At least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza in a 24-hour period, Gaza’s health ministry said Friday, as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive and let in minimal aid to the strip.

The dead included 10 people in the southern city of Khan Younis, four in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nine in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

Israel faces mounting international criticism for its offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza amid a humanitarian crisis. Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, with experts warning that many of its 2 million residents are at high risk of famine.

Even the United States, a staunch ally, has voiced concerns over the hunger crisis.

The strikes that lasted into Friday morning came a day after Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing from wreckage.

Israel said it will continue to strike until Hamas releases all of the 58 remaining Israeli hostages and disarms. Fewer than half of the hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Trump hints support for Nippon’s USS bid

President Donald Trump said that U.S. Steel will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh as part of what he called a “planned partnership” that seemed to signal that he’ll approve a bid by Japan-based Nippon Steel to make a big investment in the iconic American steelmaker, if not buy it outright.

Still, Trump’s statement left it vague as to whether he is approving Nippon Steel’s bid after he vowed repeatedly to block the deal to prevent U.S. Steel from being foreign-owned.

More recently, Trump suggested that Nippon Steel would invest in U.S. Steel, not buy it, and one union official suggested Friday that the federal government will have a role in the company’s management going forward. But investors seemed to take Trump’s statement as a sign that he’s approving some sort of merger, sharply pushing up U.S. Steel’s shares, and the companies issued approving statements.

Nippon Steel said the partnership is a “game changer — for U.S. Steel and all of its stakeholders, including the American steel industry, and the broader American manufacturing base.” U.S. Steel said it “will remain American, and we will grow bigger and stronger through a partnership with Nippon Steel that brings massive investment, new technologies and thousands of jobs over the next four years.”

Nippon Steel’s nearly $15 billion bid to buy U.S. Steel was blocked by former President Joe Biden on his way out of office and, after Trump became president, subject to another national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Trump orders build-out of nuclear power plants

President Trump signed four executive orders Friday aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States, including a new generation of small, advanced reactors that offer the promise of faster deployment but have yet to be proven.

One order directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nation’s independent safety regulator, to streamline its rules and to take no more than 18 months to approve applications for new reactors. The order also urges the agency to consider lowering its safety limits for radiation exposure, saying that current rules go beyond what is needed to protect human health.

Another order directs the Energy and Defense departments to explore siting reactors on federal lands and military bases, possibly alongside new data centers. That could allow the agencies to bypass the NRC and develop their own, faster processes for approving reactors.

The Trump administration also set a goal of quadrupling the size of the nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants, from nearly 100 gigawatts of electric capacity today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. One gigawatt is enough to power nearly 1 million homes.

“This is a huge day for the nuclear industry,” said Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, as he stood behind Trump at a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of overregulation.”

Disaster relief OK’d for eight states

President Trump green-lit disaster relief for eight states, assistance that some of the communities rocked by natural disasters have been waiting on for months.

The major disaster declaration approvals allow Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas access to financial support through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Several states requested the aid in response to damage from a massive storm system in mid-March.

“This support will go a long way in helping Mississippi to rebuild and recover. Our entire state is grateful,” said Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, whose state experienced 18 tornados between March 14 and 15.

Mississippi residents in the hard-hit Walthall County expressed frustration earlier this month over how long they had been waiting for federal help. The county’s emergency manager said debris removal operations stalled in early May when the county ran out of money while awaiting federal assistance.

Earlier this week Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vowed to expedite Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s request for disaster assistance, after being pressed on the issue by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican.

Venezuela on edge as election nears

As Venezuelans head to a Sunday election, they are again being used as political pawns. Opposition factions are urging abstention while the ruling party aims to tighten its grip on power — all while both sides appeal to the U.S. government for decisions that would have a greater impact on people’s lives than the vote’s results.

The election for members of the National Assembly, governors and other regional offices will be the first to allow broad voter participation since last year’s presidential contest, which President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won despite credible evidence to the contrary.

The contest comes as the opposition’s most recognizable figure, María Corina Machado, remains in hiding to avoid arrest and most other leaders are in exile or prison due to the government’s repressive measures unleashed after the July election.

“We lost confidence in voting. On July 28, they made fun of us,” said Carmen Medina, who sells plastic jewelry, Caracas. “I’m not planning to vote.”

Military lost track of copter in D.C. incident

Military air traffic controllers lost contact with an Army helicopter for about 20 seconds as it neared the Pentagon on the flight that caused two commercial jets to abort their landings this month at a Washington airport, the Army told The Associated Press on Friday.

The aborted landings on May 1 added to general unease about continued close calls between government helicopters and commercial airplanes near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport following a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.

In March, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that helicopters would be permanently restricted from flying on the same route where the collision occurred. After the May 1 incident, the Army paused all flights into and out of the Pentagon as it works with the FAA to address safety issues.

Record number in U.S. seek British citizenship

A record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first three months of this year, and for the right to live and work in Britain indefinitely, according to official data.

In the year to March, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship, the highest annual figure since records began in 2004, according to statistics released by Britain’s Home Office on Thursday.

More than 1,900 of those applications were made between January and March — the highest number for any quarter on record.

Immigration lawyers said they had received an increased number of inquiries from people in the United States about possibly relocating to Britain in the wake of President Trump’s reelection in November.

17 people wounded in German stabbing spree

A stabbing attack at the busy central train station in the German city of Hamburg left multiple people injured, some of them in life-threatening condition, authorities said. A woman was arrested as the suspect.

The attacker targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14 in the station at around 6 p.m., according to police. The station in downtown Hamburg, Germany’s second-biggest city, is a major hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.

Police said that “several” people had life-threatening injuries, but didn’t give specific figures. Late Friday evening, Hamburg’s fire service said that 17 people were hurt in total — four of them with life-threatening injuries, another six with serious injuries and seven with light injuries, German news agency dpa reported.

Police said a 39-year-old woman, a German national, was arrested at the scene without putting up resistance and that they believe after watching video footage that she acted alone. They secured the knife.

French court convicts Kardashian’s robbers

A Paris court found the ringleader and seven other people guilty in the 2016 armed robbery of Kim Kardashian, but did not impose any additional time behind bars for their roles in what the U.S. celebrity described as “the most terrifying experience of my life.”

The chief judge, David De Pas, said that the defendants’ ages — six are in their 60s and 70s — and their health issues weighed on the court’s decision to impose sentences that he said “aren’t very severe.”

He said that the nine years between the robbery and the trial — long even by the standards of France’s famously deliberate legal system — were also taken into account in not imposing harsher sentences.

— News service reports