehk) is 67.
• Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio is 62.
• Film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (ihn-YAH’-ee-tu) is 61.
• Philanthropist Melinda French Gates is 60.
• Actor Debra Messing is 56.
• Actor Anthony Anderson is 54.
• Actor Ben Affleck is 52.
• Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings is 46.
• Rock singer Joe Jonas (The Jonas Brothers) is 35.
• Actor Jennifer Lawrence is 34.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With less than three months before the U.S. election, Iran is intensifying its efforts to meddle in American politics, U.S. officials and private cybersecurity firms say, with the suspected hack of Donald Trump’s campaign being only the latest and most brazen example.

Iran has long been described as a “chaos agent” when it comes to cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns and in recent months groups linked to the government in Tehran have covertly encouraged protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, impersonated American activists and created networks of fake news websites and social media accounts primed to spread false and misleading information to audiences in the U.S.

While Russia and China remain bigger cyber threats against the U.S., experts and intelligence officials say Iran’s increasingly aggressive stance marks a significant escalation of efforts to confuse, deceive and frighten American voters ahead of the election.

The pace will likely continue to increase as the election nears and America’s adversaries exploit the internet and advancements in artificial intelligence to sow discord and confusion.

“We’re starting to really see that uptick and it makes sense, 90 days out from the election,” said Sean Minor, a former information warfare expert for the U.S. Army who now analyzes online threats for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which has seen a sharp increase in cyber operations from Iran and other nations. “As we get closer, we suspect that these networks will get more aggressive.”

The FBI is investigating the suspected hack of the Trump campaign as well as efforts to infiltrate the campaign of President Joe Biden, which became Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign when Biden dropped out. Trump’s campaign announced Saturday that someone illegally accessed and retrieved internal documents, later distributed to three news outlets. The campaign blamed Iran, noting a recent Microsoft report revealing an attempt by Iranian military intelligence to hack into the systems of one of the presidential campaigns.

“A lot of people think it was Iran. Probably was,” Trump said Tuesday on Univision before shrugging off the value of the leaked material. “I think it’s pretty boring information.”

Iran has denied any involvement in the hack and said it has no interest in meddling with U.S. politics.

That denial is disputed by U.S. intelligence officials and private cybersecurity firms who have linked Iran’s government and military to several recent campaigns targeting the U.S., saying they reflect Iran’s growing capabilities and its increasing willingness to use them.

On Wednesday Google announced it had uncovered a group linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that it said had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to Biden and Trump since May.

The company, which contacted law enforcement with its suspicions, said the group is still targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Harris. It wasn’t clear whether the network identified by Google was connected to the attempt that Trump and Microsoft reported, or were part of a second attempt to infiltrate the campaign’s systems.

Iran has a few different motives in seeking to influence U.S. elections, intelligence officials and cybersecurity analysts say. The country seeks to spread confusion and increase polarization in the U.S. while undermining support for Israel. Iran also aims to hurt candidates that it believes would increase tension between Washington and Tehran.

That’s a description that fits Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of an Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.

The two leaders of the Senate intelligence committee issued a joint letter on Wednesday warning Tehran and other governments hostile to the U.S. that attempts to deceive Americans or disrupt the election will not be tolerated.

“There will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process,” wrote the committee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, along with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the vice chairman.

In 2021, federal authorities charged two Iranian nationals with attempting to interfere with the election the year before. As part of the plot, the men wrote emails claiming to be members of the far-right Proud Boys in which they threatened Democratic voters with violence.

Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Iranian government had covertly supported American protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Groups linked to Iran’s government also posed as online activists, encouraged campus protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.

Recent reports from Microsoft and Recorded Future have also linked Iran’s government to networks of fake news websites and social media accounts posing as Americans. The networks were discovered before they gained much influence and analysts say they may have been created ahead of time, to be activated in the weeks immediately before the election.

The final weeks before an election may be the most dangerous when it comes to foreign efforts to impact voting. That’s when voters pay the most attention to politics and when false claims about candidates or voting can do the most damage.

So-called ‘hack-and-leak’ attacks like the one reported by Trump’s campaign involve a hacker obtaining sensitive information from a private network and then releasing it, either to select individuals, the news media or to the public. Such attacks not only expose confidential information but can also raise questions about cybersecurity and the vulnerability of critical networks and systems.

Especially concerning for elections, authorities say, would be an attack targeting a state or local election office that reveals sensitive information or disables election operations. Such an incursion could undermine trust in voting, even if the information exposed is worthless. Experts refer to this last possibility as a “perception hack,” when hackers steal information not because of its value, but because they want to flaunt their capabilities while spreading fear and confusion among their adversaries.

“That can actually be more of a threat — the spectacle, the marketing this gives foreign adversaries — than the actual hack,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former National Security Council analyst who specializes in cyber threats.

In 2016, Russian hackers infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails, ultimately obtaining and releasing some of the campaign’s most protected information in a hack-and-leak that upended the campaign in its final weeks.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it easier than ever to create and spread disinformation, including lifelike video and audio allowing hackers to impersonate someone and gain access to their organization’s systems. Nevertheless, the alleged hack of the Trump campaign reportedly involved much simpler techniques: someone gained access to an email account that lacked sufficient security protections.

While people and organizations can take steps to minimize their vulnerability to hacks, nothing can eliminate the risk entirely, Wilde said, or completely reduce the likelihood that foreign adversaries will mount attacks on campaigns.

“The tax we pay for being a digital society is that these hacks and leaks are unavoidable,” he said. “Whether you’re a business, a campaign or a government.”

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report from New York.

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization has declared the mpox outbreaks in Congo and elsewhere in Africa a global emergency, with cases confirmed among children and adults in more than a dozen countries and a new form of the virus spreading. Few vaccine doses are available on the continent.

Earlier this week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the mpox outbreaks were a public health emergency, with more than 500 deaths, and called for international help to stop the virus’ spread.

“This is something that should concern us all … The potential for further spread beyond Africa and beyond is very worrying,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The Africa CDC previously said that mpox, also known as monkeypox, has been detected in 13 countries this year, and that more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in Congo. Cases are up 160% and deaths are up 19% compared with the same period last year. So far, there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 people have died.

“We are now in a situation where (mpox) poses a risk to many more neighbors in and around central Africa,” said Salim Abdool Karim, a South African infectious diseases expert who chairs the Africa CDC emergency group. He noted that the new version of mpox spreading from Congo appears to have a death rate of about 3-4%.

During the global 2022 mpox outbreak that affected more than 70 countries, fewer than 1% of people died.

Michael Marks, a professor of medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said declaring the mpox outbreaks in Africa an emergency is warranted if that might lead to more support to contain them.

“It’s a failure of the global community that things had to get this bad to release the resources needed,” he said.

Officials at the Africa CDC said nearly 70% of cases in Congo are in children younger than 15, who also accounted for 85% of deaths.

Jacques Alonda, an epidemiologist working in Congo with international charities, said he and other experts were particularly worried about the spread of mpox in camps for refugees in the country’s conflict-ridden east.

“The worst case I’ve seen is that of a six-week-old baby who was just two weeks old when he contracted mpox,” Alonda said, adding the baby has been in their care for a month. “He got infected because hospital overcrowding meant he and his mother were forced to share a room with someone else who had the virus, which was undiagnosed.”

Save the Children said Congo’s health system already had been “collapsing” under the strain of malnutrition, measles and cholera.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said officials were facing several outbreaks of mpox outbreaks in various countries with “different modes of transmission and different levels of risk.”

The U.N. health agency said mpox was recently identified for the first time in four East African countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. All of those outbreaks are linked to the one in Congo. In the Ivory Coast and South Africa, health authorities have reported outbreaks of a different and less dangerous version of mpox that spread worldwide in 2022.

Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of people, in a Congolese mining town that they feared might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.

Unlike in previous mpox outbreaks, where lesions were mostly seen on the chest, hands and feet, the new form causes milder symptoms and lesions on the genitals. That makes it harder to spot, meaning people might also sicken others without knowing they’re infected.

In 2022, WHO declared mpox to be a global emergency after it spread to more than 70 countries that had not previously reported mpox, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men. Before that outbreak, the disease had mostly been seen in sporadic outbreaks in central and West Africa when people came into close contact with infected wild animals.

Western countries mostly shut down the spread of mpox with the help of vaccines and treatments, but very few of those have been available in Africa.

Marks of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said that in the absence of mpox vaccines licensed in the West, officials could consider inoculating people against smallpox, a related disease. “We need a large supply of vaccine so that we can vaccinate populations most at risk,” he said, adding that would mean sex workers, children and adults living in outbreak regions.

Congolese authorities said they have asked for 4 million doses of mpox vaccine, Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of Congo’s Monkeypox Response Committee, told The Associated Press. Osako said those would mostly be used for children under 18.

“The United States and Japan are the two countries that positioned themselves to give vaccines to our country,” Osako said.

Although WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action, the global response to previous emergency designations has been mixed.

Dr. Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases expert at Emory University, said the last WHO emergency declaration for mpox “did very little to move the needle” on getting things like diagnostic tests, medicines and vaccines to Africa.

“The world has a real opportunity here to act in a decisive manner and not repeat past mistakes, (but) that will take more than an (emergency) declaration,” Titanji said.

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Associated Press writers Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, Christina Malkia in Kinshasa, Congo and Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — A top Hamas official said they are losing faith in the United States’ ability to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza ahead of a new round of talks scheduled for this week amid mounting pressure to bring an end to the 10-month-old war with Israel.

Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that Hamas will only participate if the talks focus on implementing a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and endorsed internationally.

The U.S. referred to it as an Israeli proposal and Hamas agreed to it in principle, but Israel said Biden’s speech was not entirely consistent with the proposal itself. Both sides later proposed changes, leading each to accuse the other of obstructing a deal.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Hamas is especially resistant to Israel’s demand that it maintain a lasting military presence in two strategic areas of Gaza after any cease-fire, conditions only made public in recent weeks.

“We have informed the mediators that … any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new,” said Hamdan, who is a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, which includes the group’s top political leaders and sets its policies. “Otherwise, Hamas finds no reason to participate.”

It was not clear late Wednesday if Hamas would attend the talks beginning Thursday.

Hamdan spoke amid a new push for an end to the war, sparked by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and dragged about 250 hostages into Gaza. Israel responded with a devastating bombardment and ground invasion that has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and decimated wide swaths of the territory.

There are now fears the conflict could ignite a wider conflagration.

In an hourlong interview, Hamdan accused Israel of not engaging in good faith and said the group does not believe the U.S. can or will apply pressure on Israel to seal a deal.

Hamdan claimed Israel has “either sent a non-voting delegation (to the negotiations) or changed delegations from one round to another, so we would start again, or it has imposed new conditions.”

Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the claim, but Israel has denied sabotaging talks and accuses Hamas of doing so.

During the interview, Hamdan provided copies of several iterations of the cease-fire proposal and the group’s written responses. A regional official familiar with the talks verified the documents were genuine. The official offered the assessment on condition of anonymity in order to share information not made public.

The documents show that at several points Hamas attempted to add additional guarantors —including Russia, Turkey and the United Nations — but Israel’s responses always included only the existing mediators, the U.S., Egypt and Qatar.

In a statement Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister’s office said some changes it has asked for were merely “clarifications” adding details, such as to clauses dealing with how Palestinians will return to northern Gaza, how many hostages will be released during specific phases and whether Israel can veto which Palestinian prisoners will be released in exchange for Israeli hostages. It accused Hamas of asking for 29 changes to the proposal.

“The fact is that it is Hamas which is preventing the release of our hostages, and which continues to oppose the outline,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month.

Hamdan, however, claimed that more than once Hamas accepted in whole or in large part a proposal put to them by the mediators only to have Israel reject it out of hand, ignore it, or launch major new military operations in the days that followed.

On one occasion, one day after Hamas accepted a cease-fire proposal, Israel launched a new operation in Rafah in southern Gaza. Israel said the proposal remained far from its demands.

Hamdan said that CIA director William Burns told Hamas via mediators at the time that Israel would agree to the deal.

But, he said, “the Americans were unable to convince the Israelis. I think they did not pressure the Israelis.”

Asked about Hamas’ concern about the U.S. role, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said: “Well, the United States does not think that Hamas is an honest broker.”

As to whether Hamas will attend the talks, Patel said representatives of Qatar had assured them they would.

“We fully expect these talks to move forward as they should. Our point of view is that all negotiators should return to the table,” Patel said.

Negotiations have taken on new urgency as the war has threatened to ignite a regional conflict.

Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are mulling retaliatory strikes against Israel after the killings of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and of top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut. Israel claimed the latter strike, but has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the blast that killed Haniyeh.

After a brief truce in November that saw the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages, multiple rounds of cease-fire talks have fallen apart. Around 110 people taken captive remain in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.

Hamdan accused Israel of stepping up its attacks on Hamas leaders after the group agreed in principle to the latest proposal put forward by mediators.

Israel said a July 13 operation in Gaza killed Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing. More than 90 other people also died, local health officials said.

Hamdan insisted Deif is alive.

Two weeks later, Haniyeh was killed, with Hamas and Iran blaming Israel. Hamas then named Yahya Sinwar, its Gaza chief seen as responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, to replace Haniyeh — who had been considered a more moderate figure.

Hamdan acknowledged there are “some difficulties” and delays in communicating with Sinwar, who is believed to be hiding deep in the network of tunnels in the Gaza Strip. But Hamdan insisted this does not pose a major barrier to the negotiations.

The most intractable sticking point in the talks remains whether and how a temporary cease-fire would become permanent.

Israel has been wary of proposals that the initial truce would be extended as long as negotiations continue over a permanent deal. Israel seems concerned Hamas would drag on endlessly with fruitless negotiations.

Hamas has said it is concerned Israel will resume the war once its most vulnerable hostages are returned, a scenario reflected in some of Netanyahu’s recent comments.

All versions of the cease-fire proposal shared by Hamdan stipulated that Israeli forces withdraw completely from Gaza in the deal’s second phase.

Recently, however, officials with knowledge of the negotiations told the AP that Israel had introduced new demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway running across the breadth of the strip, separating Gaza’s south and north. Hamas has insisted on a full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Hamdan said the group had not yet received in writing the new conditions.

Hamdan acknowledged Palestinians have suffered immensely in the war and are yearning for a cease-fire, but insisted the group couldn’t simply give up its demands.

“A cease-fire is one thing,” he said, “and surrender is something else.”

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Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, David Klepper in Washington and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces pushed on with their major cross-border advance into Russia’s Kursk region for a second week Wednesday, claiming that they took more ground, captured more Russian prisoners and destroyed a bomber in attacks on military airfields.

Assault troops advanced 1 to 2 kilometers (about a mile) farther into areas of Kursk on Wednesday, the commander of the Ukrainian military, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a video posted on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel.

Ukrainian troops also took more than 100 Russian soldiers prisoner, Syrskyi said. Zelenskyy said they would eventually be swapped for Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Additionally, the troops destroyed a Russian Su-34 jet used to launch devastating glide bombs at Ukrainian front-line positions and cities, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

The surprise Ukrainian charge into the Kursk region that began Aug. 6 has rattled the Kremlin. The daring operation is the largest attack on Russia since World War II and could involve as many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops backed by armor and artillery, military analysts say.

Syrskyi claims Ukrainian forces have advanced into 1,000 square kilometers (about 390 square miles) of the Kursk region, though it was not possible to independently verify that claim.

If true and if Ukraine actually controls all of that territory in the Kursk region, it would have captured in just one week almost as much Ukrainian land as Russian forces took — 1,175 square kilometers (450 square miles) — between January and July this year, according to calculations by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Russian authorities acknowledged the Ukrainian gains in the Kursk region, but they described them as smaller than what Kyiv has claimed. Even so, they have evacuated about 132,000 people from the Kursk and Belgorod regions and have plans to evacuate another 59,000 more.

Ukraine also claimed that overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday it conducted its biggest attack on Russian military airfields since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022.

A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that the aim was to sap Russia’s air power advantage in the war. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that Kyiv has no intention to occupy the Russian territory it controls. The goal is to stop Russia from firing missiles into Ukraine from Kursk, he said.

Analysts say Kyiv’s forces targeted the Kursk region because Russia’s weak command and control structure there made it vulnerable.

“The situation is still highly fluid, but with clear signs that the Russian command and control of responding units is still coming together, with all-important unity of command not yet achieved,” said retired U.S. Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, a professor and deputy director of Syracuse University’s Institute for Security Policy and Law. “The next 2-3 days will be critical for both sides.”

In AP video shot in Ukraine’s Sumy region, which borders Kursk, Ukrainian trucks and armored vehicles traveled along roads lined with thick forests. Analysts say the region is a staging ground and logistics hub for the incursion.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Belgorod border region, which is next to Kursk, declared a regional emergency Wednesday during heavy Ukrainian shelling. A federal emergency was declared in Kursk on Saturday.

Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov described the situation there as “extremely difficult and tense,” as the attacks destroyed homes and caused civilian casualties, unnerving locals.

Children in particular are being moved to safety, he said on his Telegram channel, adding that about 5,000 children were in camps in safe areas. He said the previous day that roughly 11,000 people had fled their homes, with about 1,000 staying in temporary accommodation centers.

It wasn’t clear how, when — or whether — Ukraine would attempt to extricate itself from the ground it has taken. The Ukrainian military claims it controls 74 settlements, believed to be villages or hamlets, in the Kursk region.

Ukraine’s 1+1 TV channel published a video report Wednesday that it said was from Sudzha, a Russian town about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border.

The report showed burned-out Russian military columns on roads in the area, and Ukrainian soldiers handing out humanitarian aid to local residents and taking down Russian flags from an administrative building.

Russia’s predicament is whether to pull troops from the front line in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where achieving a breakthrough is one of the Kremlin’s primary war goals, to defend Kursk and halt the Ukrainian advance.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the developments in Russia are “creating a real dilemma” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden declined to comment further on the top-secret operation until it is over.

The Institute for the Study of War said the incursion is unlikely to shift the dynamics of the conflict.

“Russian authorities will likely remain extremely averse to pulling Russian military units engaged in combat from (Donetsk) and will likely continue deploying limited numbers of irregular forces to Kursk … due to concerns about further slowing the tempo of Russian operations in these higher priority directions,” it said late Tuesday.

A woman in Belgorod told the AP on Tuesday that the Ukrainian shelling had been more intense for about 10 days until Monday, when it was followed by a lull. The number of people in Belgorod who openly supported the war has decreased since the start of the intensified Ukrainian attacks, she told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

“When explosions started near the city, when people were dying and when all this started happening before our eyes … and when it affected people personally, they stopped at least openly supporting” the war, the woman said.

Zelenskyy indicated that the Kursk operation is also intended to lift the country’s spirits after 900 days of war and to rally people by making an emphatic statement about Ukraine’s military capabilities.

“Now all of us in Ukraine should act as unitedly and efficiently as we did in the first weeks and months of this war, when Ukraine took the initiative and began to turn the situation to the benefit of our state,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday.

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Burrows reported from London. Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Today in history:

On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, ensuring income for elderly Americans and creating a federal unemployment insurance program.

Also on this date:

In 1936, in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators, Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which detailed the post-war goals of the two nations.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced that Imperial Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.

In 1947, Pakistan gained independence from British rule.

In 1994, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” was captured by French agents in Sudan.

In 1995, Shannon Faulkner officially became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college. (However, Faulkner quit the school less than a week later, citing the stress of her court fight, and her isolation among the male cadets.)

In 1997, an unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing. (McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in 2001.)

In 2009, Charles Manson follower Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, 60, convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, was released from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.

In 2016, Usain Bolt became the first athlete to win the 100m dash in three consecutive Olympics, taking gold at the Summer Games in Rio.

In 2021, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, turning thousands of structures into rubble; the quake left more than 2,200 people dead and injured more than 12,000 others.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Broadway lyricist Lee Adams (“Bye Bye Birdie”) is 100.
• College Football Hall of Famer and NFL quarterback John Brodie is 89.
• Singer Dash Crofts is 84.
• Country singer Connie Smith is 83.
• Comedian-actor Steve Martin is 79.
• Film director Wim Wenders is 79.
• Singer-musician Larry Graham is 78.
• Actor Susan Saint James is 78.
• Author Danielle Steel is 77.
• “Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson is 74.
• Actor Carl Lumbly is 73.
• Olympic gold medal swimmer Debbie Meyer is 72.
• Actor Jackee Harry is 68.
• NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace is 68.
• Actor Marcia Gay Harden is 65.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson is 65.
• Singer Sarah Brightman is 64.
• Actor Susan Olsen (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 63.
• Actor Halle Berry is 58.
• Golfer Darren Clarke is 56.
• Actor Catherine Bell is 56.
• Actor Mila Kunis is 41.
• Actor Lamorne Morris is 41.
• Former NFL player Tim Tebow is 37.
• Actor Marsai Martin is 20.

Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 17 people, including five children and their parents.

The strikes came on the eve of new talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire in the 10-month war. The United States, Qatar and Egypt are hoping to broker an agreement, but the sides remain far apart on several issues after months of indirect negotiations.

A top Hamas official has told The Associated Press the group is losing faith in the U.S. as a mediator in the Gaza cease-fire talks. It was not clear late Wednesday if Hamas would attend the talks beginning Thursday.

The overall Palestinian death toll in the war has almost reached 40,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

One strike hit a family home late Tuesday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It killed five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11, and their parents, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

An Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies said they had been dismembered by the blast and the 2-year-old had been decapitated.

In the nearby Maghazi refugee camp, a strike on a home early Wednesday killed four people, the hospital said. In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Health Ministry’s emergency service said first responders recovered the bodies of four men killed in a strike on a residential tower late Tuesday. Two more people were killed in a strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, according to the emergency service.

Health authorities in Gaza do not say whether those killed in Israeli strikes are militants or civilians. Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in residential areas. The army rarely comments on individual strikes.

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Here’s the latest:

White House says latest round of cease-fire talks will be key

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the latest round of talks about a cease-fire in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza are going to be key.

“Tomorrow’s going to be an important day. We want to see a cease-fire. We want to see an end to this war, we want to see hostages come home, including American hostages, we want to see (an) increase of humanitarian aid going into Gaza,” she said. “And we believe the way to deescalate the tensions that we’re seeing in the Middle East is to get to this deal.”

Pressed on how there could be meaningful talks if Hamas isn’t participating — as it has threatened not to — Jean-Pierre suggested the group might be bluffing.

“There’s always political posturing. We see this all the time in advance of talks. That’s not new,” she said.

Jean-Pierre refused to comment on the U.S. being potentially frustrated with additional Israel demands for a cease-fire, saying, “I’m not going to get into negotiations from here.”

UN chief pushes for talks in Qatar to lead to an immediate cease-fire

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief, the U.N. envoys for the Middle East and Lebanon, and the commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon have been reaching out to try to maintain calm and prevent a regional conflict, the U.N. deputy spokesman says.

Farhan Haq said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pushing again for talks in Qatar on Thursday to lead to an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, the release of hostages seized during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, and improved humanitarian access.

“And we’(re hoping this can be achieved one way or another,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Haq also said U.N. humanitarian officials and their partners report that Israeli evacuation orders Tuesday in two areas of eastern Khan Younis affect 5,200 people and have “impacted essential services, including eight water and sanitation facilities, as well as two primary health care centers, disrupting medical services in the area.”

In Deir Al Balah, Haq said, residents in the Zawayda area received evacuation orders in phone calls which were followed by a targeted attack on an open site with tents that had been evacuated.

“Fortunately, no injuries were reported in this incident,” he said. “Emergency response teams and humanitarian agencies are working to assist the displaced people and address the disruptions to essential services.”

The U.S. says it remains committed to talks to end the conflict in Gaza

WASHINGTON — The U.S. remains committed to talks to end the conflict in Gaza, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday in response to comments from a top Hamas official that it was losing faith in the United States’ ability to mediate a cease-fire.

Spokesperson Vedant Patel rejected Hamas’ assertion, saying the U.S. believes the talks can result in a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

“Well, the United States does not think that Hamas is an honest broker,” Patel said, responding to a reporter’s question about Hamas concerns that the U.S. was not negotiating honestly.

Responding to reports that Hamas will sit out the talks, Patel said representatives of Qatar are working to secure their participation.

“We fully expect these talks to move forward as they should. Our point of view is that all negotiators should return to the table,” Patel said. “Our Qatari partners have assured us that there will be representation from Hamas.”

Patel was asked about Tuesday’s announcement that the U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, and whether it contradicted claims that the U.S. is seeking peace in the region. Patel said the deal is part of a “long-standing security partnership with Israel.” He said there was no conflict between the arms deal and a statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday criticizing Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir for visiting Jerusalem’s most holy site, a move many Muslims see as provocative.

Patel repeated that criticism on Wednesday, saying Ben-Givr’s visit detracts “from our stated goal of a two-state solution and cause greater instability in the region,” Patel said.

Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister says Israel will create a new settlement in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister said Wednesday that Israel is creating a new Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem, in what critics said was the latest land grab in the territory.

In a post on X, Bezalel Smotrich said the new settlement would “allow the continued momentum and building of the settlement enterprise.” He said it was part of Israel’s response to recognition by some countries of the state of Palestine, and was meant to prevent the creation of a future Palestinian state.

Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog group, said the new Nahal Heletz settlement will be built several kilometers southwest of Jerusalem. Construction was likely still years away.

Smotrich, a firebrand settlement supporter, has overseen a number of land seizures in the occupied West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October, and has advocated for the formal annexation of the territory and for Israeli settlements to be re-established in Gaza after war is over. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Over the past 10 months, the far-right minister, who is a key governing partner of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has also introduced crippling financial sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which governs urban clusters of the Israel-occupied territory.

Last month, Peace Now said 2024 is already the peak year for Israel land seizure in the West Bank.

Hamas blasts U.S. for approving $20 billion arms sales to Israel

BEIRUT — The Palestinian militant group Hamas blasted the United States for approving a $20 billion arms sales to Israel saying this makes it a “full partner” in the war against the Palestinian people.

Hamas’ statement Wednesday came a day after the State Department said the U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.

Hamas said the American military support to Israel comes in the framework of “full adoption of the brutal and criminal behavior to this rogue entity.”

It added that the U.S. support to Israel confirms that Washington is “a full partner in the genocidal and ethnic cleansing war” against Palestinians.

Top Hamas official tells the AP the group is losing faith in the U.S. as mediator

DOHA, Qatar — A top Hamas official has told The Associated Press the Palestinian militant group is losing faith in the United States’ ability to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza.

Osama Hamdan said in an interview Tuesday that Hamas will only participate in a new round of talks scheduled for this week if they focus on implementing a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and endorsed internationally.

The U.S. described it as an Israeli proposal and Hamas agreed to it in principle, but Israel said Biden’s speech was not entirely consistent with the proposal itself. Both sides later proposed changes, leading each to accuse the other of obstructing a deal to end the 10-month war.

Israel’s prime minister greenlights departure of negotiation team to Qatar for cease-fire talks

TEL AVIV, Israel — The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday the Israeli leader has greenlighted the departure of a negotiating team to Qatar for cease-fire talks.

International mediators are launching a new round of talks on Thursday meant to finally wind down the war in Gaza and free hostages held there.

Israel and Hamas have been mulling an internationally-backed cease-fire proposal detailed in late May by President Joe Biden.

Sticking points remain between the sides, who have each accused the other of obstructing a deal. The killing of Hamas’ leader in a blast in Tehran last month has also complicated progress on reaching a deal.

It was not clear if Hamas would attend Thursday’s talks in Qatar’s capital Doha.

The 10-month-long war has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, displaced much of Gaza’s population and set off a humanitarian catastrophe in the territory.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel, when militants killed 1,200 people and took another 250 captive.

Hezbollah says it has fired rockets at a northern Israeli town in retaliation

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says it fired rockets at a northern Israeli town on Wednesday in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that wounded more than a dozen people.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state media said the airstrike targeting a motorcycle in the southern Lebanese village of Abbasiyeh wounded 17 people, four of them seriously. Hezbollah later said its fighters fired rockets toward the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona in retaliation. There were no immediate reports of injuries in Israel.

Cross-border fire has occurred almost daily since the current war in Gaza began. Since then more than 500 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in Lebanon.

Palestinian death toll in Gaza is almost at 40,000, Health Ministry says

The overall Palestinian death toll in the 10-month Israel-Hamas war has almost reached 40,000. That’s according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry says the toll has reached at least 39,965. It says another 92,294 people have been wounded. The ministry in its daily update also says the bodies of 36 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

Senior Biden adviser urges ‘diplomatic action’ to end Israel-Hamas war, fearing escalations could ‘spiral out of control’

BEIRUT — A senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said it was critical to take advantage of “this window for diplomatic action” to end the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and ongoing hostilities in Lebanon, fearing that ongoing escalations could “spiral out of control.”

Amos Hochstein, who has been tasked with monthslong shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon and Israel, spoke at a news conference after meeting Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri, as the Mideast anxiously anticipates retaliatory attacks on Israel from Iran and the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group.

“The more time goes by of escalated tensions the more time goes by of daily conflict the more the odds and the chances go up for accidents, for mistakes, for inadvertent targets to be hit that could easily cause escalation that goes out of control,” Hochstein said in Beirut.

Cease-fire talks are supposed to resume in Doha on Thursday between Hamas and Israel through Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators.

Hochstein said he and Berri agreed there are “no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay” on a cease-fire based on a framework presented by Biden months ago.

“The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon,” the U.S. envoy added.

Hezbollah and Israel have traded strikes since Oct. 8, a day after the Palestinian Hamas group’s surprise attack into southern Israel sparked the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the besieged Gaza Strip. Hezbollah says it will stop its attacks on northern Israel once there is a cease-fire in Gaza.

However, the initial exchanges along the battered border towns of Lebanon and Israel have since expanded and intensified.

Last month, a rare Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut killed Hezbollah’s top commander who Israel accused of firing a rocket into Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youths. Hours later, an explosion in Iran killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Tehran blamed on Israel.

Over the past two weeks, the region has been on a knife-edge, as diplomatic efforts continue to prevent the monthslong regional tensions from spiraling into all-out war. Iran and Hezbollah say they are committed to their retaliatory attack.

Hochstein’s visit to Lebanon comes after he met with Israeli officials on Tuesday. He is scheduled to meet with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Lebanon’s army chief.

Israeli military bulldozers demolish 6 more homes in occupied West Bank, residents say

JERUSALEM — Residents of a beleaguered Bedouin hamlet in the southern reaches of the occupied West Bank say Israeli military bulldozers demolished six more homes in the community on Wednesday, leaving 28 people homeless.

The demolitions in Umm Al-Khair come after military bulldozers last month knocked down several homes in the village, leaving a quarter of the village’s 200 people without shelter.

Videos sent by residents of the village to The Associated Press showed bulldozers rolling into the community on Wednesday morning, escorted by at least one military vehicle. Soldiers could be seen pushing protesters and Palestinians away from the demolition zone, and bulldozers crashed into small tent-like structures, knocking them to the ground.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian matters in the West Bank, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, it has alleged that many of the structures in the village were built without permits. Palestinians in these areas have long said it is virtually impossible to get construction permits from Israeli authorities.

Umm Al-Khair has also been the subject of ramped-up settler attacks over the last few months, attacks which residents say have harmed the village water supply and gone unpunished by military authorities. Small Bedouin hamlets in the West Bank are some of the most vulnerable communities to displacement caused by demolitions and settler violence, rights groups say.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department announced Tuesday.

Congress was notified of the impending sale, which includes more than 50 F-15 fighter jets, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, 120 mm tank ammunition and high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles and comes at a time of intense concern that Israel may become involved in a wider Middle East war.

However, the weapons are not expected to get to Israel anytime soon, they are contracts that will take years to fulfill. Much of what is being sold is to help Israel increase its military capability in the long term, the earliest systems being delivered under the contract aren’t expected until the 2026 timeframe.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the State Department said in a release on the sale.

The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the U.S. public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound weapons amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza.

The contracts will cover not only the sale of new 50 aircraft to be produced by Boeing. It will also include upgrade kits for Israel to modify its existing fleet of two dozen F-15 fighter jets with new engines and radars, among other upgrades. The jets comprise the biggest portion of the $20 billion in sales with the first deliveries expected in 2029.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia said Tuesday that its forces checked an effort by Ukrainian troops to expand a stunning weeklong incursion into the Kursk region, as a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Kyiv has no intention of occupying Russian territory.

Russian army units, including fresh reserves, aircraft, drone teams and artillery forces, stopped Ukrainian armored mobile groups from moving deeper into Russia near the Kursk settlements of Obshchy Kolodez, Snagost, Kauchuk and Alexeyevsky, a Russian Defense Ministry statement said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said the cross-border operation was aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from long-range strikes launched from Kursk.

“Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” Tykhyi was quoted as saying by local media.

He said Russia had launched more than 2,000 strikes from the Kursk region in recent months using anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, mortars, drones, 255 glide bombs and more than 100 missiles.

“The purpose of this operation is to preserve the lives of our children, to protect the territory of Ukraine from Russian strikes,” he said.

Ukraine’s Western partners have said the country has the right to defend itself, including by attacking across the border. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday that he backed the Ukrainian operation, though he said Kyiv officials did not consult him about it beforehand.

Russian military actions in Ukraine bear “the hallmarks of genocide, inhumane crimes, and Ukraine has every right to wage war in such a way as to paralyze Russia in its aggressive intentions as effectively as possible,” Tusk said.

Kremlin forces intensified their attacks in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s General Staff said Tuesday that over the previous 24 hours, Russian troops launched 52 assaults in the area of Pokrovsk, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that is close to the front line. That’s roughly double the number of daily attacks there a week ago.

Ukraine’s undermanned army has struggled to hold back the bigger, better-equipped Russian forces in Donetsk.

The Ukrainian military claims that its charge onto Russian soil that began Aug. 6 has already encompassed about 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory. The goals of the swift advance into the Kursk region have been a closely guarded military secret.

Analysts say a catalyst may also have been Ukraine’s desire to ease pressure on its front line by attempting to draw the Kremlin’s forces into defending Kursk and other border areas. If so, the increased pressure around Pokrovsk suggests Moscow did not take the bait.

Ukraine’s ambitious operation — the largest attack on Russia since World War II — has rattled the Kremlin. It compelled Russian President Vladimir Putin to convene a meeting Monday with his top defense officials.

Apparently, Ukraine assembled thousands of troops — some Western analysts estimate up to 12,000 — on the border in recent weeks without Russia noticing or acting.

About 121,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk or have fled the areas affected by fighting on their own, Russian officials say. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said it has seen geolocated footage indicating that Ukrainian forces advanced as much as 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the border.

The Russian Defense Ministry appeared to support that claim when it said Tuesday it had also blocked an attack by the units of Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade toward Maryinka, which is about that distance from Ukraine.

Russian state television on Tuesday showed residents from evacuated areas lining up in buildings and on the street to receive food and water. Volunteers were pictured distributing bags of aid, while officials from the country’s Ministry of Emergency Situations helped people, including children and older people, off buses.

“There is no light, no connection, no water. There is nothing. It’s as if everyone has flown to another planet, and you are left alone. And the birds stopped singing,” an older man called Mikhail told Russian state television. “Helicopters and planes fly over the yard and shells were flying. What could we do? We left everything behind.”

A motive behind Ukraine’s bold dive into Russia was to stir up unrest, according to Putin, but he said that effort would fail.

The successful border breach also was surprising because Ukraine has been short of manpower at the front as it waits for new brigades to complete training.

Dara Massicot, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, said the Ukrainian breakthrough was a smart move because it exploited gaps between various Russian commands in Kursk: border guards, Ministry of Defense forces and Chechen units that have been fighting on Russia’s side in the war.

Russian command and control is fractured in Kursk, Massicot said on X late Monday.

The Ukrainian Army’s General Staff announced Tuesday that it was establishing a 20-kilometer (12-mile) restricted-access zone along Russian-Ukrainian border in the northeastern Sumy region, which borders Kursk.

The measures were introduced because of the increasing intensity of combat in the area and the rising presence of Russian reconnaissance and sabotage units there, a statement said.

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Associated Press writers Emma Burrows and Jim Heintz contributed to this report from Tallinn, Estonia.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Today in history:

On Aug. 13, 1961, on what would become known as Barbed Wire Sunday, East Germany sealed the border between Berlin’s eastern and western sectors before building a wall that would divide the city for the next 28 years.

Also on this date:

In 1521, Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez captured Tenochtitlan (teh-natch-teet-LAHN’), present-day Mexico City, from the Aztecs.

In 1792, French revolutionaries arrested and imprisoned King Louis XVI; he would be executed by guillotine the following January.

In 1889, William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, received a patent for the first coin-operated telephone.

In 1918, Opha May Johnson became the first woman to join the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 1952, Big Mama Thornton first recorded the song “Hound Dog,” four years before Elvis Presley’s famous version was released.

In 1969, New York City held a ticket-tape parade for Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins.

In 1995, Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle died at a Dallas hospital of rapidly spreading liver cancer at age 63.

In 2011, seven people were killed when a stage collapsed at the Indiana State Fair during a powerful storm just before a concert was to begin.

In 2020, in an interview on Fox Business Network, President Donald Trump acknowledged that he was starving the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders is 91.
• U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is 78.
• Opera singer Kathleen Battle is 76.
• High wire aerialist Philippe Petit is 75.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Clarke is 75.
• Golf Hall of Famer Betsy King is 69.
• Movie director Paul Greengrass is 69.
• Actor Danny Bonaduce is 65.
• TV weatherman Sam Champion is 63.
• Actor Dawnn Lewis is 63.
• Actor John Slattery is 62.
• Actor Debi Mazar is 60.
• Figure skater Midori Ito is 55.
• Country singer Andy Griggs is 51.
• White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is 50.
• Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is 42.
• Actor Sebastian Stan is 42.
• Actor Lennon Stella is 25.