AP Top News at 5:29 a.m. EDT

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters remain on UCLA campus despite police ordering them to leave

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters Thursday remained behind barricades on the UCLA campus despite police orders to leave as officers were poised to move in on their fortified encampment that was ringed by an even larger crowd, including supporters who locked arms and curious onlookers. Shortly before 2 a.m., police briefly made their way into the perimeter of the encampment only to retreat after being outnumbered by scores of protesters who yelled “shame on you!” Some in the crowd tossed water bottles and other objects as dozens of officers ran back. Later the crowd chanted “we’re not leaving.

The Latest | It would take until 2040 to rebuild all homes destroyed so far in Gaza, UN report says

If the Israel-Hamas war stopped today, it would still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed in nearly seven months of Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in the territory, according to United Nations estimates released Thursday. The United States has pressured Israel to increase aid deliveries during the war, and on Wednesday, Israel reopened a border crossing with hard-hit northern Gaza Strip for the first time since it was damaged at the start of the war. Meanwhile, on his seventh visit since the latest war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed for a cease-fire deal.

Trump faces prospect of additional sanctions in hush money trial as key witness resumes testimony

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump faces the prospect of additional sanctions in his hush money trial as he returns to court Thursday for another contempt hearing followed by testimony from a lawyer who represented two women who have said they had sexual encounters with the former president. The testimony from attorney Keith Davidson is seen as a vital building block for the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies schemed to bury unflattering stories in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He is one of multiple key players expected to be called to the stand in advance of prosecutors’ star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer.

Abortion is still consuming US politics and courts 2 years after a Supreme Court draft was leaked

Two years after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion signaled that the nation’s abortion landscape was about to shift dramatically, the issue is still consuming the nation’s courts, legislatures and political campaigns — and changing the course of lives. On Wednesday, a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy, often before women realize they’re pregnant, took effect in Florida, echoing laws in two other states. In Arizona, meanwhile, lawmakers voted to repeal a total ban on abortion dating back to 1864, decades before Arizona became a state. Also this week, the Kansas Legislature increased funding for anti-abortion centers, while advocates in South Dakota submitted the required number of signatures for a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

No safety in retreat: Ukrainian soldiers say rear defensive lines barely exist amid Russian advance

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — During pitched battles with far better-armed Russian forces, Ukrainian soldier Batyar’s unit has few options. Devastating Russian aerial glide bombs that can drop up to 1.5 tons of explosives out of range of most of Ukraine’s air defenses are gnawing away at his men’s positions in a new tactic. Yet, to retreat carries no promise of safety — the rear defensive lines meant to give them cover barely exist, he said. Lack of ammunition is forcing the outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers to pull back, one village after another, including three surrendered Sunday, as intense fighting roils the countryside surrounding Avdiivka nearly three months after the strategic city fell to Russia.

Death toll jumps to at least 48 as the search continues in southern China highway collapse

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll climbed to 48 on Thursday as search efforts continued in southeastern China after a highway section collapsed in a mountainous area, sending more than 20 cars down a steep slope. Officials in the city of Meizhou said three other people were unidentified, pending DNA testing. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had died, which would bring the death toll to 51. Another 30 people had non-life-threatening injuries. The collapse happened about 2 a.m. on Wednesday after a month of heavy rains in a mountainous part of Guangdong province. Vehicles fell down the slope and sent up flames as they caught fire.

Faceless people, invisible hands: New Army video aims to lure recruits for psychological operations

FORT LIBERTY, N.C. (AP) — The video is unsettling, with haunting images of faceless people, fire and soldiers. The voiceover is a cascade of recognizable historical voices as the screen pulses cryptic messages touting the power of words, ideas and “invisible hands.” Hints of its origin are tucked into frames as they flash by: PSYWAR. The Army’s psychological warfare soldiers are using their brand of mental combat to bring in what the service needs: recruits. And if you find the video intriguing, you may be the Army’s target audience as it works to enlist soldiers to join its Special Operations Command.

As India votes, misinformation surges on social media: ‘The whole country is paying the price’

NEW DELHI (AP) — Bollywood stars seldom weigh in on politics, so videos showing two celebrities criticizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and endorsing his main opposition, the Congress party — were bound to go viral. But the clips of A-list actors Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh were fake, AI-generated videos that were yet another example of the false or misleading claims swirling online with the goal of influencing India’s election. Both actors filed complaints with police but such actions do little to stanch the flow of such misinformation. Claims circulating online in India recently have misstated details about casting a ballot, claimed without evidence that the election will be rigged, and called for violence against India’s Muslims.

At time of rising antisemitism, Holocaust survivors take on denial and hate in new digital campaign

DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother where taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany’s Nazis were rounding up tens of thousands of Jews from his hometown in what is now southwestern Ukraine. “It was nothing but a miracle that we survived,” Rubinstein told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his apartment in the western German city of Duesseldorf. The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor is participating in a new digital campaign called #CancelHate.

Student journalists are put to the test, and sometimes face danger, in covering protests on campus

NEW YORK (AP) — Ordered by police to leave the scene of a UCLA campus protest after violence broke out, Catherine Hamilton and three colleagues from the Daily Bruin suddenly found themselves surrounded by demonstrators who beat, kicked and sprayed them with a noxious chemical. On American campuses awash in anger this spring, student journalists are in the center of it all, sometimes uncomfortably so. They’re immersed in the story in ways journalists for major media organizations often can’t be. And they face dual challenges — as members of the media and students at the institutions they are covering. Across the country from University of California, Los Angeles late Tuesday, a student-run radio station broadcast live as police cleared a building taken by protesters on the Columbia University campus, while other student journalists were confined to dorms and threatened with arrests.