WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his administration’s decision to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow for construction of roughly 20 miles of additional border wall, saying he had no choice but to use the Trump-era funding for the barrier to stop illegal migration from Mexico.

Asked if he thought such walls work, he said flatly, “No.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a judge Thursday to dismiss the Washington federal election subversion case against him, arguing the Republican is immune from prosecution for actions they say were taken in his official role as president.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly slammed Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday and defended his own campaign, warning that the former president could deliver the 2024 election to Democrats energized to beat him.

DeSantis, speaking at a campaign event in their shared home state, argued that Trump lost the 2020 election not because more voters supported Democrat Joe Biden but rather to cast him out of office.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police have arrested an American tourist at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after he hurled works of art to the floor, defacing two second-century Roman statues.

The vandalism late Thursday raised questions about the safety of Israel’s priceless collections and stirred concern about a rise in attacks on cultural heritage in Jerusalem.

Police identified the suspect as a radical 40-year-old Jewish American tourist and said initial questioning suggested he smashed the statues because he considered them “to be idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.”

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile attack killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother Friday in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, officials said, a day after a strike in the same region killed at least 51 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months.

Associated Press reporters saw emergency crews pulling the boy’s body from the rubble of a building after the early morning attack. He was wearing pajamas with a Spider-Man design.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and two others were injured Thursday morning in a stabbing at a mobile home park in Union City, U.S. state of California, officials said.

Police officers responded to the crime scene where they found three victims with injuries, one of whom died at the scene.

The other two victims were transported to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Biden administration will resume deporting Venezuelan migrants, the largest single group encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border last month, back to their economically troubled country as their arrivals continue to grow.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, speaking in Mexico City Thursday, cited the new measure as one of the “strict consequences” the Biden administration is pairing with the expansion of legal pathways for asylum seekers.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Friday that it would repatriate all illegal immigrants including hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals in orderly phases rather than in one go.

Pakistan's announcement on Tuesday of a Nov. 1 deadline for people to leave or face forcible expulsion has frayed already soured relations with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who said the threat to force out Afghan migrants was "unacceptable".

ROME, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The Italian government is planning for a possible mass evacuation of tens of thousands of people who live around the Campi Flegrei super volcano near Naples, officials said on Thursday.

The new measures, which include a scheme to check on the strength of buildings in the area after months of repeated earthquakes, will be discussed at a cabinet meeting later in the day, a government statement said.

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/: Relations between Tashkent and Moscow are actively developing and there is progress in all spheres of cooperation, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

"Our bilateral ties have reached such a level of comprehensive strategic partnership and alliance. Over recent years, we have achieved a lot, thanks to the political will of [Russian President] Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and my own. There is progress in our cooperation across the board," he said.

ANKARA, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Türkiye said one of its armed drones was downed during its cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said the comprehensive security operations were launched by the Turkish Armed Forces and Intelligence Organization against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and YPG group in Iraq and Syria.

SYDNEY, Oct 6 (NNN-AAP) – A plane crashed in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), today, with the number of people on board currently remaining unknown.

NSW Police Force confirmed in a statement that, emergency services are now at the scene of a fatal plane crash in Gundaroo, a small village located about 35 km north of Canberra.

According to the statement, officers were called to a property on Hadlow Drive in Gundaroo, just before 3:00 p.m. local time, following reports of a plane having crashed and caught fire.