ANKARA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara on Monday to discuss efforts to expand humanitarian aid in Gaza, and to prevent the war between Israel and militant Palestinian group Hamas from spreading.

Blinken is touring the region aiming to calm tensions over the war. Underlining Turkey's sharp criticism of Israeli and U.S. policy during the conflict, crowds gathered outside the meeting venue demanding Blinken and his delegation leave.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will host Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for two days of talks this week, the latest in a series of high-level talks between U.S. and Chinese officials as the world’s two largest economies aim to ease tensions, the Treasury Department announced Monday.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Peter Meijer, a Republican who served one term in Congress before being ousted by voters following a vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump, announced Monday that he will run for an open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.

Meijer joins a field of more than a dozen candidates vying for a seat that’s been held by Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for more than two decades. Stabenow shocked many in the state in January by announcing her retirement, creating a wide open race in the battleground state.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and pounded it with intense airstrikes overnight into Monday, setting the stage for an expected push into the dense confines of Gaza City and an even bloodier phase of the month-old war.

Already, the Palestinian death toll passed 10,000, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Some 1,400 Israelis have died, mostly civilians killed in the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas that started the war.

MOSCOW, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the March presidential election, a move that will keep him in power until least 2030, as the Kremlin chief feels he must steer Russia through the most perilous period in decades, six sources told Reuters.

After defusing an armed mutiny by the leader of the Wagner mercenary group in June, Putin has moved to shore up support among his core base in the security forces, the armed forces and with regional voters outside Moscow, while Wagner has been brought firmly to heel.

BEIRUT, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Gaza Strip has lost at least 61 percent of its employment, equivalent to some 182,000 jobs, since the start of the current Israel-Hamas conflict, said a report released by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Monday.

The conflict in Gaza also caused a loss of 24 percent of employment in the West Bank, equivalent to 208,000 jobs.

"The total estimated 390,000 job losses in the two areas ... translate into losses of 16 million U.S. dollars in daily labor income," the report said.

DAMASCUS, Nov 6 (NNN-SANA) – Sounds of powerful explosions reverberated through a U.S. base, in Syria’s north-eastern province of al-Hasakah last night, a war monitor reported.

The explosions were heard at the Qasrak base, in the countryside of al-Hasakah, followed by the presence of unmanned aerial vehicles hovering over the area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said, uncertainty looms over the nature of the explosions, whether they were the consequence of routine military drills or deliberate targeting.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Two senators from Maine asked the U.S. Army inspector general on Monday to provide a full accounting of interactions with a reservist before he killed 18 people and injured 13 others in the deadliest shooting in the state’s history.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, told Lt. Gen. Donna W. Martin in a letter that it’s important to understand “what occurred, or failed to occur” at the federal level, including the Army, before Robert Card opened fire at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Cincinnati officials are expressing outrage and horror at a drive-by shooting that sent more than a score of bullets into a crowd of children, killing an 11-year-old boy and striking four other children and an adult.

MELITOPOL, November 6. /TASS/: Russia’s tactics of maneuver defense made it possible to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Zaporozhye Region, Governor Yevgeny Balitsky told reporters at a press conference.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike Monday over being blocked together with other inmates from getting medical care and to protest the country’s mandatory headscarves for women, a campaign advocating for the activist said.

The decision by Mohammadi, 51, increases pressure on Iran’s theocracy over her incarceration, a month after being awarded the Nobel for her years of activism despite a decadeslong campaign by the government targeting her.

MOGADISHU, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) has announced that 13 police officers have completed an intensive five-day training program focused on detecting and neutralizing improvised explosive devices (IEDs).