Start today's other headlines. In central Gaza where hospital officials and witnesses say an Israeli airstrike killed at least 18 people as they waited for flour.

Survivors were rushed to a nearby hospital as family members searched for their loved ones.

Witnesses say the strike came as a crowd was getting aid from a Palestinian police unit that

had confiscated the goods from gangs.

Speaking in Sri Lanka, the UN's human rights chief said today nearly 600 people have been killed

trying to access desperately needed food in Gaza.

It's heartbreaking to know that people who need humanitarian assistance

almost risk their lives in order to get food.

What we need again is a ceasefire, release of hostages,

and an all-out effort to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on today's violence,

but in past incidents it claims troops have fired warning shots at people they described as suspects.

This week's dangerous summer heat is finally easing across much of the eastern U.S.

Some 72 million Americans from the Ohio Valley to the deep south and the mid-Atlantic remained under heat alerts today, but that's less than half the number from just a few days ago.

In the northeast, the cooldown has been dramatic. In places like Boston and New York, temperatures have fallen from the triple digits down to the 60s and 70s in some places.

Meantime, a series of severe storms are hitting the southeast, leading to scenes like this west of Tampa, Florida yesterday.

The elderly woman who was inside this home at the time survived the storm.

In France, violent thunderstorms overnight killed at least two people and injured 17 more.

On the streets of Paris, the torrential storms flooded streets and sent residents ducking for cover.

French media is reporting that toppled trees were to blame for the two fatalities, one each in

southwest and northwest France. The storm also damaged this 11th century church in Normandy.

Its roof and bell tower crashed down into the nave, and the downpours even leaked onto the

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