Tag: US & Canada

Key takeaways from day 18 of Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial | Donald Trump News

In New York, the fifth week of Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money trial has drawn to a close, as disbarred lawyer Michael Cohen testified for a third day about his interactions with the former United States president.

But Trump’s defence team again took the opportunity to try to poke holes in Cohen’s testimony on Thursday, blasting his credibility, his motivations and even his recollection of key events in the criminal case.

Cohen, formerly a member of Trump’s inner circle, is the prosecution’s star witness — and likely the last it will call before resting its case.

The former lawyer has alleged that Trump, a former Republican president and current presidential candidate, orchestrated a scheme to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 race.

Daniels maintained she had an affair with Trump, and prosecutors say she was poised to sell her story to the press when Trump, through Cohen, bought her silence for $130,000.

The payment, they allege, was aimed at suppressing negative coverage during the 2016 presidential election, which Trump eventually won. The Republican politician was already facing scrutiny at the time for an audio recording in which he described grabbing women by their genitals.

Cohen himself previously pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations related to the hush-money payment.

But Trump has denied the charges against him as well as the affair itself. He faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the case, one of four ongoing criminal indictments against him.

He is the first US president, past or present, to face criminal charges. Here are the highlights from day 18 of the trial:

Michael Cohen departs his apartment building on his way to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York on May 16 [Andres Kudacki/AP Photo]

Defence questions Cohen’s motives

Straight away on Thursday, the defence resumed its attacks on Cohen, probing the disbarred lawyer for evidence that he was motivated by personal animus against Trump.

Early in the day’s proceedings, they confronted Cohen with recordings of his own voice, clipped from a 2020 podcast, showing the former lawyer relishing the prospect of a Trump conviction.

The recording captured Cohen saying he hoped “this man ends up in prison” and will “rot inside for what he did to me and my family”.

“It won’t bring back the year that I lost or the damage done to my family. But revenge is a dish best served cold,” Cohen said in one clip.

In another moment, he said, “You better believe that I want this man to go down.”

The audio clips painted a stark contrast with Cohen’s relatively demure behaviour on the witness stand: In the podcasts, he was animated, speaking at a furious pace that was punctuated by expletives.

The defence also sought to underscore why Cohen felt such hatred for his former boss. Lawyer Todd Blanche implied Cohen was angling for a White House position as chief of staff — and was ultimately disappointed.

“The truth is, Mr Cohen, you really wanted to work in the White House, correct?” Blanche asked Cohen.

“No, sir,” Cohen replied, later saying Blanche was not “characterising” his motivations correctly.

Lauren Boebert and other Republican politicians gather to give a press conference outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse
US Representative Lauren Boebert attends a news conference outside the courtroom with other Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump [David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Reuters]

Cohen testifies to lying under oath

Cohen remains a key pillar of the prosecution’s case, as the only witness who can testify to certain private discussions about the hush-money payment at the centre of the trial.

So the defence on Thursday continued to batter his credibility, asking him to revisit moments when he lied under oath, in order to cast doubt on his current testimony.

Blanche, for example, raised the fact that Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying before Congress about a failed attempt to build a version of Trump Tower in Moscow.

“You lied under oath, correct?” Blanche asked Cohen, who responded: “Yes, sir.”

Cohen has long maintained he lied at the time out of loyalty to Trump.

Blanche also pressed Cohen on statements he made indicating he felt pressure to plead guilty when faced with the 2018 charges, which included tax evasion and campaign finance violations.

When defendants plead guilty in court, they must affirm they made the plea of their own volition. Blanche used that point to ask Cohen: Did he lie under oath when he said he pleaded guilty of his own free will?

“That was not true,” Cohen said.

In addition, the defence highlighted instances where Cohen used artificial intelligence to generate fake legal citations in a court application, again calling into question the former lawyer’s reliability.

Former US President Donald Trump exits the courtroom during a break at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on May 16 [Jeenah Moon/Pool via Reuters]

Defence challenges Cohen’s testimony

Having raised questions about Cohen’s trustworthiness, the defence zeroed in on key moments from his testimony for the prosecution.

Cohen, for instance, testified earlier this week that he called Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller in October 2016 as a means of reaching Trump himself.

The call, Cohen explained, was about the “Stormy Daniels situation” and the hush-money payment they planned to transfer to her lawyer.

But on Thursday, Trump’s defence questioned if that was the real reason Cohen was in touch with Schiller at the time. Blanche, the defence lawyer, suggested that Cohen was instead seeking Schiller’s help to deal with a 14-year-old who had been making harassing calls to his phone.

Blanche showed the jury text messages Cohen wrote to Schiller on the same night as the 2016 conversation, saying, “Who can I speak to about harassing calls to my cell and office?”

He proceeded to ask Cohen if his description of the 2016 phone conversation “was a lie” and whether the focus was on the harassing calls, not on hush money.

“Part of it was about the phone calls, but I knew that Keith was with Mr Trump at the time, and it was more than potentially just this,” Cohen responded.

After a break, Blanche questioned Cohen about how he could recollect specific details from so long ago.

“These phone calls are things I’ve been talking about for the last six years,” Cohen said in reply. “They were and are extremely important, and they were all-consuming.”

Lawyers meet with Judge Juan Merchan during one of many sidebars held during day 18 of Donald Trump’s trial [Jane Rosenberg/Reuters]

The prosecution struck back multiple times at the defence’s assertions, punctuating the cross-examination with objections and requests for “sidebar” conversations with the judge.

But the defence proceeded to try to undermine the prosecution’s central narrative, that Trump tried to conceal the hush-money payment to Daniels as part of a broader effort to influence the 2016 election.

Rather, Blanche tried to frame the actions as ordinary legal maneouvres.

He presented Cohen with a copy of the nondisclosure agreement Daniels signed and noted Trump’s signature was nowhere to be found on it. Then he asked Cohen, “In your mind, then and now, this is a perfectly legal contract, correct?”

Cohen agreed. “Yes, sir.”

He also had Cohen confirm that nondisclosure agreements were a regular practice in business law.

Blanche further questioned whether the hush-money payments had anything to do with the 2016 election at all.

He pointed to past statements Cohen made about a separate hush-money payment made to a doorman, saying that Trump was “concerned” about the doorman’s story because “it involved people that still worked with him and worked for him”.

The defence also raised comments where Cohen echoed Trump’s allegation that Daniels was extorting him for money to keep quiet.

“In your mind, there were two choices: pay or don’t pay and the story comes out,” Blanche asked Cohen, who replied with his usual, “Yes, sir.”

The cross-examination of Cohen is set to resume on Monday. Trump had requested the trial take a recess on Friday to allow him to attend the graduation of his youngest son, Barron.

Representative Matt Gaetz, centre, leads a news conference on May 16 in support of Donald Trump, while a protester holds up a sign that calls him and the other Republicans present ‘bootlickers’ [Andrew Kelly/Reuters]

Trump surrogates crowd the court

As much as Cohen was in the spotlight during the day’s proceedings, so too were the gaggle of Republican lawmakers who accompanied Trump to court.

Trump is famous for demanding loyalty from his fellow Republicans — and so, as the trial stretches on, several prominent politicians have made the pilgrimage to the Manhattan Criminal Court to show their support.

On Thursday, that entourage included no fewer than nine members of the US House of Representatives, including Florida firebrand Matt Gaetz, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and Arizona’s Andy Biggs.

In fact, so many members of the House Oversight Committee were in attendance that a vote was delayed to allow them to fly back from New York to Washington, DC.

That vote concerns a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for failing to turn over audio recordings related to another Trump case, this time pertaining to his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

While in New York, though, several of the representatives took the opportunity to denounce the myriad legal troubles facing Trump.

Gaetz, for instance, described Trump as the “Mr Potato Head of crimes”, a reference to a children’s toy with interchangeable parts.

He explained that prosecutors “had to stick together a bunch of things that did not belong together” to cobble together a case against the ex-president.

Gaetz also sparked criticism for a social media post he made on Thursday morning, showing him watching Trump enter the courtroom.

“Standing back and standing by, Mr President,” Gaetz wrote.

Critics pointed out that his words echoed a statement Trump made in 2020 when asked in a televised debate about white supremacist groups and far-right militias like the Proud Boys.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said at the time. He later denied knowing who the Proud Boys were. Senior members of the group have since been found guilty and sentenced to prison for their participation in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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India’s income inequality widens, should wealth be redistributed? | Business and Economy

Rising income inequality is a hot topic dominating the national elections.

India is the fastest-growing major economy in the world. But, the benefits of India’s growth are not trickling down to poor people. The richest 1 percent of the population owns 40 percent of the country’s wealth.

The inequality gap has widened sharply under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power. It is now a flashpoint in the country’s national elections, with hot topics including inheritance taxes and wealth redistribution.

Also, how much does the United States spend on foreign aid and does the funding help boost global stability?

Plus, why has Zambia banned charcoal production permits?

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NBA playoffs: Celtics fight past Cavs to enter finals, Mavs beat Thunder | Basketball

Boston complete a 4-1 series win over Cleveland with a 113-98 win before Dallas beat Oklahoma City 104-92.

The Boston Celtics overpowered the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-98 to reach a third straight Eastern Conference finals as Western Conference top seeds Oklahoma City moved to the brink of elimination after crashing 104-92 at home to Dallas.

Jayson Tatum’s 25 points helped the Celtics subdue an injury-hit Cavs lineup to complete a 4-1 win in the best-of-seven series in Boston on Wednesday.

The Eastern Conference top seeds will face either the Indiana Pacers or the New York Knicks for a place in the NBA Finals.

But while Boston continued their progress, Oklahoma City’s playoff campaign is hanging by a thread after their damaging defeat to Dallas.

Mavericks star Luka Doncic led from the front with a triple-double, finishing with 31 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists.

The Mavs lead the series 3-2 and can clinch a place in the Western Conference finals with victory in Game 6 back in Dallas on Saturday.

“We just got one more to win out of two games, and that’s it,” Doncic said. “It’s 3-2, but that’s nothing. We’ve got to finish it and go with the same mentality.”

Doncic had been furious after the Mavs surrendered the initiative in a Game 4 loss in Texas on Sunday, but said a more relaxed approach had been the key to Wednesday’s commanding effort.

“Sometimes I forget that I love to play basketball, it’s the thing I do,” Doncic said. “My mental focus was just to go out there with a smile on my face and play basketball.”

Doncic was given offensive support from Derrick Jones Jr with 19 points, while three other players made double figures.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder scorers with 30 points, eight assists and six rebounds.

‘Battle-tested’ Celtics want to go all the way

Earlier, Cleveland’s hopes of clawing their way back into their series with Boston were rocked before the game after confirmation that three of their top six players – Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert – were out with injuries.

But Cleveland shrugged off that setback to produce a battling performance that saw them get within three points of the Celtics midway through the fourth quarter.

Evan Mobley was superb for Cleveland, pouring in a game-high 33 points while Marcus Morris Sr added 25 off the bench.

Yet just when Celtics fans at the TD Garden were nervously wondering if a shock defeat was on the cards, Boston stitched together a decisive 13-2 run – crowned by a three-pointer from Tatum – that left them ahead by 14 points at 101-87.

Tatum, who also added 10 rebounds and nine assists, said Boston had prepared for a dogfight despite Cleveland’s injury-stricken lineup.

“Anybody who’s played in this league understands what happens when somebody’s best players are out,” Tatum said. “The rest of the guys have more freedom, they play with a different level of confidence and they play different.

“Our mindset coming into this game was, ‘However long it takes, that’s how long it takes’. We didn’t expect to win the game in the first or second quarter. We grinded it out.”

Tatum said Boston were now determined to snap their dismal recent record in the Eastern Conference finals. Boston have lost in the Eastern Conference finals in four of five appearances since the 2016-17 season.

“Each year presents different challenges,” Tatum said. “Myself and the rest of the crew have been to the conference finals something like four or five times.

“We’re battle-tested. We know what it takes. We just have to put the individual things aside and try and get over that hump.”

Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum celebrates with a fan after the Celtics defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals [Charles Krupa/AP]



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Who benefits from US tariffs on Chinese imports? Experts weigh in | US Election 2024 News

The trade war between the United States and China continued this week with its latest salvo – a move that comes amid a heated race for the White House.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden announced tariff hikes on imports of various Chinese goods, worth $18bn.

Lithium-ion batteries make up $13bn of the total imports, while certain steel and aluminium products, as well as items like medical gloves and syringes, accounted for the remaining $5bn.

Experts say tariffs on these products will likely have limited effects on consumer goods prices and economic growth. The greater gain, they say, may lie at the ballot box, as Biden jockeys for a second term in the White House.

“These tariffs are very much on the margins, and the impacts on the economy will be a rounding error,” Bernard Yaros, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, told Al Jazeera.

While the tariffs do not change much for the US economy, it is still “good politics to do this”, especially during an election year, Yaros added.

Projecting strength

The US is set to hold a presidential vote in November, and Biden is expected to face his predecessor, former Republican President Donald Trump, in a tightly fought race.

Trump has long sought to project a tough-man image, particularly in foreign policy and the economy, while framing his Democratic rival as “weak”. Biden, however, has sought to deflect that criticism by imposing policies that, in some cases, build on Trump’s.

A January paper (PDF) from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that tariffs can pay political dividends, even if they do not translate into “substantial job gains”.

The paper looked at the period from 2018 to 2019, when Trump slapped stiff tariffs on China and other countries, targeting products like aluminium, washing machines and solar panels.

It found that residents in US regions that were more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats and more likely to vote Republican.

The report concluded that voters “responded favourably” to the tariffs “despite their economic cost”, which came in the form of retaliatory tariffs from China.

“Tariffs are good politics, even though the economics don’t work,” Yaros said.

Appealing to the Rust Belt

Biden and Trump are in a neck-and-neck race, with some polls showing the Republican candidate edging out the incumbent in key swing states.

A poll this week found that former US President Donald Trump had an advantage in a few pivotal states over President Biden [File: Brendan McDermid and Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters]

A poll this week from the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer, for instance, found that Trump had an advantage in pivotal states like Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.

Biden appeared in one of those states, Pennsylvania, last month to announce his intention to triple tariffs on Chinese steel. Pennsylvania is part of the Rust Belt, a region historically known for manufacturing, and the state itself is famed for steel production.

Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Biden has also sought to protect other US industries, like its burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector.

His new trade rules will ensure that the US cannot directly import EVs made in China, Setser explained.

He added that China has built a competitive EV industry on the back of deep government subsidies and could flood the global and US markets with cheap cars if it was not for such measures.

“China, with its significant auto needs, provided a lot of subsidies to its EV industry that has led to this strength,” said Setser.

“It needs to recognise that the US and Europe will use some of these techniques [of subsidies and tariffs] to build their own industries. It’s unrealistic for China to object to other countries doing the same thing.”

Protecting the American auto industry will also help Biden in the polls. The sector is historically centred in Michigan, another key battleground state where Biden has recently faced backlash.

Michigan is the birthplace of the “uncommitted” movement, which encouraged Democrats to withhold their votes from Biden during the primaries and cast ballots for the “uncommitted” option instead.

The protest was seen as a part of a broader, largely progressive backlash to Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Looking ahead to November

However, the experts who spoke to Al Jazeera questioned whether Biden’s newly announced tariffs would move the needle at election time.

The US imported $427bn in goods from China in 2023, but it only exported $148bn to the country in return, according to the US Census Bureau.

That trade gap has persisted for decades and become an ever more sensitive subject in Washington, particularly as China competes with the US to be the world’s largest economy.

While the trans-Pacific trade has benefitted both countries – providing cheap goods to American consumers and a large market to Chinese manufacturers – it remains a contentious issue, especially at election time, because of a history of US manufacturing jobs moving overseas.

US politicians have also raised concerns over privacy, as Chinese technology enters the North American market.

Although China has promised retaliation for the latest round of tariffs, experts say it will likely be symbolic as the US tariffs themselves are very targeted.

“We don’t assume the retaliation will be anything disruptive,” said Yaros. “They’re not going to up the ante. That’s not been their MO [modus operandi] in the past when the US has imposed tariffs.”

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California university will heed student call to boycott Israel institutions | Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions News

Sonoma State University, a public school in northern California, has said that it will not enter partnerships with Israeli universities, heeding a call from pro-Palestine student groups pushing to boycott Israeli companies and institutions amid the war in Gaza.

The decision, announced on Tuesday, comes after a recent wave of campus protests spread across the United States, with encampments and demonstrations cropping up at schools like Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

As part of their demands, student activists aimed to sever school ties with academic bodies and companies perceived as complicit in Israel’s war and decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territory.

In an email to students on Tuesday, Sonoma State’s president, Mike Lee, said the school had reached an agreement with the protesters, who set up an on-campus encampment three weeks ago.

Sonoma State would do more to disclose its contracts and seek “divestment strategies”, Lee wrote. It would also not pursue partnerships that are “sponsored by, or represent, the Israeli state academic and research institutions”.

In exchange for the concessions, student activists agreed to dismantle the cluster of tents on campus by Wednesday evening.

Many universities have responded to the demands of antiwar activists with police crackdowns on encampments. But those efforts have done little to dim calls for divestment, and campus activists have likened their efforts to historic student protests against the Vietnam War and apartheid South Africa.

Several pro-Palestine university encampments have disbanded after negotiations over divestment demands with administrators.

In late April, for instance, protesters took down their tents at Brown University in Rhode Island, after the Ivy League school’s board of governors agreed to consider divestment in a vote this October.

However, calls for divestment can be controversial in the US, where Israel enjoys strong political backing.

Israel receives $3.8bn in military aid from the US every year, and US lawmakers have, with the encouragement of pro-Israel groups, moved to penalise and even criminalise calls to boycott Israel.

In Texas, for instance, Republican Governor Greg Abbott responded to students’ divestment demands directly, saying earlier this month, “This will NEVER happen.” Under his leadership, the state passed a law that prohibits government entities from contracting with firms that boycott Israel.

Backlash to Sonoma State decision

Jewish groups and a handful of state politicians have likewise condemned Sonoma State’s decision, saying that it represents an attack on Israel and the Jewish community.

Some tied the university’s decision to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which seeks to pressure Israel into protecting Palestinian rights through nonviolent means. It also aims to draw attention to companies seen as complicit in rights abuses in the Palestinian territory.

BDS’s critics, however, consider the movement anti-Semitic for its targeting of Israeli companies and groups.

“Yesterday the President of Sonoma State University aligned the campus with BDS, a movement whose goal is the destruction of Israel, home to 7M Jews,” California state Senator Scott Wiener said in a social media post on Wednesday.

In another post, the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area said the decision by Sonoma State was in “clear violation” of California’s 2016 anti-BDS law. It called on the chancellor of the California State University system — of which Sonoma State is a member — to “rectify” the situation.

However, free speech advocacy groups say that anti-BDS laws suppress criticism of Israel and conflate scrutiny over Israel’s alleged human rights abuses with anti-Semitism.

Protecting students and free speech

The campus protests like the one at Sonoma State have fuelled debate over the distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-Jewish hate.

It also has raised concerns about how to protect free speech rights on campus, while addressing the discomfort some students have expressed towards the protests.

Student protesters have sought to shine a light on the plight facing Palestinian civilians, particularly since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza on October 7.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the intervening months, with approximately 1.5 million people internally displaced.

The war has also pushed parts of the Palestinian territory into a state of “full-blown famine“. United Nations experts have warned of a “risk of genocide” in the enclave.

But even before the start of the current war, rights groups like Amnesty International have concluded that Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territory constitute the crime of apartheid.

Still, while the vast majority of pro-Palestine campus protests have been peaceful, fears of anti-Semitism at universities have been running high.

Shortly after the war began in October, for instance, a report emerged that a 24-year-old Jewish student had been assaulted with a stick at the Columbia University campus in New York.

Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, was called before a congressional committee last month to answer questions about the alleged instances of anti-Semitism on her campus, though several US representatives questioned the narrow focus of the hearing.

“Anti-Semitism is not the only form of hatred rising in our schools,” Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat, told the committee.

“Islamophobia and hate crimes against LGBTQ students have also recently spiked. They’ve led to deaths by suicide, harassment. But this committee has not held a single hearing on these issues.”

Indeed, advocates say pro-Palestine protesters have also been subject to a spike in harassment since the war began. At UCLA, for instance, counter-protesters attacked an antiwar encampment, and observers later reported that campus police waited to intervene.

The episode led critics to question which students were being protected — and why.



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Rafah, US arms, UNRWA: How Biden defends supporting Israel amid Gaza war | Israel War on Gaza News

Washington, DC – “It’s wrong,” United States President Joe Biden said last week of the ongoing Israeli offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, pledging to stop supplying offensive weapons if the assault proceeds.

One week later, however, Israeli forces have seized the Rafah border crossing and pushed into the city, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering. Still, US media reported on Tuesday that Biden plans to advance a $1bn arms transfer to Israel, including tank shells.

Advocates say the apparent contradiction — between pressuring Israel to stop its offensive, then offering further weaponry — is part of a broader pattern whereby the US says one thing but does another.

“We’ve got a situation where the rhetoric is not matching the action,” said Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the advocacy group Friends Committee on National Legislation. “It’s obviously distressing seeing the US complicity in these horrific war crimes.”

Biden’s statements one week prior signalled to some advocates that Washington may finally use its leverage to pressure Israel to end its abuses against Palestinians.

In a CNN interview, the president said he would stop the transfer of artillery shells to Israel in the case of a Rafah invasion, and his administration ultimately withheld one shipment of heavy bombs over the assault.

But advocates say the media reports of the $1bn transfer raises questions about Biden’s commitment to protecting civilians in Rafah — and standing up to Israel, its longtime ally.

Here, Al Jazeera looks at how the Biden administration presents its policies to overcome legal and political questions about its unconditional support for Israel.

Rafah invasion

Claim: The US government says Israel has not launched a major invasion of Rafah.

“We believe that what we’re seeing right now is a targeted operation. That’s what Israel has told us. We have not seen a major operation moving forward,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday.

Fact: The Israeli offensive in Rafah has so far displaced 450,000 Palestinians from the city and further strained the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, raising fears of catastrophic consequences.

While Israeli troops have not entered the dense urban centre of Rafah, Israel’s tanks have been pushing deeper into the city. Last week, the State Department acknowledged that theoretically “a series of limited operations” can constitute “one large one”.

“It’s not credible to say that the Rafah offensive has not started. From everything we’re seeing, the Rafah invasion is happening. And it should have already crossed that red line,” El-Tayyab told Al Jazeera.

Ceasefire

Claim: The Biden administration says it is pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, often blaming Hamas for rejecting proposals to reach a deal to halt the fighting.

“Israel put a forward-leaning proposal on the table for a ceasefire and hostage deal,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday. “The world should be calling on Hamas to come back to the table and accept a deal.”

Fact: The US has vetoed three separate ceasefire draft resolutions at the United Nations Security Council and voted against two at the General Assembly.

Hamas has accepted a deal put forward by Qatar and Egypt that would lead to a lasting ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives in Gaza and a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The Israeli government rejected it.

“What we need is a permanent ceasefire now to end this mass killing, and we need to move towards a resolution of the deeper issues of this horrible conflict,” El-Tayyab said.

International humanitarian law violations

Claim: The US says it cannot definitively determine whether Israel is using American weapons to violate international law.

The Biden administration issued a report last week saying that Israel offered “credible and reliable” assurances that US arms are not being deployed to commit abuses.

Fact: Rights groups have documented numerous violations of international humanitarian law by the Israeli military, which extensively uses US weapons. Those reports include evidence of indiscriminate bombing, torture and targeting civilians.

“There’s a version of reality that this administration would like people to believe in. And then there is a version of reality that people have been actually watching for months now in Gaza, with horrific images of the killing of civilians, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the starvation of an entire population,” Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer told Al Jazeera.

“And these two realities don’t line up at all. And so, I don’t know what audience this theatre is intended for. But I can’t imagine it being persuasive to anybody really.”

Leahy Law

Claim: The Biden administration says it applies the “same standards” to Israel in enforcing the Leahy Law, which prohibits assistance to foreign military units that commit abuses.

Last month, the US State Department said it would not suspend aid to any Israeli battalions despite acknowledging that five units had engaged in gross violations of human rights.

Washington said four of the battalions had taken remedial steps to address the abuses, and the US is engaging with Israel over the fifth unit.

Fact: Experts say the US has a special process in applying the Leahy Law to Israel, giving the country more time and leeway to address allegations of abuse.

“They have made the determination that the unit has been engaged in gross violations and that the host country has failed to remediate,” Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told Al Jazeera last week.

“And they still have not cut off that unit. That is an admission that the secretary of state is violating US law.”

De-funding UNRWA

Claim: The Biden administration says it cut off funding to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) to “comply with the law”.

The law in question is a government funding bill that Congress passed in March, banning aid to UNRWA.

The UN agency provides vital services to millions of Palestinians across the Middle East and has played a leading role in aid delivery in Gaza.

Fact: Biden supported the funding legislation and signed it into law. Washington had also suspended its assistance to the agency weeks before the bill was approved, following Israeli allegations of links between UNRWA and Hamas.

Last month, an independent review of UNRWA, commissioned by the UN, found that Israel did not provide credible evidence to back its accusations.

“Our political process has chosen to cut US funding to literally the only entity that can address the level of suffering and scale of suffering that’s happening in Gaza right now,” Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), told Al Jazeera earlier this year.

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Another Biden administration staffer resigns over US stance on Gaza war | Israel War on Gaza News

Lily Greenberg Call says she cannot ‘in good conscience’ represent the US gov’t, condemns ‘disastrous’ Gaza policy.

Another staffer in United States President Joe Biden’s administration has publicly resigned in protest of the US’s continued support for Israel amid its war on Gaza, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the US Interior Department, wrote in her resignation letter that she could not “in good conscience continue to represent” the administration, AP reported on Wednesday.

Call, who is Jewish, also condemned comments Biden has made since the Gaza war began in October, including one where he warned “there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe” without the existence of Israel.

“He is making Jews the face of the American war machine. And that is so deeply wrong,” she told the news agency in an interview.

A handful of Biden administration officials and appointees – including a former US Army officer – have publicly stepped down over the US’s Gaza policy since the conflict began on October 7.

The resignations have come amid widespread anger in the country about Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel, despite the mounting death toll in the Gaza Strip and accusations that Israeli forces are committing genocide against Palestinians in the enclave.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict began, and Israel’s continued assault and siege on the territory has created a dire humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced.

But despite the dire toll of Israel’s military offensive, and a recent decision to pause one US weapons shipment to Israel, the Biden administration signalled this week that it plans to send another $1bn in military assistance to Israel.

The news drew condemnation from rights advocates, who for months have urged Washington to suspend all weapons transfers to its top Middle East ally.

A recent US Department of State report found that Israeli forces likely used US-supplied weapons in a manner “inconsistent” with international law. However, it stopped short of identifying violations that would put an end to Washington’s ongoing military aid.

On Wednesday, Josh Paul – a former State Department official who resigned in October over the US’s Gaza policy – said the latest Biden administration resignation signalled that “the tide is turning”.

Paul noted in a post on LinkedIn that US university students, Democratic Party voters, as well as Biden’s own staff and political appointees have all made clear they are opposed to his Middle East policy.

The US president, who is seeking re-election in November, faces growing disapproval among key segments of his Democratic base over his Gaza stance.

Young people, progressives, and voters of colour, among others, have said they would not vote for him in the upcoming elections if he does not change tack.

“How many more Palestinian lives will it take before President Biden catches up to the American electorate and ceases American support to the war crimes being committed with our funding, with our arms, by Israel?” Paul wrote.

Call, the staffer who resigned from the Interior Department, also said Israel’s Gaza war and US support for it were “disastrous”.

“I think the president has to know that there are people in his administration who think this is disastrous,” Call told The Associated Press. “Not just for Palestinians, for Israelis, for Jews, for Americans, for his election prospects.”

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‘Make my day’: Biden challenges Trump to two debates ahead of November vote | US Election 2024 News

United States President Joe Biden has challenged his Republican rival and predecessor Donald Trump to two debates before November’s election but said he would bypass a traditional debate schedule set by a bipartisan commission.

“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then, he hasn’t shown up to a debate,” Biden said in a video posted on social media on Wednesday morning. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”

Biden called on Trump to join him for two televised presidential debates in June and September.

The Democratic president also took a swipe at Trump’s legal troubles in the video with a reference to the weekly break in Trump’s hush money trial in New York. “So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden said.

His proposal, outlined in a letter and a video, called for direct negotiations between the Trump and Biden campaigns over the rules, network hosts and moderators for the one-on-one meetings.

Trump responded swiftly, writing on his Truth Social media platform that he is “Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe” on the proposed dates.

“I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds – That’s only because he doesn’t get them,” Trump wrote.

“Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’”

Biden later confirmed that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27, and challenged Trump to attend.

“Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place,” he wrote in a social media post.

Fox News reported that Trump intends to accept the invitation.

Most polls show a tight race between Biden and Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.

Experts said the contest will likely come down to how the candidates fare in critical swing states, such as Michigan, Georgia and Nevada.

But there is also widespread frustration that the choice this election cycle is the same as in 2020 when Biden defeated the then-incumbent Trump to win the White House.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found nearly half of all registered voters said they would replace both Biden and Trump on the ballot if they could.

About two-thirds of respondents said they had little to no confidence that Biden is physically fit enough to be president while a similar number said they did not believe Trump would act ethically in office.

“It is Election 2.0,” Jan Leighley, a political science professor at American University in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera this month.

“I think that creates a disincentive for voting, which again comes back on the campaigns to convince people that, even though it’s the same choice, there’s still a reason to vote.”

Both candidates also face serious challenges before the election.

Trump is currently in court on accusations he falsified business documents to conceal hush money payments made to an adult film star – one of four criminal indictments against the former president.

Biden, for his part, has faced widespread criticism and public anger for his support of Israel during the Gaza war with key segments of his Democratic Party base saying they would not vote for him if he doesn’t change his stance.

Trump, who refused to debate his rivals in the Republican primary race, has in recent weeks been challenging Biden to engage in a one-on-one match-up, offering to debate the incumbent Democrat “anytime, anywhere, anyplace”.

On Wednesday, the Biden campaign explained its decision to eschew the traditional debate schedule in a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit that has sponsored US presidential debates since 1988.

“The Commission’s schedule has debates that begin after the American people have a chance to cast their vote early, and doesn’t conclude until after tens of millions of Americans will have already voted,” the campaign wrote.

It also said the commission’s model of holding debates with large, in-person audiences “simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates”.



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US plans to send $1bn in new military aid to Israel: Reports | Israel War on Gaza News

Request for tank ammunition, tactical vehicles for Israel despite Biden’s earlier pause on bombs over Rafah assault.

The Biden administration has told Congress that it plans to send a $1bn package of military aid to Israel, according to media reports, despite the United States’s opposition to a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza and concerns about rising civilian deaths.

The US Department of State on Tuesday moved the package into the congressional review process, Reuters news agency reported, citing two unnamed US officials.

The package, which is yet to be approved, includes about $700m for tank ammunition, $500m in tactical vehicles and $60m in mortar rounds, congressional aides told The Associated Press news agency.

The approval request for the transfer of lethal weapons comes a week after President Joe Biden paused a single shipment of bombs because of concerns over Israel’s offensive in Rafah, in the southernmost tip of Gaza, from where the United Nations says close to half a million displaced people have fled.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said the new package “is being presented as the long-term US commitment to supplying Israel with weaponry”.

“We are being told that it is something that has been under consideration since mid-spring. It could take many months, up to three years to supply all of these weapons to Israel,” he said.

“But again, it is a long-term commitment. That’s how it is being presented. This is not necessarily connected to what is happening right now [in Gaza].”

A recent State Department report found that Israeli forces likely used US-supplied weapons in a manner “inconsistent” with international law. However, it stopped short of identifying violations that would put an end to Washington’s ongoing military aid.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said on Wednesday that the Israeli army has intensified its attacks by land and air in Rafah and Jabalia in the north of the territory.

“Over the past couple of hours, we have recorded more victims in central areas of Gaza City. Ten Palestinians have been killed in the city’s Sabra neighbourhood after a UN-run clinic was targeted by Israeli jets,” he said.

Nearly 450,000 people had been forcibly displaced from Rafah since May 6, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement on Tuesday. Another 100,000 people have evacuated from the north in the face of fierce new attacks.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 35,173 people have been killed and 79,061 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

Rafah invasion

Biden said last week that he had delayed a shipment of 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs to Israel over concerns they might be used for the invasion of Rafah.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that the US would continue to provide the military assistance from a $26bn supplemental funding bill passed last month but it paused the bombs because “we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities”.

The chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations and the House Foreign Affairs committees review major foreign weapons deals.

Biden has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade Rafah without safeguards for civilians, seven months into a war that has devastated Gaza.

His support for Israel in its war against Hamas has emerged as a political liability for the president, particularly among young Democrats, as he runs for re-election this year.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Tuesday that, in the past day, it hit more than 100 targets in the Gaza Strip and continued to carry out military operations in the eastern part of Rafah city and the area near the Rafah port.

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Caitlin Clark scores 20 in first WNBA game but Indiana lose to Connecticut | Basketball News

Indiana Fever lost 92-71 to Connecticut Sun in the season opener that was sold out for Clark’s debut game in the WNBA.

Caitlin Clark’s WNBA career officially began on the road with Indiana Fever’s 92-71 loss at the hands of the Connecticut Sun in the regular-season opener in Uncasville, Connecticut.

DeWanna Bonner climbed the all-time scoring list with 20 points and the Sun capitalised on Clark’s mistake-prone debut on Tuesday.

Clark, who was chosen with the number one pick after a record-breaking college career, tallied a team-high 20 points and three assists but committed 10 turnovers and four fouls. She shot 5-for-15 from the floor, including 4-of-11 from 3-point range.

“Disappointed and nobody likes to lose, that’s how it is,” Clark said after the game.

“Can’t beat yourself up too much about one game.”

Clark’s miscues included six bad-pass turnovers and one travelling call. Connecticut scored 29 points off Indiana’s 25 total turnovers.

Indiana coach Christie Sides said, “Caitlin was able to get her some looks, able to knock them down. Our spacing was not great. Connecticut came in and punched us in the mouth tonight. We’ll be in the gym tomorrow watching a lot of video trying to figure out how not to turn the ball over 25 times.”

Clark connected with Aliyah Boston to tally an assist on the game’s opening possession. But the rookie also picked up two early fouls and sat for most of the final 4:51 of the period.

Clark’s first WNBA basket came on a driving layup midway through the second after an 0-for-4 start. Her first professional 3-pointer was a catch-and-shoot play from the left wing to cut the deficit to single digits with 30.1 seconds before halftime, but Connecticut eventually took a 49-39 edge to the locker room.

Clark hit a 29-foot triple and Erica Wheeler added five points in an 8-2 Fever spurt early in the third quarter to trim their deficit to 53-47. That’s as close as they would get, as Bonner and Thomas combined for the next six points.

Bonner’s three-point play at the 6:37 mark of the fourth quarter made it 75-59 Sun. Clark made her third 3 on the ensuing possession, but Harris answered with one for Connecticut and the Fever never threatened again.

Caitlin Clark scored her first regular season basket against the Connecticut Sun in the second quarter [David Butler II/USA Today Sports via Reuters]

An unprecedented flood of interest in women’s basketball has followed Clark from her record-smashing college career at Iowa to the WNBA. The nearly 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena is sold out for Clark’s debut, and the broadcast will include player mics and roving cameras for “a WNBA Finals-level production setup.”

Ahead of the game, Clark was simply trying to soak in the moment.

“This is kind of what you worked for and dreamed of, and now you gotta put your jersey on for the first real time and go out there and play,” Clark said. “… More than anything, I’m ready for the challenge.”

The 3-point sharpshooter broke the all-time Division I scoring record, men’s or women’s, and guided Iowa to the national championship game.

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