AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

A damaged building collapses in Gaza, killing at least 16, and other Mideast developments

A building housing displaced Palestinian families collapsed in Gaza City on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people, most of them women and children. The multistory structure was heavily damaged during the Israel-Hamas war and there had been warnings about its safety.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said late on Tuesday that its air defenses, which have been fending off attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, had intercepted a drone that the kingdom said was headed toward its holy city of Mecca.

Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.

A damaged building in Gaza City housing about six displaced families collapsed on Wednesday morning, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 25. Among the dead were eight children and five women, according to Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry. The toll was expected to rise as more bodies were recovered from the wreckage on Wednesday morning.

Video showed civil defense crews surveying the wreckage and using bulldozers to dig out people, including children.

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Saudi Arabia calls an attempted Mecca attack a ‘red line’ as Iran-backed Houthis deny they did it

CAIRO (AP) — Saudi Arabia accused Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels overnight of trying to attack Islam’s holiest city, prompting condemnation from countries in the region but no sign of military support. The kingdom, a key U.S. ally, declared Mecca a “red line” as it slid deeper into the new front of the Iran war.

With the world’s biggest oil exporter under fire from the rebels backed by the Saudis’ regional adversary, Tehran, the kingdom needs a safe outlet for its crude as well as military support. However, a path to either one remains unclear.

A crucial Saudi pipeline has reportedly been shut down for weeks as the Yemen-based Houthis have been attacking infrastructure in the kingdom as well as its shipping on the Red Sea. Iran is still targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices remain above $100 a barrel.

The Houthis denied firing drones toward Mecca, about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) from Yemen’s border. The Saudis said they intercepted and destroyed the drone before it entered the airspace over the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.

A new defense pact among Saudi Arabia, NATO member Turkey and nuclear power Pakistan remained untapped, as officials from Turkey and Pakistan told The Associated Press they have not received a Saudi request for support in response to the Houthis’ escalation.

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Why Yemen’s Houthis have only grown stronger through years of war

At various times over the last decade, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Britain and Israel have carried out punishing air raids on Yemen’s Houthi rebels — only to see them grow even stronger.

Now, as the Iran-backed Houthis advance on a key maritime chokepoint and strike Saudi oil facilities, rattling world markets, there is little that can be done to stop them that hasn’t been tried before.

That’s because the Houthis operate in a large and mountainous territory where they can disperse fighters and military infrastructure while threatening major oil infrastructure and key trade routes. Iran and its allies in Lebanon and Iraq provide expertise, training and sophisticated weapons, according to U.N. and other experts, and the Houthis’ hard-line ideology does the rest.

“They are the most committed, the most ideologically pure and the most aggressive” of Iran’s regional allies, says Michael Knights, who has written extensively about the Houthis and is now head of research at Horizon Engage, a New York-based strategic advisory.

“They’ve been developed by the Iranians in a fast-track way. Things that took the Lebanese Hezbollah 20 years to develop, the Houthis have developed in five.”

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EU chief Ursula von der Leyen says she wants Canada to become the bloc’s 1st associate member

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed opening a path for Canada to become the European Union’s first associate member, a striking overture as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs drive Ottawa closer to Europe.

“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada being the first associate member of the EU,” von der Leyen told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during her annual State of the European Union address. Carney received a standing ovation from European lawmakers. He is due to address the European Parliament on Thursday.

Trump’s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Canada to seek closer economic and security ties with Europe. Roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States, and Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU as Canada seeks to reduce that dependence.

Von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would build on their existing free trade agreement, known as CETA, with a broader “Alliance for the Future” aimed at creating “a common prosperity and economic security space.”

She cast that closer relationship as rooted not just in trade but in shared democratic values.

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EU chief proposes social media ban for kids under 13

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed banning children under 13 from accessing social media, online games and chatbots on Wednesday during her annual State of the European Union speech in Strasbourg.

“I am aware that many perceive the power of Big Tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree,” said the EU executive.

“We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualized images,” she said.

Von der Leyen said that under her proposal “mini accounts” chaperoned by guardians would be granted to kids aged 13-15.

The EU’s 27 member nations will now vote on the proposal, which could spark tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has long criticized Europe’s tech regulations.

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Trump administration plans to send powerful bombs to Israel in $2.8 billion weapons sale

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is planning to deliver powerful 2,000-pound bombs to Israel as part of an upcoming arms deal, weapons that prompted such concerns about the possibility of mass casualties in Gaza that the Biden administration paused their delivery two years ago.

The $2.8 billion package includes 40,000 of the bombs, made up of 20,000 Mk84s and 20,000 BLU-117s, according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the plan who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss the package, which is not yet final.

Congress has been informally notified about the pending deal, most of which is to be paid for with foreign military financing — in which U.S. taxpayer dollars are given to Israel to turn around and buy the weapons from the United States.

The proposed sale is just the latest in a series of Trump administration steps to improve Israeli’s military capacity. The conflict in Gaza has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and has decimated the enclave. The U.S. brokered a fragile ceasefire, but violence has continued.

The package, which was reported earlier by The Washington Post, comes as Israel has faced increasing international isolation over its war in Gaza in response to the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.

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AI rivals found rare agreement on safety. Putting it into practice is harder

The leading AI industry voices rarely agree — so when they do, it’s no wonder it captures attention.

Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and other prominent industry leaders have said in recent days that AI’s development needs to slow down. The consensus came after an Anthropic researcher resigned with a dire warning about the threats the technology poses to humanity.

But obstacles including domestic and global competition, profit motivations and pushback from President Donald Trump all stand in the way of a coordinated effort to pace AI’s development.

Still, this moment could force the industry to wrestle with a “reframing of what we consider successful,” said Nick Reese, former director of emerging technology policy at the Department of Homeland Security and an adjunct professor at New York University.

“What if we considered success in AI the same way that we consider success for airlines? On time and haven’t had a crash in who knows how long,” Reese said. “We don’t tolerate commercial airline crashes, but we do tolerate significant AI failures.”

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Americans are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of AI, new poll finds

On the way home from a recent trip, Eriech Tapia drove past a sea of dark industrial buildings lining an already jam-packed northern Virginia road: data centers.

“It was interesting to see how many were going up,” said Tapia, a 30-year-old Republican from Arlington, Virginia, who works in higher education advocacy and policy. He said the data centers lend valuable computing power that can help keep the U.S. competitive with other nations, but he also worries about how much electricity they use.

Like Tapia, Americans have grown more concerned about the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence over the last year, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

The survey data say about half, 53%, of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about artificial intelligence’s environmental impacts. That is up from 41% last year. Democrats are driving much of the increase in environmental concern, but the poll also reveals broader worries about the local impact of data centers, which power AI and cloud computing.

“We’re undertaking a massive experiment in real time, and I don’t think there’ll be any putting the milk back in the bottle. Change is scary, and I think some of that is being reflected here,” said Michael Greenstone, who directs the University of Chicago institute that collaborated on the survey.

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In wartime Russia, veterans who fought in Ukraine are running for parliament

They lead party tickets, star in campaign videos and appear in televised debates. They are Russians who have fought in Ukraine, and they feature prominently in this week’s parliamentary election.

Election officials say nearly 200 candidates have served in Ukraine, and the Kremlin touts them as part of Russia’s “true elite” — its effort to show that veterans of the 4 1/2-year-old war will have an honored place in civilian life.

But few analysts believe that most of them will ever hold any real power among the country’s ruling class, dismissing the effort as a way to lure more volunteers to fight.

Independent Russian media regularly report about returning veterans involved in assaults, drunken brawls and even killings. Some of those crimes were committed by men who were recruited into the military from prison.

The vote that begins Friday for the State Duma — the lower house of parliament — is the first since the war began, and also will take place in areas of Ukraine that Russia captured and illegally annexed. The Kremlin is tightly managing the election, seeking to reinforce its narrative of widespread support for the war and provide a veneer of legitimacy for its actions.

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3 people killed when NBC and Telemundo news helicopter crashes while covering LA bus collision

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A news helicopter crashed in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing at least three people while reporters were covering the collision of an SUV and a city bus, officials and the news outlet said.

Colleen Williams, an NBC4 Los Angeles anchor, confirmed during live broadcasts that two people were killed when the chopper went down. At least one other person was killed on the ground, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it,” Williams said, her voice shaking with emotion. Moments later the coverage cut off.

The helicopter, used by NBC and Telemundo, went down near a large storage facility in the neighborhood of Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, officials said. News crews were reporting on a collision from earlier in the day, when an SUV slammed into the middle of a city bus, killing at least two people and injuring six others. Photos and videos online showed half the SUV lodged in the side of the bus.

“From the helicopter itself, it’s pretty well destroyed,” Capt. Branden Silverman, a spokesperson for the fire department, said. “So we are going to have to go through the rubble and see how many victims there were on board, as well as identify the helicopter; we couldn’t even see a tail.”