NEW YORK (AP) — Seven weeks before the premiere debate of the 2024 GOP primary, anxiety is building that the event could prove messy and divisive for the party.

Some candidates, like former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, are struggling to meet fundraising and polling requirements to make it on stage. He and others are pushing back on a loyalty pledge the Republican Party is insisting candidates sign to participate. And the race’s frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, is considering boycotting and holding a competing event instead.

(AP) --- As a warming Earth simmered into worrisome new territory this week, scientists said the unofficial records being set for average planetary temperature were a clear sign of how pollutants released by humans are warming their environment. But the heat is also just one way the planet is telling us something is gravely wrong, they said.

“Heat sets the pace of our climate in so many ways ... it’s never just the heat,” said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown University.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The first of two Iowa teenagers who pleaded guilty to beating their high school Spanish teacher to death with a baseball bat was sentenced Thursday to life with a possibility of parole after 35 years in prison.

A judge sentenced Willard Miller after a sentencing hearing that lasted more than seven hours.

Miller and another teen, Jeremy Goodale, had pleaded guilty in April to the 2021 attack on Nohema Graber. The 66-year-old teacher was fatally beaten while taking her regular afternoon walk in a park in Fairfield.

NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads, which has drawn tens of millions of users since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.

LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards "forcibly seized" a commercial ship in international waters in the Gulf on Thursday and the vessel was possibly involved in smuggling, a U.S. Navy spokesperson said.

The U.S. Navy had monitored the situation and decided not to make any further response, U.S. 5th Fleet spokesperson Commander Tim Hawkins said.

MOSCOW (AP) — A blast at a Russian explosives plant on Friday killed six people and injured two more, emergency officials said.

The explosion occurred as workers were dismantling equipment at one of the workshops of the Promsintez plant in Russia’s Samara region, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing emergency officials.

The blast didn’t start a fire, the report said.

TOKYO, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Several non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Japan announced Friday the launch of a marine-protection project aimed at preventing the government's plan to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant to the ocean.

The NPOs, including the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center and the Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs, will start the project titled "Future of the Ocean" on July 17, which is recognized as "Marine Day" in Japan.

BEIRUT, July 7 (Reuters) - As Wagner mercenaries advanced on Moscow in an attempted mutiny in late June, authorities in Syria and Russian military commanders there took a series of swift measures against local Wagner operatives to prevent the uprising spreading, according to six sources familiar with the matter.

ADDIS ABABA, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's first-ever securities exchange will be a "game-changer" for the country and the region, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) said at a workshop that concluded Friday.

Efforts are underway to develop Ethiopia's financial market as the East African country prepares to launch its first-ever securities exchange over the next two years. The project team of the Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) launched the capital raises request in May, according to the official Ethiopian News Agency.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele stood before tens of thousands of roaring sports fans with a message: I am not a dictator.

BEIRUT, July 7 (Xinhua) -- A Lebanese citizen on Friday opened fire at worshipers as they were leaving a mosque in the town of Bar Elias in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, killing one and injuring several others, local media reported.

The Lebanese army rushed to the area and exchanged fire with the gunman, which led to his injury, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The shooter, reportedly in critical condition, was transported to hospital.

The cause of the incident was still unknown, the report added.

ISTANBUL, July 7 (Xinhua) -- The police have tightened the crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Istanbul, Türkiye's largest city, arresting 1,615 individuals over the last three days, local media reported Friday.

The police have carried out massive raids in several neighborhoods, including Esenyurt, Fatih, and Zeytinburnu, where illegal immigrants were found highly concentrated, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.