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Biden says US will not provide Israel with weapons to use in major Rafah invasion
He told CNN Israel has used American bombs to kill civilians in Gaza.
abcnews.go.com
This mother delivered a baby and a PhD dissertation on the same day
New Jersey mom Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez recounts the day she was working on her doctoral dissertation presentation from Rutgers University when she went into labor.
edition.cnn.com
Kentucky woman goes on shooting rampage, kills husband, sister before dying in shootout with brother: police
A woman shot and killed her husband and her sister before trying to kill her brother - but her brother was armed and killed her in a shootout, according to Kentucky State Police.
foxnews.com
Portland graffiti vandals battle with police for ‘notoriety’ as government dedicates millions to cleanup
As graffiti vandals in Portland jockey for notoriety and positioning on the sides of buildings, police are struggling to catch perpetrators and clean up the city.
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foxnews.com
Cruise ship docks at New York City port with 44-foot dead endangered whale caught on its bow
A cruise ship sailed into a New York City port over the weekend with a 44-foot dead endangered whale across its bow, marine authorities confirmed.
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foxnews.com
Michigan man charged in alleged plot to bomb Satanic Temple
Luke Terpstra, 30, of Grant, Michigan, has been charged with two felonies for allegedly plotting to bomb the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts.
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foxnews.com
El cantante no binario Nemo es uno de los favoritos para ganar Eurovisión
No importa si Nemo gana el Festival de la Canción de Eurovisión este fin de semana —lo que lo convertiría en el/la primer concursante no binario en llevarse a casa el micrófono de cristal_, el cantante ya es un éxito.
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latimes.com
Even Donald Trump Is Getting Tired of MTG’s House Speaker Antics
Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty ImagesEven Donald Trump seemed peeved by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) ill-fated attempt to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday, with the former president posting to his Truth Social platform that she was risking “CHAOS” in the chamber and making Republicans look bad.“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come,” Trump began, before laying into her plan to eject the second GOP Speaker of the House in less than a year.“Right now, Republicans have to be fighting the Radical Left Democrats, and all the Damage they have done to our Country. With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
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thedailybeast.com
Biden reveals advice Obama is giving him
CNN's Erin Burnett talks to President Joe Biden about how he is facing Trump in the 2024 election, and what advice former President Obama is giving him.
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edition.cnn.com
Bette Midler says 'Bette' sitcom was a 'big mistake' — and so was not suing Lindsay Lohan
Bette Midler regrets doing her short-lived 2000 CBS sitcom, 'Bette.' She also wishes she had sued Lindsay Lohan for bailing on the show after doing its pilot.
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latimes.com
Nuggets' Nikola Jokic wins NBA MVP for 3rd time
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was named the NBA MVP for the third time in his career. He won it over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic.
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foxnews.com
Disney recibe otra aprobación clave para expandir sus parques temáticos en el sur de California
Disneyland fue el segundo parque temático más visitado del mundo en 2022
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latimes.com
NYC couple’s ‘great’ first date interrupted by carjacking as Romeo joins cops in high-speed chase for $150K BMW: ‘Found those motherf—kers’
Joseph Sadykov, 23, and his date had fallen asleep in the back of his BWM when they were robbed.
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nypost.com
NYPD nab of alleged migrant gang leader proves broken-windows policing works
Victor Parra, the suspected co-ringleader of a migrant gang, was nabbed last week after three months on the lam for failing to wear a helmet. Broken windows policing works!
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nypost.com
I witnessed Israel choosing life as it fights against a ‘death cult’
I’ve never seen as much of the best and the worst of humankind as I have in the past six months in Israel and Gaza.
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nypost.com
Trump rebukes Marjorie Taylor Greene's failed attempt to oust Speaker: 'Not the time'
Former President Donald Trump called on House Republicans to table a motion from Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is seeking to oust Speaker Mike Johnson.
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foxnews.com
Oh, mercy: Jackson-Reed makes it 31 straight DCIAA baseball titles
The Tigers score seven in the first and roll to yet another DCIAA championship. But they have bigger goals in mind.
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washingtonpost.com
Patrick Ewing refuses to wade into fray after Charles Oakley’s ‘best’ Knick diss
Mark Jackson had defended the 11-time All-Star and Hall of Fame center, listing No. 33 above the legendary Clyde Frazier in the franchise hierarchy.
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nypost.com
Officials issue boil water advisory for NW Washington neighborhoods
D.C. water officials issued a boil water advisory Wednesday for areas of Northwest Washington after a water main ruptured.
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washingtonpost.com
Who Really Has Brain Worms?
Earlier today, The New York Times broke some startling news about a presidential candidate. According to a 2012 deposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once suffered from, in his own words, “a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” The vague yet alarming description could apply to any number of parasitic ailments, among them angiostrongyliasis, baylisascariasis, toxocariasis, strongyloidiasis, and trichinosis. But some experts immediately suspected a condition called neurocysticercosis (NCC), in which the larvae of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium post up in the brain.The condition might sound terrifying—and, to some observers, darkly hilarious. Literal brain worms! But it does not actually involve any brain-munching, or even your standard-issue worm. The brain-invading culprit is instead a tapeworm (strictly, a kind of helminth) that typically makes its home in pigs. As far as parasitic infections go, this is “the most common one in the brain,” Laila Woc-Colburn, an infectious-disease physician at Emory University, told me. And globally, it’s one of the most common causes of epilepsy in adults.NCC typically begins after people have been exposed to feces that contain the eggs of a pork tapeworm, say while on a pig farm or handling uncooked, contaminated food. After the eggs are swallowed, they hatch into larvae in the gut. Because people aren’t the appropriate host for the young tapeworms, they end up on a fruitless journey, meandering through the body in a desperate attempt to find pig muscle. A common final destination for the larvae is the brain, where they enclose themselves into cysts in the hopes of maturing; eventually, unable to complete their life cycle, they die, leaving behind little more than a calcified nub.[Read: Flatworms are metal]This is, to put it scientifically, some pretty gnarly stuff. But many cases are “completely asymptomatic,” Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, also an infectious-disease physician at Emory University, told me. In other people, though—especially those with a lot of larval cysts—the presence of the foreign invaders can spark a wave of inflammation, which in turn triggers swelling and tissue destruction. Individuals with cysts in their brain may develop headaches or seizures, though those problems can take years or even decades to manifest, Titanji said.Experts estimate that millions of people may be afflicted with NCC worldwide, most of them concentrated in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and India. In the U.S., though, NCC is rather rare, with just a few thousand diagnoses made each year, many of them related to travel or immigration. “This is a disease of poverty,” Woc-Colburn told me. Which would make the multimillionaire Kennedy—if he had the infection at all—“an atypical patient.”There is, at least, some comforting news. NCC is pretty easily preventable with solid hand-washing habits. And in the U.S., where CT scans are fairly accessible, “it can be diagnosed very easily,” Woc-Colburn said, particularly once doctors have a good sense of a patient’s exposure history. Doctors generally know to look for it in patients who come in with headaches and seizures. (Kennedy first sought help after experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess, though he recently told the Times that those symptoms have since resolved and that he hadn’t received treatment for the parasite.) The infection is also treatable with standard antiparasitics. And caught early, it isn’t expected to leave lingering damage. In more serious cases, though, years of severe, unmanaged seizures can lead to certain cognitive defects.[Read: America’s never-ending battle against flesh-eating worms]None of this is to say that Kennedy definitely had NCC. All the public knows is that, in 2010, he said that he was battling neurological symptoms, and that an unusual blemish appeared on a brain scan. (The memory loss and mental fogginess may very well have been attributable to mercury poisoning from Kennedy’s diet at the time, which was high in tuna and perch, according to the same 2012 deposition.) Even if a parasite was definitely to blame, “at least six or seven” others could have ended up in his brain, Titanji told me. Like the pork-tapeworm larvae, several of them would have ended up there accidentally, only to die a quick death without gulping down any brain tissue.The most comforting news about NCC is that—again—it is uncommon in the United States. Still, now that this news has broken, Woc-Colburn worries that her clinic is going to fill up with people who think they’re afflicted. Given the odds, many of them will be wrong. If anyone’s really worried about their gray matter becoming lunch, they shouldn’t fear worms, but Naegleria fowleri, a rare amoeba that camps out in warm bodies of water. That one, I regret to report, really does eat your brain.
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theatlantic.com
Nicaragua cancels a controversial Chinese interoceanic canal concession after nearly a decade
Nicaragua's congress has canceled a controversial canal concession, granted years ago to a Chinese businessman, that would have linked the country's Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
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foxnews.com
Arizona county to build bridge over creek where 3 children drowned
Gila County, Arizona, is using a $21 million federal grant to construct a bridge over Tonto Creek, where three young children died in a 2019 incident.
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foxnews.com
GOP bill adding citizenship question to 2030 census passes House without a single Democrat
The House is eyeing multiple avenues for cracking down on how illegal immigration could affect U.S. elections, including adding a citizenship question to the census.
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foxnews.com
Legal expert disagrees with Trump defense team's strategy shift for Stormy Daniels
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig says he does not agree with the Trump defense team's decision to extend their cross-examination of Stormy Daniels and warns them about being too aggressive when questioning her.
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edition.cnn.com
Prince Harry celebrates Invictus Games at UK event while royal family attends garden party just miles away
Prince Harry marked the Invictus Games' 10th anniversary at a church service on Wednesday while King Charles and other royal family members attended a garden party two miles away.
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foxnews.com
Chynna Phillips says there were 'many curses' during 'painful and traumatic' upbringing
Chynna Phillips reflected on difficult feelings with a family member in a video diary, which triggered memories of "complex trauma" within her own unit.
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foxnews.com
UConn frat prez charged with assaulting pledge during hazing ritual: police
“He grabbed me by my uniform shirt that I had to wear, and he threw me across the room into wall.”
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nypost.com
Pete McCloskey, GOP congressman who once challenged Nixon, dies at 96
Former California Congressman Pete McCloskey, who ran as a Republican challenging President Richard Nixon in 1972, has died
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abcnews.go.com
The AP just showed it knows absolutely nothing about young Catholics
Last week, a big exposé on the state of American Catholicism did something I never would have expected from the mainstream media: It made the Church look good.
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nypost.com
An 87-year-old was brutally beaten to death. A guilty plea 2 years later.
Julias Wright, 27, pleaded guilty to murder in the killing of Johnny Lee Shepherd, which prosecutors alleged was over car damage.
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washingtonpost.com
Armenia's prime minister in Russia for talks amid strain in ties
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for talks after a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union they both attended earlier in the day.
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foxnews.com
The Tight Line Trump Has a Judge Walking
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Donald Trump is in his third week on trial in New York, where he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He’s accused of covering up a $130,000 hush-money payment made in 2016 to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who recently testified about her encounters with the former president. I spoke with Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham about where the case stands, Trump’s penchant for violating his gag order, and the bizarre nature of this trial.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: The nudes internet Trump’s latest abortion position is more radical than it sounds. “Listen to what they’re chanting,” Judith Shulevitz writes. Like an Ordinary CitizenStephanie Bai: To start off, let’s lay the groundwork for this trial. Can you briefly explain the case that the prosecutors are trying to make?David A. Graham: People talk about this as “the hush-money case,” but paying hush money is not itself illegal. What prosecutors are arguing is that Trump paid Stormy Daniels in exchange for her not talking about their alleged sexual relationship, and then falsified the business records to cover up that payment. They say that this constituted election interference because the goal was to keep knowledge of the relationship from voters during the 2016 election.The prosecution needs to establish that Trump was deeply involved in the creation and the payment of this hush-money agreement, because the defense is trying to say that Trump may not have been aware of the situation. When the prosecution questions people who worked in accounting at the Trump Organization, for example, they are trying to show that Trump was deeply involved in payments, deeply involved in the minutiae of the business—so he obviously would have been aware of a payout as big as $130,000.Stephanie: What is Trump’s defense team’s counterargument?David: They don’t deny that this money was paid, but they say that he didn’t falsify the records. They’re also trying to impugn the honesty of some of the witnesses. They mostly seem to be trying to pick apart aspects of the prosecution’s case rather than offering some sort of counternarrative.Stephanie: If the prosecution isn’t able to successfully prove that Trump was aware of the hush-money agreement, what does that mean for their case?David: If they can’t prove that Trump was involved, or if Trump’s lawyers can plausibly argue that he did this simply to protect his reputation or to protect his marriage rather than to interfere with the election, then the prosecutors will have a harder time getting the jury to convict.Stephanie: In defending comments Trump made about the trial, his attorney Todd Blanche said that Trump had a right to complain about the “two systems of justice.” In some ways, it seems like the prosecution is arguing two cases: the hush-money case, and the case for this being a legitimate, fair trial—and not the “political witch hunt” that Trump has called it. Let’s say that Trump ends up getting convicted. Do you think his supporters will accept that outcome?David: It depends on what that means. There was a poll yesterday saying that most people expect Trump to be convicted, and that includes a plurality of Republicans. So in that sense, they see what’s coming. But I think there’s a widespread sentiment that either he’s being prosecuted by Democrats who are out to get him or that what he did wasn’t wrong. If anything, the trial seems to be solidifying support within his base.Stephanie: At the core of this case is the extramarital affair Trump allegedly had during his marriage to Melania. Have we heard anything from her during this trial?David: We have not! Trump has brought a rotating posse with him to court, including not just his lawyers but also his aides, his campaign manager, and his son Eric. Melania has not been there. He complained that he had to be in court on her birthday, which is a little ironic given the alleged events that led to the case.Stephanie: Headlines and pundits have called this a “historic” and “unprecedented” trial, because it’s the first time a former president has gone to trial for criminal charges. Has this case set any precedents for how a criminal trial of a former president would proceed?David: This is not a legal precedent, but it’s been powerful to watch Trump have to show up in court when he clearly doesn’t want to be there, listen to testimony he doesn’t want to listen to, sit in this courtroom with a bad HVAC system, and endure it like an ordinary citizen. Even if he argues that he is above the rule of law, we are seeing him sit there like anyone else.Stephanie: Does the gag order, which has been imposed on Trump and bars him from attacking people involved in the trial, set any sort of precedent for presidential trials going forward?David: The gag order comes from Trump’s habit of attacking witnesses, the family of prosecutors and judges. I don’t know that you would get one of these as a standard practice with presidents. But each time you have a defendant who has that kind of history or who starts doing that, there’s a good chance of the gag order. Still, Trump has been able to exploit the weirdness of this case and get away with things that other defendants would not have.Stephanie: Can you say a bit more about how he’s exploited the weirdness of the case?David: Anytime he gets in trouble for saying something, he says, Look, I’m a politician running for office. I have to be able to make political speeches. It’s unfair for me to be muzzled. That’s something that the judge has had to figure out: How do you write a gag order that allows Trump to be a candidate but protects the witnesses and the sanctity of the case?To me, it also looks like Trump is daring the judge to jail him—like he concluded that getting sent to jail for a night or a weekend would actually help him politically. So the judge has to decide how much he protects the sanctity of the system by enforcing the gag order versus giving Trump an opportunity to undermine the system in an even bigger way by claiming political persecution.Stephanie: You wrote earlier this week that some of the best-sourced reporters in the courtroom are saying that Trump largely wants to avoid jail time. Is this a situation where Trump can spin either option in his favor?David: I think it’s very “heads I win, tails you lose.” If the judge lets him get away with it, he can talk all kinds of trash about the proceeding, and that’s a win for him because he wants to undermine the trial for political reasons. If he gets thrown in jail, I’m sure he would hate it, but it also gives him another political talking point.Stephanie: It seems like a very tight line for Judge Juan Merchan to walk.David: It’s really challenging. Every judge Trump has recently come before has had to deal with this in some way or another. They’re trying to figure out: How do we keep him in line without that becoming the story? They want the focus to be on the facts of the case. And that’s really hard to achieve with Trump, because he doesn’t want the focus to be on the facts.Related: The Stormy Daniels testimony spotlights Trump’s misogyny. Judge Merchan is out of good options. Today’s News Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said that President Joe Biden’s decision to pause weapons shipments to Israel was related to Israel’s plans to move forward with a large-scale offensive operation in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza. An appeals court in Georgia agreed to review the ruling that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the election-interference case against Trump after it was revealed that she had a romantic relationship with a prosecutor on her team. The New York Times reported that in a 2012 deposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a doctor told him that his memory loss and mental fogginess could be due to a worm in his brain that “ate a portion of it and then died.” Dispatches Work in Progress: No one knows what universities are for, Derek Thompson writes. Explore all of our newsletters here.Evening Read Illustration by Vartika Sharma for The Atlantic Ozempic or BustBy Daniel Engber In the early spring of 2020, Barb Herrera taped a signed note to a wall of her bedroom in Orlando, Florida, just above her pillow. Notice to EMS! it said. No vent! No intubation! She’d heard that hospitals were overflowing, and that doctors were being forced to choose which COVID patients they would try to save and which to abandon. She wanted to spare them the trouble. Barb was nearly 60 years old, and weighed about 400 pounds. She has type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and a host of other health concerns. At the start of the pandemic, she figured she was doomed. When she sent her list of passwords to her kids, who all live far away, they couldn’t help but think the same. “I was in an incredibly dark place,” she told me. “I would have died.” Read the full article.More From The Atlantic Taxpayers are about to subsidize a lot more sports stadiums. The absurdity of believing China’s great at protecting kids online Culture Break Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Teenie Harris Archive / Carnegie Museum of Art; Getty. Read. “When Nan Goldin Danced in Low-Life Go-Go Bars in Paterson, N.J.,” a poem by Rosa Alcalá:“While men fed her tips and she tucked them into her bikini, / a fist hit an eye in a house in Paterson, like a flash going off / in a dark kitchen. And in the corner, a girl stood watching.”Revisit an iconic photo. American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson, a book about Gordon Parks’s widely celebrated 1942 portrait of the government worker Ella Watson.Play our daily crossword.When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
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theatlantic.com
There is no stopping Rangers fans invading Carolina — even as Hurricanes try
The Hurricanes are not so terrified that owner Tom Dundon is purchasing tickets himself a la Sixers ownership.
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nypost.com
Newsom called the deployment of California Highway Patrol across cities 'unprecedented'
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week praised the "unprecedented" work done by the California Highway Patrol after he dispatched officers across the state to help combat organized retail theft rings and fentanyl trafficking.
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latimes.com
DOJ ‘Stonewalling’ House Ethics Committee Probe of Matt Gaetz
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty ImagesAs the House Ethics Committee probes allegations that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) paid for sex with an underage teen, congressional investigators are hitting a wall: The Department of Justice.The DOJ is “stonewalling” the committee and refusing to turn over relevant information about its own sprawling criminal probe into Gaetz, frustrating the pace of the congressional investigation and leading the committee to seriously consider issuing subpoenas to the feds, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Currently, the committee has authorized multiple subpoenas to the DOJ for the information but has not served them yet, according to one source. Another source added that it is unusual for the DOJ to push back against the committee to this extent, especially when the relevant investigation isn’t active.Read more at The Daily Beast.
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thedailybeast.com
House GOP caught off guard by effort to oust Speaker Johnson
Matt Gorman, Meghan Hays and CNN's Eva McKend speak with CNN's Jake Tapper
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edition.cnn.com
The US paused a weapons shipment to Israel. Is it a real shift in policy?
Palestinians walk around the rubble of buildings destroyed after an Israeli attack on the As Salam neighborhood in Rafah, Gaza, on May 6, 2024. | Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images The US has offered unconditional military aid to Israel throughout the war in Gaza. Israel’s operation in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza that houses more than a million displaced Palestinians, may have finally forced the Biden administration to do something it has been hesitant to do: pause a weapons shipment to Israel. The administration has been reluctant to restrict military aid to Israel in any way despite federal law requiring that it do so when members of a foreign military to which the US is providing aid commit gross human rights violations — something international organizations and individual nations have accused Israel of. But this week, US officials announced that they paused a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel — the first known instance of the US withholding military aid since the start of the war. “We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself, but that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. The decision comes as the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 34,000 and full-fledged famine has broken out in the north, with the rest of Gaza at famine risk in the coming months. A ceasefire agreement appeared within reach this week when Hamas announced that it had accepted a draft proposal negotiated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators that involved a release of all Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7 raid on Israel. Israel, however, refused that deal, saying the gaps in the negotiations remain wide. The Biden administration’s decision to pause the bomb shipment is a big step. “This action is welcome,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), who has advocated against sending weapons to Israel for anything but defensive purposes, told Vox. “That sends a message I hope the Netanyahu government hears loud and clear.” At the same time, the decision to pause a weapons shipment is so far only a one-time occurrence. However, if the US were to continue to withhold weapons from Israel, that could signal an actual shift in the US policy of offering unconditional support to Israel. Some foreign affairs experts say existing US laws meant to safeguard human rights, including what is known as the “Leahy law” and the Foreign Assistance Act, should have long ago restricted the flow of military assistance to Israel, even predating the war in Gaza. With Israel in mind, President Joe Biden also signed a new memorandum in February that requires countries receiving US security assistance to provide “credible and reliable written assurances” that they will use American military assistance in accordance with international law. Under that memorandum, the US government is expected to issue a formal decision as soon as this week as to whether Israel has committed human rights abuses through its airstrikes on Gaza and by curbing the delivery of humanitarian aid. Reports have varied on what that decision may be. Depending on the outcome, that could lead to further restrictions on US military aid to Israel. “Our weapons cannot be used in ways that violate international law or where the government is interfering with the ability of the US to provide humanitarian aid,” Welch said. “So if there’s a finding that there’s a violation, I would argue that means we’ve got to stop delivering those weapons.” But despite a longstanding record of human rights abuses, Israel remains the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid, and Biden has been clear in his intent to maintain the US’s “special relationship” with Israel that goes back decades. What we know about the bomb shipment The shipment reportedly included 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs. The administration is also reportedly considering halting an upcoming shipment of 6,500 munitions that convert unguided bombs (“dumb bombs”) into precision-guided bombs. The held shipment could still be released, depending on what Israel does next. US officials have expressed particular concern about how the 2,000-pound bombs could be used to inflict mass destruction in a dense urban area such as Rafah, as they already have in other parts of Gaza. Biden had personally urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to undertake the operation in Rafah because of its vast refugee population, and because the city provides the only route for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Netanyahu appears to be proceeding anyway, further straining the two men’s already icy relationship. Overall, Biden has rarely directly criticized Israel, with his expression of outrage following the killings of humanitarian workers for World Central Kitchen being one of the few occasions on which he has done so publicly. (Biden has reportedly had some strong criticisms of Netanyahu in private.) Israel has seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, meaning that the Israeli military now controls the flow of humanitarian aid at a time when hospitals in southern Gaza are days away from running out of fuel. About 50,000 Palestinians have evacuated from Rafah ahead of Israel’s operation there, but many more remain and there is no plan to ensure their safety. Why withholding weapons from Israel matters The decision to pause a weapons shipment is only a temporary administrative decision that isn’t tied to any law. But it is an indication that the US is attempting to exert its leverage over Israel — and perhaps enforce its laws protecting human rights — in a way it has not before. The US was already providing Israel with $4 billion annually through 2028 before Congress approved another $14.1 billion in supplemental aid last month. Seven months into the war in Gaza, Israel is increasingly reliant on that aid, having run down its own munitions stores already. Foreign military transfers like those sent to Israel go through numerous reviews and approval processes, involving the State Department, Pentagon, and Congress. They are also governed by a set of laws, including the Leahy law. First approved by Congress in 1997, that law’s purpose is to prevent the US from being implicated in serious crimes committed by foreign security forces that it supports, by cutting off aid to a specific unit if the US has credible information that the unit committed a gross violation of human rights. Such violations generally include torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, or rape, but can also be interpreted more broadly. No security forces, not even American ones, are entirely immune to committing such violations. Aid can be later reinstated if the State Department determines that the country is taking effective steps to bring responsible units to justice. Some former administration officials and congressional staff previously told Vox that the law has never had teeth against Israel, despite what human rights experts, both in and outside of the US government, have identified as substantive evidence that Israel has committed human rights violations both before and during the current war in Gaza. In one 2022 case, for example, a UN investigation found that Israeli forces killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist who worked for Al Jazeera, while she was covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank and was wearing a blue vest that read “Press.” Immediately following her killing, Israeli officials argued that she had been “filming and working for a media outlet amidst armed Palestinians” and may have been killed by stray Palestinian fire, something that those on the scene rebutted. Israel later admitted that she was likely killed by Israeli fire, but ruled her death accidental and never charged the soldiers involved. Some Senate Democrats, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), have recently asked the Department of Defense to address concerns that the Leahy law is not being consistently applied to Israel. “Not a single incident resulted in the denial of assistance to any unit of the IDF,” the senators wrote in a letter. “In order for the United States to protect our own national security interests and maintain credibility as a global leader of human rights, we must apply the law equally.” The weapons shipment pause could be a first step in ensuring that Leahy is equitably applied.
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vox.com
Pratt Institute professors narrowly reject resolution to boycott Israel after trying to hold vote on Passover
Pratt Institute's faculty governing body narrowly rejected a series of resolutions to have the prestigious Brooklyn-based arts college boycott Israel.
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nypost.com
Disney, Warner Bros. join forces to offer streaming bundle of Disney+, Hulu and Max
Both companies are trying to build their streaming businesses as customers ditch traditional cable.
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nypost.com
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass says UCLA violence reminded her of Jan. 6 attack on Capitol
The Los Angeles mayor has criticized the university for lacking a better security plan, which led to the attack by a violent mob of counterprotesters on an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
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latimes.com
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s effort to get on more state ballots
CNN's Eva McKend reports on The Lead
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edition.cnn.com
Lawmakers grill school leaders on antisemitism in K-12
Franklin Foer speaks with CNN's Jake Tapper
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edition.cnn.com
Ex-KKK poster child R Derek Black quietly comes out as trans in new memoir: report
R Derek Black said that they were "quite happy about being often perceived as a girl" during childhood.
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nypost.com
Cindy Adams pays tribute to her beloved mom for Mother’s Day: ‘The core of my being’
Post columnist Cindy Adams remembers her late mother Jessica ahead of Mother's Day.
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nypost.com
Friend of Stormy Daniels joins The Lead
Alana Evans speaks with CNN's Jake Tapper
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edition.cnn.com
North Macedonia elects first woman president as center-left incumbents suffer historic losses
North Macedonia's Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova has been elected as the country's first woman president; she received close to 65% support with the majority of the vote counted in a presidential runoff.
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foxnews.com
Biden vows to withhold weapons from Israel if Netanyahu goes forward with Rafah invasion
In an interview with CNN, President Biden said he would withhold weapons from Israel if the Jewish State went forward with its invasion of the highly-populated city of Rafah.
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foxnews.com
Biden warns US will not supply weapons for Israel’s offensive attack on Hamas-controlled Rafah
WASHINGTON — President Biden said Wednesday that "I'm not supplying the weapons" if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward with a full attack on the Hamas-controlled city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
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nypost.com