NEWS SUMMARY AT THIS HOUR

Israel launched attacks on dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza tonight.   Israel's response came after weeks of provocative attacks involving rockets, mortars and even kites and balloons rigged to start fires upon impact in Israel.    The "last straw" were sniper attacks today with one killing an Israeli soldier.

Early Saturday morning Israel time a Hamas spokesman claimed that both sides have 'agreed to restore calm' according to Israel's "Haaretz" newspaper.

Federal and state investigators are probing the disaster on a lake near Branson, Missouri last evening.

Seventeen died when a duck boat capsized and sank during a violent thunderstorm that may have come up very suddenly with extreme wind conditions.

The names of the victims were released late tonight with nine of 11 members from an Indiana family  among those killed, according to KYTV in Springfield, Missouri.

There's a Friday news leak coming out about President Trump and a 2016 phone conversation with his former lawyer Michael Cohen, seized by the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

The conversation was about the notion of a payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal who was claiming an affair with Trump in 2006.   No payment was made by him to her but she did get a 150-thousand dollar payment from the National Enquirer's parent company for her story.

The Enquirer, which supports President Trump, did not publish the story.

Rudolph Giuliani, a lawyer for the President, is making it clear to the media tonight that no direct payment from Trump to McDougal was made and the recording shows that the President did nothing wrong.

A federal judge in San Diego is praising efforts of the Trump Administration to reunite children with families that all entered the United States illegally.    US District Judge Dana Sabraw, who ordered reunification with a July 26th deadline says:   "It really does appear that great progress has been made".

A local prosecutor in the German city of Lubeck is refusing comment on a mass stabbing attack that injured 14 people on a bus there today, some seriously.   The attacker was a 34-year old man described as a German citizen.  When his attack began the bus driver stopped so passengers could escape.

A smoking backpack was found in the bus containing a "fire accelerant".

A security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron was fired today.  Alexandre Benalla was involved in a storm of controversy when a video was released showing him posing as a police officer and beating a protester during a May Day protest.  Benalla is reportedly being held by police investigating the incident.

Some French media outlets report that the Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb, who asked for an internal police investigation into Benalla's activities, was aware of the video of his actions back on May 2nd.

The Bayer pharma company says its stopping sales in the USA of a permanent contraceptive implant called Essure.   Essure was withdrawn from sale in countries outside of the US following complaints about injuries.   

 Similar complaints were recorded in the US leading the Food and Drug Administration to issue an order in May that doctors must show women a checklist of risks before implantation of the device.

Bayer says weak sales led to the decision to withdraw the contraceptive implant from US market at the end of the year.