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A series of Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon has killed at least 16 people, including paramedics. It's one of the deadliest days of fighting in the Israel-Lebanon border since the war in Gaza broke out nearly six months ago. A barrage of rockets Wednesday also killed one Israeli. It was claimed by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which said it was responding to the deadly airstrike targeting a paramedic center linked to a Sunni Muslim group. International mediators have been scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah amid near-daily violence, mostly confined to the area along the border.

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As Yemen’s Houthi rebels continue to target ships in a Mideast waterway, satellite pictures analyzed by The Associated Press show what appears to be a new airstrip being built at an entrance to that crucial maritime route. No country has publicly claimed the construction taking place on Abd al-Kuri Island, a strip of land rising out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden. However, images shot for the AP show workers have spell out “I LOVE UAE” with piles of dirt next to the runway, an abbreviation for the United Arab Emirates. The gulf and the Red Sea to which it leads have become a major battleground between the Houthis and U.S.-led forces as Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip rages.

The end of Georgia’s two-year legislative session arrives Thursday. It's the last day for bills to pass both the House and Senate or die as this term ends. Lawmakers will decide questions including whether to legalize sports betting and tighten rules on immigration. Some key proposals have already passed. Among those are a plan to cut income taxes and a bill to loosen Georgia’s rules for permitting new health care facilities. Some other measures appear unlikely to pass. Those include a proposal to expand Medicaid health insurance and an effort to overhaul Georgia’s tax incentives for movie and television production.

The U.S. military has finished draining more than 104 million gallons of fuel from an underground fuel tank complex in Hawaii that poisoned 6,000 people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water in 2021. Joint Task Force Red Hill began defueling the tanks in October after completing months of repairs to an aging network of pipes to prevent the World War II-era facility from springing more leaks. The task force was scheduled to hand over responsibility for the tanks on Thursday to Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill. This new command is charged with permanently decommissioning the tanks, cleaning up the environment and restoring the aquifer underneath.

Police in Greece have clashed with Communist-backed demonstrators who tried to prevent a concert by U.S. military cadets. The protest occurred in the central Greek city of Larissa ahead of a concert by members of the West Point Glee Club, a musical group of the U.S. Military Academy which is currently on tour in Greece. Videos and photos shared on social media show police firing tear gas to hold back the demonstrators outside a municipal theater, while officers also clashed with a smaller number of protesters as they entered the building. There were no reports of arrests or injuries.

Lebanon's state news agency says Israeli airstrikes killed nine people in southern Lebanon, including paramedics who were preparing to respond to the first strike. That raises the number of people killed by Israeli strikes Wednesday to 16, making this the deadliest day in more than five months of fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border. An earlier attack hit a different paramedics center linked to a Sunni Muslim group, killing seven of the group’s members. And in Israel, one man was killed after Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fired a barrage of rockets. An Israeli general says the military struck a “large number of operatives” and was also conducting “very significant strikes” against Hezbollah.