Tornadoes spotted in Oklahoma as hail pelts Kansas. Forecasts warn more is to come

OKLAHOMA CITY — Tornadoes touched down Monday evening in rural Oklahoma and large hail pelted parts of Kansas as an outbreak of dangerous storms brought the possibility of strong twisters staying on the ground for many miles.

Forecasters have issued a rare high-risk weather warning for the two states.

“You can’t rely on waiting to see tornadoes before sheltering tonight,” the National Weather Service said.

At least four tornadoes had been spotted in north central Oklahoma, including one about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa. The National Weather Service office there issued a tornado emergency alert Monday night for the nearby towns of Bartlesville, Dewey and Barnsdall.

The Weather Service warned “a large and life-threatening tornado” was headed toward those towns, with wind gusts up to 70 mph.

Pulitzer Prizes in journalism awarded to The New York Times, The Washington Post, AP and others

NEW YORK — The New York Times and The Washington Post were awarded three Pulitzer Prizes apiece on Monday for work in 2023 that dealt with everything from the war in Gaza to gun violence, and The Associated Press won in the feature photography category for coverage of global migration to the U.S.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and its aftermath produced work that resulted in two Pulitzers and a special citation. The Times won for text coverage that the Pulitzer board described as “wide-ranging and revelatory,” while the Reuters news service won for its photography. The citation went to journalists and other writers covering the war in Gaza.

The prestigious public service award went to Propublica for reporting that “pierced the thick wall of secrecy” around the U.S. Supreme Court to show how billionaires gave expensive gifts to justices and paid for luxury travel. Reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg were honored for their work.

The Pulitzers honored the best in journalism from 2023 in 15 categories, as well as eight arts categories focused on books, music and theater. The public service winner receives a gold medal. All other winners receive $15,000.

The 15 photos in AP’S winning entry were taken across Latin America and along the U.s.-mexico border in Texas and California in a year when immigration was one of the world’s biggest stories. They were shot by AP staffers Greg Bull, Eric Gay, Fernando Llano, Marco

Ugarte and Eduardo Verdugo, and longtime AP freelancers Christian Chavez, Felix Marquez and Ivan Valencia.

Donald Trump calls Joe Biden weak on antisemitism, ignoring his own rhetoric

NEW YORK — Donald Trump is accusing Joe Biden of offering a weak response to antisemitism, wielding the clashes on colleges campuses over the war in Gaza as a campaign issue. But Trump’s attacks ignore his own long history of rhetoric that invokes the language of Nazi Germany and plays on stereotypes of Jews and politics.

The latest example came over the weekend, when Trump — accusing the White House of having a role in his multiple state and federal criminal prosecutions — told Republican donors gathered for a private retreat at his Florida resort that Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” referring to the secret police force of Nazi Germany.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, called it a “deliberate tactic” to attack Biden and distract from his own track record.

“It’s wholly aligned with his long history of offensive and irresponsible comments when it comes to the Jewish community, including the normalization of antisemitism,” Spitalnick said.

Biden’s campaign called it “despicable” and an attack on law enforcement.