An airstrike by Sudan’s military ripped through a crowded market in the country’s western region of Darfur, killing at least 54 people and wounding dozens more, according to local monitoring groups that called the attack a likely war crime.

The attack Monday came as Sudan’s military continued to make gains in the capital, Khartoum, where it seized the presidential palace Friday. The military is now trying to drive its foe, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, entirely out of the city.

Videos and photographs from the aftermath of the strike in Toura, a small town in North Darfur, showed dozens of charred bodies and partial human remains strewed across a smoldering expanse in a town market.

The videos were geolocated to Toura by the Sudan Witness Project at the Centre for Information Resilience, a nonprofit that documents potential war crimes. Satellite images and data from NASA satellites that detect fires confirmed that an area of around 10,000 square meters was burned Monday.

The exact toll was unclear. One Sudanese monitoring group said dozens had been killed. The American international advocacy group Avaaz, citing local groups, put it at more than 200 dead. A handwritten list of fatalities provided by activists in Darfur had 54 names.

Witnesses said the attack came from the air; the Rapid Support Forces do not have warplanes, but the Sudanese military does, and has carried out other airstrikes in the region recently.

The military said in a statement that any allegations that the attack was an atrocity committed against civilians “are completely false and are repeatedly raised whenever our forces exercise their constitutional and legitimate right to engage hostile targets.”

Native nation reclaims central Illinois land

The Prairie Land Potawatomi Nation has reclaimed land in Illinois that was promised to the tribe’s leader 175 years ago but stolen by the federal government 20 years later.

A law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker last week transferred Shabbona Lake State Recreation Area, 1,500 acres in north-central Illinois.

“We are proud to once again call this land home,” said Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation based in Mayetta, Kansas.

The action returns to the Potawatomi territory in the same area that was ceded to Chief Shab-eh-nay in a treaty with the U.S. government in 1829. Nothing ever altered that treaty, but when Shab-eh-nay and his people left for several years to visit family in Kansas, the government sold the land to white settlers.

The boundaries of his original 1,280-acre reservation now encompass hundreds of acres of privately owned land, a golf course and county forest preserve.

Walmart mass shooter given plea deal in Texas

The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history has been offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, a Texas prosecutor said Tuesday.

The announcement by El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya is a significant turn in the criminal case of Patrick Crusius, 26, who was already sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty in 2023 to federal hate crime charges.

Under the Biden administration, federal prosecutors also took the death penalty off the table but did not explain why.

In addition to the federal case, Crusius was also charged in state court with capital murder.

Montoya said he supports the death penalty and believes Crusius deserves it. But he said he met with the families of the victims and there was an overriding desire to conclude the process, though some relatives were willing to wait as long as it took for a death sentence.

Three survive icy Alaska plane crash on wing

A pilot and two children survived on the wing of a plane for about 12 hours after it crashed and was partially submerged in an icy Alaska lake, then were rescued after being spotted by a Good Samaritan.

Terry Godes said he saw a Facebook post Sunday night calling for people to help search for the missing plane. On Monday morning, he headed toward Tustumena Lake near the toe of a glacier and spotted what he thought was wreckage.

“It kind of broke my heart to see that, but as I got closer down and lower, I could see that there’s three people on top of the wing,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

After saying a little prayer, he continued to get closer and saw a miracle.

“They were alive and responsive and moving around,” he said, adding they waved at him as he approached.

The missing Piper PA-12

Super Cruiser, piloted by a man with two juvenile family members aboard, flew Sunday on a recreational sightseeing tour from Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula.

Arrested Turkish mayor gets moral support

The head of Turkey’s main opposition party visited jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Tuesday after six nights of massive protests calling for his release.

Imamoglu, arrested on March 19 on corruption charges, is seen as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22-year rule. His arrest has been widely viewed as politically motivated and sparked demonstrations, some turning violent, across the country. The government insists Turkey’s judiciary is independent and free of political influence.

Ozgur Ozel, the leader of Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party, or CHP, held a two-hour meeting with Imamoglu at Silivri prison, west of Istanbul. Ozel told reporters that he was “ashamed on behalf of those who govern Turkey of the atmosphere I am in and the situation that Turkey is being put through.”

Ozel spoke later at what he said would be the last rally in front of Istanbul’s City Hall, saying the party would now appoint an acting mayor in Imamoglu’s place in hopes of staving off a state-appointed replacement.

Texas Democrat mocks governor’s disability

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett mocked her state’s governor during a weekend appearance, referring to Greg Abbott — who uses a wheelchair — as “Gov. Hot Wheels” while speaking at a banquet in Los Angeles.

“You all know we got Gov. Hot Wheels down there. Come on, now,” Crockett, a Dallas Democrat, said about Abbott, a Republican, while addressing the Human Rights Campaign event. “And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot-ass mess, honey.”

Abbott was paralyzed in 1984 after a tree fell on him while he was running. The accident severely damaged Abbott’s spinal cord. Abbott, now 67, was elected in 2014.

Crockett, elected to the House in 2022, was roundly criticized by Republicans for the comments, an aside she made during her speech to the civil rights group, according to video of the event posted to group’s YouTube channel.

“Crockett’s comments are disgraceful,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn posted on the social media platform X. “Shameful.”

— From news services