JERUSALEM (AP) — A Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists arrived at an Israeli port Monday after Israeli forces stopped and detained them — enforcing a longstanding blockade of the Palestinian territory that has been tightened during the Israel-Hamas war.

The boat, accompanied by Israel’s navy, arrived in Ashdod in the evening, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. It published a photo on social media of Thunberg after disembarking.

The 12 activists were undergoing medical checks to ensure they are in good health, the ministry said. They were expected to be held at a detention facility in Ramle before being deported, according to Adalah, a legal rights group representing them.

The activists had set out to protest Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which is among the deadliest and most destructive since World War II, and its restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Both have put the territory of around 2 million Palestinians at risk of famine.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the voyage, said the activists were “kidnapped by Israeli forces” while trying to deliver desperately needed aid.

“The ship was unlawfully boarded, its unarmed civilian crew abducted and its life-saving cargo — including baby formula, food and medical supplies — confiscated,” it said in a statement.

It said the ship was seized in international waters about 120 miles from Gaza, and Adalah asserted that Israel had “no legal authority” to take it over.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry portrayed the voyage as a public relations stunt, saying on social media that “the ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel.”

It said the activists would return to their home countries and the aid would be sent to Gaza through established channels. It circulated footage of what appeared to be Israeli military personnel handing out sandwiches and water to the activists, who were wearing life vests.

Israel says boat was carrying minimal aid

Israeli officials said the flotilla carried what amounted to less than a truckload of aid.

“This wasn’t humanitarian aid. It’s Instagram activism,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said. “Meanwhile, Israel has delivered over 1,200 truckloads in the last two weeks. So who’s really feeding Gaza and who’s really feeding their own ego? Greta was not bringing aid, she was bringing herself.”

After its 2½-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month, but humanitarian workers and experts have warned of famine unless the blockade is lifted and Israel ends its military offensive. About 600 trucks of aid entered daily during the ceasefire that Israel ended in March.

An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after two drones attacked the vessel in international waters off Malta, organizers said. The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the ship’s front section.

Rights group questions Israel’s seizure

The Madleen set sail from Sicily a week ago. Along the way, it stopped on Thursday to rescue four migrants who had jumped overboard to avoid being detained by Libya’a coast guard.

“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible,” Thunberg said in a prerecorded message released after the ship was halted.

Adalah, the rights group, said in a statement that “the arrest of the unarmed activists, who operated in a civilian manner to provide humanitarian aid, amounts to a serious breach of international law.”

Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, was among those on board. She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

She was among six French citizens on board. French President Emmanuel Macron called for consular protection and the repatriation of the French citizens.

“Most of all, France calls for a ceasefire as quickly as possible and the lifting of the humanitarian blockade. This is a scandal, unacceptable, that is playing out in Gaza. What’s been happening since early March is a disgrace, a disgrace,” Macron said

Next week, Macron co-hosts a conference at the U.N. on a two-state solution and recently said France should move toward recognizing a Palestinian state.

Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the crew and passengers were aware of the risks, Swedish news agency TT reported. Stenergard said the ministry’s assessment is that no one was in danger and there was no need for consular support.

An 18-year blockade on Gaza

Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

Israel sealed off Gaza from all aid in the early days of the war ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but later relented under U.S. pressure. In early March, shortly before Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas, the country again blocked all imports, including food, fuel and medicine.

Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union, still holds 55 hostages, more than half believed to be dead.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said that women and children make up most of the dead.

The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of the population, leaving people almost completely dependent on international aid.

Efforts to broker another truce have been deadlocked for months. Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel has vowed to continue the war until all the captives are returned and Hamas is defeated, or disarmed and exiled.

Associated Press journalists Angela Charlton in Paris, Leo Correa in Ashdod, Israel, Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

Today in history:

On June 9, 1973, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, winning horse racing’s Triple Crown and setting a still-standing record by running the 1 1/2-mile dirt course in 2 minutes, 24 seconds.

Also on this date:

In 1732, James Oglethorpe received a charter from Britain’s King George II to establish the colony of Georgia.

In 1954, during the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings, Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch berated Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, asking: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

In 1972, heavy rains triggered record flooding in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The resulting disaster left at least 238 people dead and more than 1,300 homes destroyed.

In 1978, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a policy of excluding Black men from the Mormon priesthood that had been in place for more than 125 years.

In 1986, the Rogers Commission released its report on the Challenger disaster, criticizing NASA and rocket-builder Morton Thiokol for management problems leading to the explosion that claimed the lives of seven astronauts.

In 2013, Rafael Nadal became the first man to win eight titles at the same Grand Slam tennis tournament after beating fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in the French Open final. (Nadal would finish his career with 14 French Open titles.)

In 2022, at its first public hearing on the matter, the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol placed blame squarely on Donald Trump, saying the assault was not spontaneous but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Sportscaster Dick Vitale is 86.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Parker is 74.
• Film composer James Newton Howard is 74.
• Author Patricia Cornwell is 69.
• Actor Michael J. Fox is 64.
• Writer-filmmaker Aaron Sorkin is 64.
• Actor Johnny Depp is 62.
• Actor Gloria Reuben is 61.
• Actor Michaela Conlin is 47.
• Actor Natalie Portman is 44.
• Musician Anoushka Shankar is 44.
• Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Laurie Hernandez is 25.

Today in history:

On June 8, 2017, former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, asserted that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with Comey’s investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.

Also on this date:

In 1789, in an address to the U.S. House of Representatives, James Madison proposed amending the Constitution to include a Bill of Rights.

In 1949, George Orwell’s novel “1984” was first published.

In 1966, a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.

In 1967, during the Six-Day War, 34 American crew members were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean Sea. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

In 1968, U.S. authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled the so-called “Mormon Will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.

In 1995, U.S. Marines rescued Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2.

In 2009, North Korea’s highest court sentenced American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years’ hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts.” (The women were pardoned in early August 2009 after a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.)

In 2021, Ratko Mladić, the military chief known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkan nation’s 1992-95 war, lost his final legal battle when U.N. judges rejected his appeal and affirmed his life sentence.

In 2023, Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami on 37 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents that had been moved to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. (The case against Trump was abandoned following Trump’s November 2024 presidential election victory.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer Nancy Sinatra is 85.
• Musician Boz Scaggs is 81.
• Pianist Emanuel Ax is 76.
• Actor Sonia Braga is 75.
• Actor Kathy Baker is 75.
• Singer Bonnie Tyler is 73.
• Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee is 70.
• Actor Griffin Dunne is 70.
• “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams is 68.
• Actor-director Keenen Ivory Wayans is 67.
• Singer Mick Hucknall (Simply Red) is 65.
• Musician Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) is 63.
• Actor Julianna Margulies is 59.
• Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona, is 55.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Lindsay Davenport is 49.
• TV personality-host Maria Menounos is 47.
• Country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson is 47.
• Guitarist-songwriter Derek Trucks is 46.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Kim Clijsters is 42.
• U.S. Olympic track gold medalist Athing Mu-Nikolayev is 23.

Today in history:

On June 7, 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation and led to stronger state and federal hate crime laws, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man, was hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death and executed for the crime; a third was sentenced to life in prison.)

Also on this date:

In 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Continental Congress stating “that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States.”

In 1892, Homer Plessy, a Creole of color, was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept it renounced in 1954.)

In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City formally came into existence as the Italian Parliament ratified the Lateran Treaty in Rome.

In 1942, the Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American naval forces over Imperial Japan, marking a turning point in the Pacific War.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples.

In 1976, New York magazine published an article by journalist Nik Cohn entitled “The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” which inspired the film “Saturday Night Fever,” which in turn sparked a nationwide disco craze. (Cohn admitted in 1997 that the article was actually a work of fiction.)

In 1979, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday. (Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.)

In 1982, Graceland, Elvis Presley’s Memphis mansion, was opened to the public as a tourist destination, five years after Presley’s death.

In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his safe house.

In 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, from a prominent South Carolina legal family, were found shot and killed on their family’s property. (Alex Murdaugh, Maggie’s husband and Paul’s father, would be found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Filmmaker James Ivory is 97.
• Singer Tom Jones is 85.
• Actor Liam Neeson is 73.
• Author Orhan Pamuk is 73.
• Author Louise Erdrich is 71.
• Music producer L.A. Reid is 69.
• Musician Juan Luis Guerra is 68.
• Former Vice President Mike Pence is 66.
• Rock musician-TV host Dave Navarro is 58.
• Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is 53.
• Actor Karl Urban is 53.
• TV personality Bear Grylls is 51.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Allen Iverson is 50.
• Actor-comedian Bill Hader is 47.
• Actor Michael Cera is 37.
• Rapper Iggy Azalea is 35.
• Actor-model Emily Ratajkowski is 34.
• NFL running back Christian McCaffrey is 29.

Today in history:

On June 6, 1944, during World War II, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy, France, on D-Day as they launched Operation Overlord to liberate German-occupied Western Europe. More than 4,400 Allied troops were killed on D-Day, including 2,501 Americans.

Also on this date:

In 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.

In 1889, an industrial accident sparked a devastating fire in Seattle, Washington, destroying 120 acres of the city center, including the majority of the city’s commercial district and waterfront.

In 1912, Novarupta, a volcano on the Alaska peninsula, began a three-day eruption, sending ash nearly 19 miles high; it was the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century and the largest ever recorded in North America.

In 1933, the first drive-in movie theater opened, in Camden, New Jersey.

In 1939, the first Little League Baseball game was played as Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy 23-8 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

In 1966, civil rights activist James Meredith was shot and wounded by a sniper on the second day of Meredith’s march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, which he began to raise awareness of ongoing racial oppression in the South. (Meredith would recover from his injuries and was able to rejoin the march, which had grown from a small group of supporters to 15,000 marchers, the day before the group arrived in Jackson.)

In 2015, American Pharoah became the first horse in 37 years to claim horse racing’s Triple Crown, winning the Belmont Stakes by 5 ½ lengths.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer-songwriter Gary U.S. Bonds is 86.
• Civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman is 86.
• Country musician Joe Stampley is 82.
• Olympic track & field gold medalist Tommie Smith is 81.
• Actor Robert Englund is 78.
• Folk singer Holly Near is 76.
• Sen. Sandra Bernhard is 70.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Bjorn Borg is 69.
• Comedian Colin Quinn is 66.
• Music producer Jimmy Jam is 66.
• Filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda is 63.
• Actor Jason Isaacs is 62.
• Actor Paul Giamatti is 58.
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is 45.
• Actor Aubrey Anderson-Emmons (TV: “Modern Family”) is 18.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials in some of the 12 countries whose citizens will be soon banned from visiting the United States denounced President Donald Trump’s move to resurrect a hallmark policy of his first term and vowed Thursday to push back against the U.S.

The ban, which was announced Wednesday, takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, a cushion that may avoid the chaos that unfolded at airports nationwide when a similar measure took effect with virtually no notice in 2017. Trump, who signaled plans for a new ban upon taking office again in January, appears to be on firmer ground this time after the Supreme Court sided with him.

The 12 countries — Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — include some of the world’s poorest nations. Seven more countries — Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela — now face heightened travel restrictions.

In the central African nation of Chad, President Mahamat Idriss Deby announced his country would respond by suspending visas to U.S. citizens “in accordance with the principles of reciprocity.”

In a post on Facebook, Deby noted his nation, which faces widespread poverty, made a barely veiled reference to Qatar giving Trump a luxury Boeing 747 jet to use as Air Force One.

“Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,” Deby said.

Some of the 12 countries were on the banned list in Trump’s first term. North Korea and Syria, which were on the list in the first administration, were spared this time.

While many of the listed countries send few people to the United States, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela had been major sources of immigration in recent years.

Trump tied the new ban to Sunday’s terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect, who is accused of turning a makeshift flamethrower on a group of people, is from Egypt, which is not on Trump’s restricted list. The Department of Homeland Security says he overstayed a tourist visa.

The travel ban results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring government agencies to compile a report on “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk.

Visa overstays

Trump said some countries had “deficient” screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. He relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the U.S. after their visas expired.

Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump’s proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries.

While Trump’s list captures many of the most egregious offenders, it omits others. Djibouti, for example, had a 23..9% overstay rate among business visitors and tourists in the 12-month period through September 2023, higher than seven countries on the banned list and six countries on the restricted list.

The findings are “based on sketchy data and a misguided concept of collective punishment,” said Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Decision is a blow to Venezuelans

In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro’s government condemned the measure, calling it a “stigmatization and criminalization campaign” against Venezuelans.

“What happened is not an isolated incident, but rather a new demonstration of the visceral hatred against the Venezuelan people that inspires those who currently conduct Washington’s foreign policy,” according to a statement.

Venezuelans have been a major target of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, with many accused of having ties to the gang Tren de Aragua. The administration has offered little evidence to back up the allegation but has used it to justify the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans.

For years, Maduro’s government had mostly refused the entry of immigrants deported from the U.S., but it reversed course after Trump took office this year.

The White House announcement stunned the family of María Aldana, who has long worked multiple jobs in Caracas to support her brother’s dream to study engineering in the U.S. The family has spent more than $6,000 to finance his goals.

Aldana, 24, said her distraught brother, who enrolled at a California university two years ago, called the family crying.

“We did it all legally,” Aldana said.

The African Union Commission, meanwhile, appealed to the U.S. to reconsider “in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.”

International aid groups and refugee resettlement organizations were harsher: “This latest proclamation is an attempt to further eviscerate lawful immigration pathways under the false guise of national security,” said Sarah Mehta, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy director of policy and government affairs for immigration.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University Law School professor and expert in immigration law, said the ban is likely to withstand legal challenges, noting the Supreme Court eventually allowed a ban to take effect in Trump’s first term. Trump’s invocation this week of national security, along with exceptions for green-card holders, athletes and others, could also help the ban stand up in court.

Shock in Iran

The news came as a shock to many in Iran despite the decades of enmity between the two countries. Reports suggest thousands of university students each year travel to America to study, and others have extended families living in America, some of whom fled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah.

Tensions also remain high because negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have yet to reach any agreement, but Tehran resident Mehri Soltani offered rare support for Trump’s decision.

“Those who have family members in the U.S., it’s their right to go, but a bunch of bad people and terrorists and murderers want to go there as well,” he said.

‘America has to cancel it’

Outside the former U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban guard expressed his disappointment.

“America has to cancel it,” Ilias Kakal said.

The Afghanistan travel ban was announced as forms of support for Afghans who worked with the U.S. are being steadily eroded under the Trump administration. A refugee program has been suspended, and there is no funding to help them leave Afghanistan or resettle in the U.S., although a ban exception was made for people with special immigrant visas, a program created to help those in danger because they worked with the U.S. during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In addition, many people who “served shoulder-to-shoulder” with the U.S did not qualify for the special visa program, according to No One Left Behind, a group that has advocated for Afghans who worked with the U.S.

Khalid Khan, an Afghan refugee now living in Pakistan, said he worked for the U.S. military for eight years.

“I feel abandoned,” Khan said. “So long as Trump is there, we are nowhere.”

Since the Taliban took over the country in 2021, only Afghans with foreign passports or green cards were able to travel to the United States with any ease, travel agents said.

First term ban

During his first term, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency.

The order was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

Trump and others defended the initial ban on national security grounds, arguing it was aimed at protecting the country and not founded on anti-Muslim bias. However, the president had called for an explicit ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House.

Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano, Rebecca Santana, Jon Gambrell, Ellen Knickmeyer, Omar Farouk, Nasser Karimi, Elliot Spagat, Elena Becatoros and Danica Coto contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that his first call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping since returning to office was “very positive,” announcing that the two countries will hold trade talks in hopes of breaking an impasse over tariffs and global supplies of rare earth minerals.

“Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined,” Trump wrote on his social media platform after the call, which he said lasted an hour and a half.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the U.S. side in negotiations.

The Republican president, who returned to the White House for a second term in January, also said Xi “graciously” invited him and first lady Melania Trump to China, and Trump reciprocated with his own invitation for Xi to visit the United States.

The Chinese foreign ministry said Trump initiated the call between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.

The ministry said in a statement that Xi asked Trump to “remove the negative measures” that the U.S. has taken against China. It also said that Trump said “the U.S. loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America,” although his administration has vowed to revoke some of their visas.

Comparing the bilateral relationship to a ship, Xi told Trump that the two sides need to “take the helm and set the right course” and to “steer clear of the various disturbances and disruptions,” according to the ministry statement.

Trump had declared one day earlier that it was difficult to reach a deal with Xi.

“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!” Trump posted Wednesday on his social media site.

Craig Singleton, senior director of China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the phone call “simply paused escalation on trade” but “didn’t resolve core tensions” in the bilateral relations.

With the White House still weighing more punitive measures, the current calm could be upended as Beijing also is prepared to fight back the moment Washington escalates, Singleton said. “We’re likely one competitive action away from further confrontation,” Singleton said.

In his note, Gabriel Wildau, managing director at the consultancy Teneo, wrote that the phone call “prevented derailment of trade talks but produced no clear breakthroughs on key issues.”

Trade negotiations between the United States and China stalled shortly after a May 12 agreement between the two countries to reduce their tariff rates while talks played out. Behind the gridlock has been the continued competition for an economic edge.

The U.S. accuses China of not exporting critical minerals, and the Chinese government objects to America restricting its sale of advanced chips and its access to student visas for college and graduate students.

Trump has lowered his 145% tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% for 90 days to allow for talks. China also reduced its taxes on U.S. goods from 125% to 10%. The back and forth has caused sharp swings in global markets and threatens to hamper trade between the two countries.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had suggested that only a conversation between Trump and Xi could resolve these differences so that talks could restart in earnest. The underlying tension between the two countries may still persist, though.

During the call, Xi said the Chinese side is sincere about negotiating and “at the same time has its principles,” and the Chinese president said “the Chinese always honor and deliver what has been promised,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Even if negotiations resume, Trump wants to lessen America’s reliance on Chinese factories and reindustrialize the U.S., whereas China wants the ability to continue its push into technologies such as electric vehicles and artificial intelligence that could be crucial to securing its economic future.

The United States ran a trade imbalance of $295 billion with China in 2024, according to the Census Bureau. While the Chinese government’s focus on manufacturing has turned it into a major economic and geopolitical power, China has been muddling through a slowing economy after a real estate crisis and coronavirus pandemic lockdowns weakened consumer spending.

Trump and Xi last spoke in January, three days before Inauguration Day. The pair discussed trade then, as well as Trump’s demands that China do more to prevent the synthetic opioid fentanyl from entering the United States.

Despite long expressing optimism about the prospects for a major deal, Trump became more pessimistic recently.

“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” Trump posted last week. “So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

Today in history:

On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was arrested at the scene.

Also on this date:

In 1794, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from taking part in any military action against a country that was at peace with the United States.

In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Henderson v. United States, struck down racially segregated railroad dining cars traveling across state lines.

In 1967, the Six-Day War began as Israel, anticipating a possible attack by its Arab neighbors, launched a series of airfield strikes that destroyed nearly the entire Egyptian air force.

In 1975, Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international shipping, eight years after it was closed as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel.

In 1976, 11 people were killed when the Teton Dam in Idaho failed, releasing 80 billion gallons of water.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five men in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS.

In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home. (Smart was found and rescued by police in a Salt Lake City suburb in March 2003.)

In 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2016, Novak Djokovic became the first man in nearly a half-century to win four consecutive major championships, finally earning an elusive French Open title with a win over Andy Murray to complete a career Grand Slam.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is 91.
• USA Track & Field Hall of Famer John Carlos is 80.
• Musician-artist Laurie Anderson is 78.
• Author Ken Follett is 76.
• Finance author Suze Orman is 74.
• Musician Kenny G is 69.
• Actor-comedian Jeff Garlin is 63.
• Author Rick Riordan is 61.
• Actor Ron Livingston is 58.
• Singer Brian McKnight is 56.
• Actor Mark Wahlberg is 54.
• Actor Liza Weil is 48.
• Actor-comedian Nick Kroll is 47.
• Rock musician Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy) is 46.
• Singer-actor Troye Sivan is 30.

Today in history:

On June 4, 1989, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pro-democracy demonstrators and dozens of soldiers are estimated to have been killed when Chinese troops crushed a seven-week-long protest held by occupying demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Also on this date:

In 1812, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its first war declaration, approving by a vote of 79-49 a declaration of war against Britain.

In 1919, Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which said that the right of Americans to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” (The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification.)

In 1940, during World War II, the Allied military completed the evacuation of more than 338,000 troops from Dunkirk, France.

Also in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared in a speech to the House of Commons: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

In 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Midway began, which resulted in a decisive American victory against Japan and marked a turning point in the war in the Pacific.

In 1986, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to deliver national defense information to Israel. (Sentenced to life in prison, Pollard would be released on parole in November 2015.)

In 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian carried out his first publicly assisted suicide, helping Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old Alzheimer’s patient from Portland, Oregon, end her life in Oakland County, Michigan.

In 1998, a federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison without parole for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Bruce Dern is 89.
• Golf Hall of Famer Sandra Haynie is 82.
• Singer-actor Michelle Phillips is 81.
• Jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera is 77.
• Actor Parker Stevenson is 73.
• Actor Keith David is 69.
• Singer El DeBarge is 64.
• Opera singer Cecilia Bartoli is 59.
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RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 27, Palestinian health officials and witnesses said, in the third such shooting in three days. The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.

The near-daily shootings have occurred after an Israeli and U.S.-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas. The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn’t address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.

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

The Israeli military said it “fired to drive away suspects.” In a statement, army spokesperson Effie Defrin said “the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated” but that the incident was being investigated. He said the army is not preventing Palestinians in Gaza from reaching aid in the distribution areas, but rather allowing it.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”

A spokesperson for the group said it was “saddened to learn that a number of civilians were injured and killed after moving beyond the designated safe corridor.”

Gaza’s roughly 2 million people are almost completely reliant on international aid because Israel’s offensive has destroyed nearly all of Gaza’s food production capabilities. Israel imposed a blockade on supplies into Gaza in March, and limited aid began to enter again late last month after pressure from allies and warnings of famine.

‘Either way we will die’

The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (half-mile) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah. The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.

Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced person from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. Tuesday and he saw several people killed or wounded.

Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, said the Israeli fire was “indiscriminate.” She added that when she managed to reach the distribution site, there was no aid left.

“After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said. “Either way we will die.”

Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said that “there was gunfire from all directions.” She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.

When she reached the distribution site, she found there was no aid left, she said. She gathered pasta from the ground and salvaged rice from a bag that had been dropped and trampled upon.

“We’d rather die than deal with this,” she said. “Death is more dignified than what’s happening to us.”

UN human rights official condemns shootings

At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed the toll, saying its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of them declared dead on arrival, with eight others later dying of their wounds.

The dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Three children and two women were among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, head of nursing at the hospital.

Hospital director Atef al-Hout said most of the patients had gunshot wounds.

An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around 6 a.m. saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance. Outside, people were returning from the aid hub, mostly empty-handed, while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground.

Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, told reporters it also had information indicating that 27 people were killed.

“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meager food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,” Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it distributed 21 truckloads of food at the Rafah site on Tuesday, while its other two operational sites were closed.

During a ceasefire earlier this year, around 600 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.

3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.

The military said the soldiers, all in their early 20s, died during combat on Monday, without providing details. Israeli media reported they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.

Israel ended the latest ceasefire after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner. Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israel says the new aid distribution system is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid. The U.N. says its own ability to deliver aid across Gaza has been hindered by Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order and widespread looting, but that there’s no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas.

Hamas-led terrorists killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government. Its toll is seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 combatants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.

Magdy and Khaled reported from Cairo. Julia Frankel and Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem, Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war