Edmonton man found guilty on terrorism charge in United Kingdom

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press. A fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate.

The documents are attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and note that Israel continues to move military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted online to Telegram and first reported by CNN and Axios. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained — including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or obtained by another method, like a hack — and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, the official said. As part of that investigation, officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted, the official said.

The documents emerged as the U.S. has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a ceasefire in Gaza, and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war. However, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran’s missile attack go unanswered.

In a statement, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports of the documents but did not have further comment.

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HAVANA (AP) — Millions of people in Cuba were left without electricity for two days after the nation’s energy grid went down when of the island’s major power plants failed. The widespread blackout that swept across the county was the worst in years.

Authorities were able to restore power to some people by Saturday, but it was unclear when the power would be fully restored across the country.

Here are a few things to know:

What happened and why?

About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Thursday evening, followed by the entire island on Friday morning after the failure of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas Province east of Havana.

Even in a country that for decades has been accustomed to frequent outages amid a series of economic crises, the grid failure was unprecedented in modern times, aside from incidents involving powerful hurricanes, such as one in 2022.

Even as Cuba worked to fix the power problems Saturday, the country issued hurricane watches for the far eastern Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas provinces as a tropical storm developed into Hurricane Oscar, the 10th hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

Authorities said the outage that began Thursday stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners — as many as 100,000 additional ones this year alone. They also blamed breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained because of a lack of hard currency due to U.S. sanctions, as well as insufficient fuel to operate some facilities.

Has this happened before?

While some homes have spent up to eight hours a day this year without electricity as the grid has grown more unstable, the current power failure is considered Cuba’s worst in years.

Officials said that 1.64 gigawatts went offline during peak hours, about half the total demand at the time. The government implemented emergency measures to slash demand, suspended classes, and shut down some state-owned workplaces and canceled non-essential services.

Another major collapse occurred two years ago after Hurricane Ian, an intense Category 3 storm, damaged power installations and the government took days to fix them.

Any political consequences?

It’s unknown how Cubans will react if the current blackout endures or recurs.

But problems in the electrical grid have helped sparked street protests several times in recent years, including large demonstrations in July 2021 that led to international criticism of the government for its harsh response. There were also smaller demonstrations due to blackouts in October 2022 and March of this year.

Authorities now say changes to electricity rates for small- and medium-sized companies, which have proliferated since they were first authorized by the communist government in 2021, are being considered.

What’s next?

Officials said the state-owned power company UNE was using distributed generation to provide power to some areas of the island and that a gas-fired thermoelectric plant was starting operations.

Cuba gets its power from huge thermoelectric plants like Antonio Guiteras and some smaller ones, which require crude oil to operate. The country produces about half of the crude needed, but must purchase some of the rest on the international market, which can be difficult and costly due to U.S. sanctions. It has also depended on allies like Venezuela and Russia for cheaper fuel.

Authorities have been working since last year on a project to upgrade the island’s electrical grid through the use of alternative power sources. A project to build 31 centers generating solar energy is under way and projected to be completed next year.

“We are devoting absolute priority to addressing and solving this highly sensitive energy contingency,” Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X. “There will be no rest until its restoration.”

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Authorities said at least seven people were killed Saturday when part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, where crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

Multiple people were taken to hospitals, and crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others were searching the water, according to Natural Resources spokesperson Tyler Jones. The agency operates the dock and ferry boats that transport people between the island and the mainland.

Jones said a gangway at the dock collapsed, sending people plunging into the water.

“There have been seven fatalities confirmed,” Jones said. “There have been multiple people transported to area hospitals, and we are continuing to search the water for individuals.”

Helicopters and boats with side-scanning sonar were used in the search, according to a Department of Natural Resources statement.

Among the dead was a chaplain for the state agency, Jones said.

Jones said he did not know what caused the gangway to collapse, but officials believe there were at least 20 people on it at the time. The gangway connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore.

Sapelo Island is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Savannah, reachable from the mainland by boat.

The deadly collapse happened as island residents, family members and tourists gathered for Cultural Day, an annual fall event spotlighting the island’s tiny community of Hogg Hummock, home to a few dozen Black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded after the Civil War by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

in 1996, Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, was put on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the United States’ treasured historic sites.

But the community’s population has been shrinking for decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes.

Tax increases and zoning changes by the local government in McIntosh County have been met by protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. They have been battling for the past year to undo zoning changes approved by county commissioners in September 2023 that doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock.

Residents say they fear larger homes will lead to tax increases that could force them to sell land their families have held for generations.

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