The wrecked civilian infrastructure in Gaza could also give Iran a chance to bolster its influence once again through aid for rebuilding efforts.
On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, commended Palestinians for their battle against Israel and said all Muslim nations must assist Palestinians “with military development, with financial developments.”
On the newly popular social-networking app Clubhouse, hundreds of Iranian conservatives and members of the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps rejoiced when rockets from Gaza penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome defense system and hit civilian neighborhoods.
“It feels like we had rage stuck in our throats against Israel, especially after the assassinations. And with every rocket fired, we gave a collective, deep sigh of relief,” said Mehdi Nejati, 43, an industrial project manager in Tehran who moderated a daily Clubhouse chat on developments in Gaza.
STRESA, Italy (Reuters) — At least 14 people died and a child was seriously injured on Sunday when a cable car linking Italy’s Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plunged more than 65 feet to the ground, local officials and rescuers said.
The Stresa-Mottarone cable car takes tourists and locals from the town on Lake Maggiore, almost 4,600 feet above sea level to the top of the Mottarone mountain in 20 minutes.
“We are devastated, in pain,” Marcella Severino, Stresa’s mayor told broadcaster RAI, while Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi voiced his condolences to the families of the victims.
The cable car was traveling up the mountain when the cabin fell more than 65 to the ground and rolled several times down the steep slopes before it was stopped by trees, Severino said.
People hiking nearby heard a loud hiss just before the crash, she said, adding that the accident was believed to have been caused by one of the cables breaking.
Italy’s alpine rescue service said a call had first come just after midday, adding that the cable car was lying “crumpled” in the woods and two children were taken by helicopter to a pediatric hospital in the nearby city of Turin.
Severino said that some of the victims had been found trapped inside the car, with others thrown out into the woods.
Coroners had started identifying the victims, who included foreign nationals, she said, without giving further details.
The eldest of the two children taken to hospital, who was believed to be between 9 and 10, died after suffering two cardiac arrests, the hospital said.
A crashed cable car is seen after it collapsed in Stresa, near Lake Maggiore, Italy May 23, 2021. VIGILI DEL FUOCO/Handout via REUTERS
Director General Giovanni La Valle said the hospital did not have personal data for the two children and that nobody had been in contact with the hospital for them, indicating that other family members could have been involved in the accident.
The youngest child, estimated to be 5 years old, was conscious upon his arrival at the hospital and spoke Italian. He was undergoing surgery to stabilize multiple fractures.
La Valle said another person, who was previously thought to have been injured, had not in fact been taken to hospital.
‘Hard to believe’
The Stresa-Mottarone lift had only recently re-opened following the gradual lifting of coronavirus restrictions.
“It’s a terrible moment for me and for our community and I think also for the whole of Italy. Especially now that we were just beginning to restart (after the pandemic),” Severino said.
The Mottarone peak is popular among tourists because of its panoramic views on Lake Maggiore and its picturesque islands as well as the vista of the surrounding Alps.
The cable car service first opened in August 1970 after almost three years of works to replace a cog railway, its website said.
The dual cable system is split into two sections, one between Stresa and Alpino and another between Alpino and Mottarone. It consist of two cars — in alternate directions — with each one carrying up to 40 passengers, it added.
Severino said that important maintenance works, including changing the cables, had been carried out in recent years.
“All of this is hard to believe,” the mayor said.
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Alexander Smith)
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discussed a letter he and six other senators sent to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), three days before requesting information on gain of function research.
Let’s start with a general premise on Capitol Hill: Members of Congress don’t like to be told what to do.
But lawmakers agree to a certain set of rules – on which Members themselves vote – for how the House and Senate operate. A lot of those rules deal with how lawmakers comport themselves, conduct themselves and respect the institution. Lawmakers may vote no or disagree with the rules.
But…
Them’s the rules.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution grants both the House and Senate the authority to establish their own rules. For a short period, or, practically indefinitely.
Lawmakers have periodically picked individual fights with U.S. Capitol Police, sworn to protect order at the Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., takes off her face mask to talk to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 19, 2021, about legislation to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol Complex. (AP)
The USCP generally grants great deference to lawmakers, especially when it pertains to “coming and going.” The cops may stop Congressional staff or journalists from moving around the Capitol at various times. But Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution includes the “Speech or Debate” Clause. That provision essentially inoculates lawmakers from “arrest” when they are conducting official Congressional business, such as voting. Or, more broadly, driving to the Capitol to vote.
This is why there was a brouhaha in March 2006 when former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., hit a U.S Capitol Police Officer as she tried to enter a House office building. The officer didn’t recognize the Congresswoman. But she didn’t stop for him.
Rep. Don Young, R-Ark., did the same in July 2014. Authorities shut down the House wing of the Capitol one morning after maintenance workers inadvertently yanked asbestos out of the Capitol ceiling. Officers told Young that no one could enter the Capitol – including Members – until they evaluated if there was any danger. But Young barged past the officers and into the building.
“I don’t care if the building is closed,” said Young.
In short, you really can’t tell lawmakers to do anything. They will do what they’re going to do.
The pandemic and the Capitol riot triggered one of the most tumultuous periods in Congress since the Civil War. So, you can imagine the resistance among lawmakers during the early days of the pandemic when they were ordered to don masks. And now some House Republicans want the House to ditch masks as the pandemic eases.
GOPers blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for maintaining a mask mandate on the House floor.
“She craves power and she uses it to try to spank us into doing things,” complained Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., on Fox about the Speaker. “This is just a heavy-handed tactic.”
Norman was one of six lawmakers fined $500 for not wearing a mask on the floor. If a member fails to mask up, the House docks them again. $2,500 for a second offense.
In addition to Norman, the House also dinged Reps. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Brian Mast, R-Fla., with $500 fines. House officials tagged Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Chip Roy, R-Texas, Bob Good, R-Va., Mary Miller, R-Ill., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Marcy Kaptur, R-Ohio, with official warnings.
“They sent me my little envelope today saying, ‘Oh, here you go. Here you go. You’re fined. Here’s your fine,’” complained Mast on Fox. “(Democrats) don’t care. They just want the control. Whether it’s through science. Whether it’s through lying. Whether it’s through hurting you and your pocketbook and trying to get you to comply.”
Republicans may not embrace the House mask rule. But the full House voted to require masks on the floor. The same with a recent rule requiring members pass through metal detectors to enter the House chamber. Members voted on that provision, too. The House now fines members $5,000 if they don’t walk through metal detectors to reach the House floor.
Of course, Democrats abhorred internal rules okayed by Republicans when they ran the show here. Multiple Republicans upbraided then-House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving after the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., led a 2016 sit-in on the floor to protest gun violence. Republicans were beside themselves that Democrats would actually sit on the carpet in the well of the House chamber to make their point. Some GOP members implored Irving and his aides to arrest Lewis and others – precisely the optic Democrats would love to have.
Then House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., described the sit-in as “chaos” and worried it set a “very dangerous precedent.”
In January 2017, the House approved a new set of rules for the 115th Congress. Included in the rules package were fines for members who may disrupt the House, such as with a sit-in. Lawmakers could also face sanctions if they broke House protocol by telecasting their own video stream from the floor or snapped pictures. Such was the rage during the sit-in. Members would first receive a warning. Then, face a $500 fine. Finally, the House would levy a $2,500 fine for additional infractions.
Democrats cried foul.
Sound familiar?
The difference is that Democrats imposed the mask rule since they are in the majority now and Republicans don’t like it. And Republicans imposed the sit-in rule when they ran the House and Democrats objected while in the minority.
Welcome to Congress.
Capitol Attending Physician Dr. Brian Monahan clarified House mask guidance in a statement to the Congressional community last week. Monahan reiterated a House rule which requires members to mask up on the floor unless speaking.
According to Pelosi, it comes down to vaccinations.
“We have a responsibility to make sure that the House of Representatives’ chamber is not a Petri dish because of the selfishness of some not to be vaccinated,” said Pelosi. “What is this? The honor system? The honor system as to whether somebody’s been vaccinated? Do you want them breathing in your face on the strength of their honor?”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 13, 2021. (AP)
The House blocked a resolution by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to lift the floor mask rule last week. McCarthy contends the House mandate is “contrary to the latest CDC guidance.”
“Apparently, COVID works differently in both chambers. Because in the Senate, you don’t wear a mask. In the House, you have to wear a mask. The only difference is the Speaker. She doesn’t want to abide by the CDC rules,” alleged McCarthy.
But Monahan says the policy “is entirely consistent with Centers for Disease Control prevailing mask guidance” and reviewed by CDC experts.
“The attending physician has said until everybody’s vaccinated, we wear masks,” said Pelosi.
This prompted some Republicans to question Monahan’s independence.
I would like to see an organizational chart who Dr. Monahan answers to,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee. “It appears that his message just mimics whatever (Pelosi’s) message is.”
Monahan’s been the Attending Physician for both the House and Senate for 12 years, under both GOP and Democratic control of the House and Senate.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is vaccinated. He recently pressed CDC Director Rochelle Walensky at a Senate hearing as to whether he could stroll over from the Senate side of the Capitol to the House side – sans mask.
Walensky replied that mask policies are a “local” decision.
It’s said that all politics is local. And that’s the difference between House rules and Senate rules.
But, just like in cities and states, not everyone follows the rules.
Democrats are hammering Republicans over their opposition to a Jan. 6 commission as they look to retain control of Congress next year.
Hopes for a bipartisan panel to investigate the deadly riot at the Capitol earlier this year were dashed when Republican leadership came out against the idea, casting it as a partisan maneuver.
But some Democrats believe there may be a silver lining in the recent development, seeing the GOP’s sharp reversal on the issue as a way to bolster support ahead of the midterms.
“If you want to talk about where House majorities rise and fall, it’s in swing districts, and swing voters look at facts and reason,” Jon Reinish, a New York-based Democratic strategist, said. “They saw this happen. It is impossible for the American public to forget Jan. 6, because everybody watched it unfold in real time on TV in an unfiltered way.”
“A commission seemed inevitable for a long time,” he said. “Republicans, I think to their determinant, have taken a short-term view of ‘anything Donald Trump doesn’t want, we don’t want.’”
The creation of such a commission once looked promising, with some top Republicans expressing openness to the idea. That changed this week, however, when GOP leaders came out against the effort, fearing that it could drag scrutiny of the Capitol riot into 2022, when Republicans are hoping to recapture their majorities in the House and Senate.
“A lot of our members, and I think it is true of a lot of the House Republicans, want to be moving forward,” Thune said. “Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 election, I think, is a day lost.”
But Democrats have signaled they won’t let Republicans shift the conversation away from Jan. 6. Party officials and lawmakers have sent out a flurry of fundraising emails in recent days, pledging to hold the GOP to account over their opposition to the commission.
The legislation at hand would create a 10-person commission, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, to investigate the Jan. 6 riot and the circumstances surrounding it. The panel would report its findings by Dec. 31.
The House ultimately voted 252-to-175 on Wednesday to create the commission, with 35 Republicans crossing party lines to approve the measure.
But the effort is likely to face a difficult path in the Senate. A number of Republicans who once suggested that they could support the commission have walked back their remarks, making it unlikely that Democrats will win over the 10 GOP votes needed to break a filibuster.
Democrats have cast the sudden reversals by Republicans as a sign that they fear retribution from Trump, who has spoken out publicly in opposition to the commission – something he described this week as a “Democratic trap.”
“This is the time when you put on your big boy pants and you do what you need to do for the country,” she told CNN on Thursday. “The country needs to understand what happened on Jan. 6 so that it doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m sorry that the midterms are something that are prohibiting people from doing the right thing,” she added. “But I don’t accept that as an excuse.”
In many ways, Republicans are heading into 2022 with an advantage.
They need to flip only about a half-dozen seats in the House and just one in the Senate next year to recapture control of Congress. Decennial redistricting appears to favor the GOP. And history shows that the party of a new president — in this case the Democrats — tends to lose ground in the midterms.
Republicans facing potentially tough reelection bids next year have yet to agree on exactly how to proceed when it comes to the Jan. 6 riot and the current calls for a bipartisan investigation into the matter.
“I think it’s a gamble. Do you stick with Trump’s line on the riots or do you come at it head-on and say we need to keep looking into what happened?” one veteran Republican strategist said, adding: “There’s going to be ads from the Democrats showing people tearing apart the Capitol, no doubt about it.”
Reinish, the Democratic strategist, echoed that prediction, predicting that Democrats were poised to play offense on the Jan. 6 commission.
“I think you have those ads ready,” Reinish said. “And I think that they write themselves.”
WASHINGTON—Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.
The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”
The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins.
Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.
Another person described the intelligence as stronger. “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” he said, referring to the researchers.
BRIDGETON, N.J. (CBS) – A massive house party in Cumberland County ended in gunfire overnight leaving at least two people dead and a dozen injured. New Jersey State Police say about 100 to 200 people scattered after shots were fired at a house party on East Commerce Street in Fairfield Township, at around 11:50 p.m. Saturday.
Police say a 30-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were killed in the shooting.
At least 12 others were injured. One of 12 victims sustained serious injuries and is in critical condition.
Chopper 3
Chopper 3 was over the scene Sunday morning where debris could be seen scattered around the property.
Chopper 3
Chopper 3
A minister of a church across the street from where the party took place, who also lives across the street, described what he saw overnight.
“I heard what I thought was fireworks. I said, ‘all right good, they’re going to end this party. I can get some rest.’ But then I listened more. It was in rapid succession so I came outside and we just kind of watching the crowds. Just watching what they were doing and a lot of them were just hanging out so I thought the party was still going on,” Reverend Michael Keene said.
Eyewitness News was near the scene Sunday morning where police were fixated on an SUV parked at a cemetery across the street from the house. The vehicle has since been towed from the scene. At this time, it’s not clear if the vehicle had any involvement in the shooting.
The mayor of neighboring Bridgeton was on the scene Saturday night and said he’s never seen a police response like that ever before in his time being mayor or living in Cumberland County.
A woman who’s a leader in the community says she came to the scene after hearing what happened. She says she’s heartbroken for her community.
“This isn’t the first time. Like we’ve had a lot of violence in our community. A lot of fighting, and we’re working so hard. That’s the saddest thing. We’re making so much progress. We’ve been working so hard to get things turned around. And — so this is definitely a setback,” Founder and CEO of Hopeloft Melissa Helmbrecht said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Phil Murphy issued a statement Sunday morning and is urging anyone with information to step forward.
“Since late last night, the New Jersey State Police and county and local law enforcement in Cumberland County have been investigating the horrific mass shooting at a large house party in Fairfield Township that attracted hundreds of party-goers. At this time, at least two people have lost their lives, among numerous other shooting victims, including several with injuries that are life-threatening. We hold those who have died, and their families, in our prayers today, and we also pray for the recoveries of those injured. We are grateful for the swift response of law enforcement and stand with them as they continue their investigation. Let there be no mistake: This despicable and cowardly act of gun violence only steels our commitment to ensuring New Jersey leads the nation in passing and enforcing strong and commonsense gun safety laws. No community should ever experience what occurred last night in Fairfield. We urge anyone with information to step forward, so those responsible can be brought to justice. This remains an active investigation with many moving parts. More information will be released as it is available and confirmed.”
No arrests have been made. The motive and incident remain under investigation.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the New Jersey State Police Bridgeton Station at 856-451-0101 or submit a tip via the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office tip website at www.njccpo.org/tips. Anonymous tips are welcome.
Stay with CBSPhilly.com for updates on this developing story.
“That has to start now with dealing with the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza. Then reconstruction, rebuilding what’s been lost and, critically, engaging both sides in trying to start to make real improvements in the lives of people so that Israelis and Palestinians can live with equal measures of security, of peace and of dignity,” he said.
Pressed by Stephanopoulos about his emphasis on the word “equal,” which he noted marked a broader rhetorical departure by the Biden administration from its predecessors, Blinken said equality should be the goal of any government in a democratic society.
“It’s vitally important that Palestinians feel hope and have opportunity, and can live in security just as it is for Israelis, and there should be equal measures,” he said.
He added: “Ultimately I think that that hope, that security, that dignity will be found in a Palestinian state.” (Blinken emphasized the same words in a subsequent appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”)
Blinken said rebuilding the damage in Gaza would be an important step toward resolving the conflict. Asked how the U.S. planned to support the rebuilding without funding Hamas, Blinken said it would rely on “independent parties that can help do the reconstruction and the development. Not some quasi-government authority,” which he said “has brought nothing but ruin to the Palestinian people.”
“What’s the real challenge here is to help the Palestinians and particularly to help moderate Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority deliver better results for their people, and of course, Israel has a profound role to play in that too.”
Kinzinger was one of just 10 House Republicans who voted in January to impeach then-President Trump of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists aiming to disrupt congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump. And the conservative lawmaker first elected to Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave was one of 35 House Republicans who last week bucked party leadership and voted in favor of a Jan. 6 commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol.
McCarthy last week announced his opposition to the formation of the commission and worked with House GOP leadership to limit the number of defections when the full chamber voted on the matter on Wednesday. While 35 Republicans supported the inquiry, the vast majority of the 212 member GOP conference opposed the move.
Kinzinger charged that McCarthy “failed to tell the truth to the Republicans and to the American people and it pains me to say and it’s not like I enjoy standing up and saying this.”
He noted that a sizeable number of the 74 million people who voted for Trump “believe the election was stolen, believe it because their leaders have not told them otherwise. The people they trust have either been silent or not told them the truth.”
The vocal critic of Trump pointed to McCarthy’s initial finger pointing at the then-president in the days after the storming of the Capitol, before the House GOP leader met with Trump in Florida soon after Biden’s inauguration.
Kinzinger argued “that’s where Kevin has failed because he told the truth on Jan. 13, something around then. And then he went to Mar-a-Lago and said Donald Trump’s the leader of the party. He’s right, Donald Trump is the leader of the party, but we need to tell people the truth.”
He also spotlighted that opposition by most congressional Republicans against the commission could adversely impact the GOP in the 2022 midterm elections, when the party aims to win back lost majorities in both the House and Senate.
“I think it’ll go to 2022 and we’ll look like we’re just sitting here denying reality and facts,” Kinzinger worried.
The former president vowed to back primary challenges against Kinzinger and other Republicans who voted to impeach him in the House and convict him in the Senate. Kinzinger is already facing a primary challenger.
But the Air Force veteran and current lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, who served two tours of duty in the Iraq war, saw his fundraising surge the first three months of this year as he faced Trump’s wrath.
Fox News confirmed on Sunday that former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan will headline a fundraiser for Kinzinger on Monday.
There are four must-reads this Sunday morning, and they’re all on the same theme, one that always frustrates the Biden White House: progressive angst over the direction of policy.
CNN’s Maeve Reston notes that the “gulf between progressive ambition and the legislative reality means there is all-but-certain friction ahead between [President JOE] BIDEN and the restive liberal wing of his party,” and that “hopes of achieving real reforms on thorny issues like gun control, voting rights, police reform — and now even infrastructure — have proved elusive.”
POLITICO’s Laura Barrón-López details how Biden will miss his self-imposed May 25 deadline for passing a police reform bill, and what it means for the future of that legislation. On Tuesday, May 25 — the one-year anniversary of GEORGE FLOYD’s murder — Biden will meet with Floyd’s family at the White House.
The Washington Post’s Dan Balz explains how “[a]t home and abroad, President Biden is confronting what it means to lead a changing Democratic Party,” and says Biden soon “will have to make some difficult choices about the unfinished parts of his economic and domestic agenda” as he faces “pressure from the left on voting rights, immigration, racial injustice, guns and the filibuster.”
The WSJ has a pair of good pieces on the same general subject. One previews the coming Biden budget, which will disappoint liberals by not including progressive health care priorities. The other explores pressure from the left on Israel and policing reform, which is causing some indigestion for House Speaker NANCY PELOSI and Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER. (Though it didn’t get much attention, members of The Squad almost scuttled a Capitol security bill on Thursday.)
— CEDRIC RICHMOND, senior adviser to the president, on whether Biden is willing to narrow the infrastructure package on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “The president coming down $550 billion off of his initiative proposal, I think, shows the willingness to negotiate in good faith and in a serious manner. And the real question is whether the Republicans will meet the effort that the president is showing.”
—Sen. SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine) on the prospects of a bipartisan infrastructure package on ABC’s “This Week”: “I was glad that the president put a counteroffer on the table, but if you look closely at it, what he’s proposing to do is move a lot of the spending to a bill that’s already on the Senate floor … I think we’re still pretty far apart, but this is the test. This will determine whether or not we can work together in a bipartisan way on an important issue.”
Collins on the Jan. 6 commission: “The two issues that I think are resolvable, one has to do with staffing, and I think that both sides should either jointly appoint the staff or there should be equal numbers of staff appointed by the chairman and the vice chairman. The second issue is, I see no reason why the report cannot be completed by the end of this year. … I’m optimistic that we can get past these issues, based on recent conversations I’ve had with the speaker of the House and the House majority leader.”
— Rep. ADAM KINZINGER (R-Ill.) on the politics of the Jan. 6 commission on “Fox News Sunday”: “Here’s a revelation: This is going into the 2022 midterms anyway, particularly if us as Republicans don’t take ownership for what happened. … We’ll look like we’re just sitting here denying reality and facts.”
Kinzinger on House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY: “Kevin has failed to tell the truth to the Republicans and to the American people. And it pains me to say — and it’s not like I enjoy standing up and saying this — but … the 74 million voters who have voted for Donald Trump [who] believe, a number of [whom] believe the election was stolen, believe it because their leaders have not told them otherwise.”
— Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN on Israeli-Palestinian relations on ABC’s “This Week”: “President Biden has been very clear that he remains committed to a two-state solution. Look, ultimately, it is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state and, of course, the only way to give the Palestinians the state to which they’re entitled. That’s where we have to go. But that, I don’t think, is … necessarily for today. We have to start putting in place the conditions that would allow both sides to engage in a meaningful and positive way toward two states.” More from Jesse Naranjo
Blinken on North Korea’s nuclear program: “I don’t think there’s going to be a grand bargain where this gets resolved in one fell swoop. It’s got to be clearly calibrated diplomacy, clear steps from the North Koreans, and it moves forward in that way. Now, we’ve put that forward. We’re waiting to see if Pyongyang actually wants to engage. The ball’s in their court.”More from David Cohen
— Sen. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.) on the need for police reform on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “I wouldn’t have a negotiating partner in TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) if MITCH MCCONNELL (R-Ky.) didn’t believe that this is something that we should be at the table trying to work through. … I know there’s going to be a lot of folks who have a lot to say about this before we have finished our work. And, God willing, we will land this.”
BIDEN’S SUNDAY — The president and first lady JILL BIDEN will return to the White House at 7:30 p.m. VP KAMALA HARRIS has nothing on her public schedule.
PLAYBOOK READS
THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CLASH
HOW WE GOT HERE — “‘From Ferguson to Palestine’: How Black Lives Matter changed the U.S. debate on the Mideast,” WaPo: “Black Lives Matter, which has grown into a potent political force amid a national reckoning on race, has responded forcefully to the violence in the Mideast to extend its reach into foreign policy, pressing the Democratic Party to adopt a dramatically different approach to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Whatever the aftermath of the violence in the region, it has starkly changed the Israeli-Palestinian debate in the United States, shifting it for many liberals from a tangled dispute over ancient, often-confusing claims to the far more familiar turf of police brutality and racial conflict.”
ON THE GROUND — “Gaza struggles with twin health crises of war injuries and feared coronavirus surge,”WaPo: “Gazans and international aid agencies raced to head off overlapping medical crises Saturday as hospitals already overrun with injuries from the 11-day bombardment by Israel struggled to treat a surge in coronavirus cases from packed shelters.
“Tens of thousands of people crowded into underground chambers, community centers and other places across Gaza seeking to avoid the Israeli airstrikes, creating opportunities for the virus to spread. At the same time, the attacks left more than 1,900 people injured across Gaza before a cease-fire took effect Friday, according to health officials here. At least 248 people in Gaza and 12 in Israel were killed in the waves of Israeli strikes and the rocket attacks from Gaza.”
— “Life Under Occupation: The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict,”NYT: “An eviction in East Jerusalem lies at the center of a conflict that led to war between Israel and Hamas. But for millions of Palestinians, the routine indignities of occupation are part of daily life.”
THE WHITE HOUSE
IMMIGRATION FILES — “Biden protects thousands of Haitians from deportation with new TPS measure,”Miami Herald: “The Biden administration is granting a new 18-month designation of Temporary Protected Status to Haiti, a significant move that alleviates the threat of deportation for thousands of Haitians and recognizes that conditions are so dire in their turmoil plagued homeland, they cannot safely return.
“Department of Homeland Security SecretaryALEJANDRO MAYORKAS announced the decision Saturday … The temporary humanitarian protections, he said, will be extended to eligible Haitians living in the United States as of Friday. This includes upwards of 60,000 Haitians who were already benefiting from the protected status, but had been living under fear of deportation amid an attempt by the Trump administration to terminate the program … The Biden administration’s decision could benefit more than 100,000 Haitians, immigration activists say.”
VP TO MAKE FIRST FOREIGN TRIP — “Harris, White House betting on Guatemala to help stem migrant influx,” by Sabrina Rodríguez: “Harris will take her first international trip in office in early June to meet with the presidents of Guatemala and Mexico to discuss issues that past administrations — Democrat and Republican — have tried and failed to address for decades.
“For now, the administration is most optimistic about Guatemala as the place to make headway, not because it’s absent of corruption, but simply because it’s willing to talk about the tough issues. And it’s not Honduras or El Salvador. But former officials and experts warn: If Harris focuses solely on cutting migration, efforts to improve conditions in Guatemala and the rest of the region will fail.”
STATUS REPORT — “The ‘gaffe machine’ gets a tuneup: Joe Biden stays surprisingly on message as president,” USA Today: “As president, not only is Biden careful in what he says and how he says it, ‘he does exceptionally well in terms of getting out his message,’ said Stephen Frantzich, a retired political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and author of a book about political candidates’ verbal stumbles. …
“Biden still speaks at times in the same tortured syntax that causes confused listeners to shake their heads and ask, ‘Huh?’ He still loses his train of thought mid-sentence or sometimes starts off on one topic and ends up on another. But the phonetic flubs that in the past have sent headline writers and his communications team into a frenzy, albeit for different reasons, have been mostly missing during his nascent presidency.”
INFRASTRUCTURE YEAR
COMING DOWN THE PIKE — “Bipartisan Senate surface-transportation draft proposes $304B for highways,”by Tanya Snyder: “A Senate committee released a bipartisan draft Saturday of a $303.5 billion highway, road and bridge bill — the type of traditional transportation package that Congress is likely to pass in some form in the coming year, despite Republicans’ rejection of President Joe Biden’s latest big infrastructure proposal.
“The bill that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unveiled would replace an existing surface transportation law that is due to expire in September, making it as close to must-pass as legislation ever gets on Capitol Hill. It is, by necessity, far more limited in scope than Biden’s plan, which would total nearly $2 trillion and include spending on needs such as waterways, aviation, broadband, clean water, the power grid, health care and the environment.”
POLICY CORNER
CLIMATE FILES — “Biden’s beefy climate problem: How to slash emissions from cows, manure,” by Ryan McCrimmon: “President Joe Biden is not going to ban red meat. In fact, his administration isn’t doing much to confront the flow of harmful greenhouse gases from the very big business of animal agriculture.
“The Agriculture Department’s newly published ‘climate-smart agriculture and forestry’ outline says almost nothing about how Biden aims to curb methane emissions from livestock operations. But environmentalists argue that any effort to shrink the farm industry’s climate footprint is half-baked if it relies on voluntary efforts and doesn’t address America’s system of meat production.”
THE FFS CAUCUS — “Marjorie Taylor Greene compares House mask mandates to the Holocaust,” CNN: “Republican Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, during an interview on a conservative podcast this week, compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to continue to require members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor to steps the Nazis took to control the Jewish population during the Holocaust.”
— What Greene said: “We can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene said. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” Video of Greene’s remarks
PANDEMIC
A GOOD MILESTONE — “New Covid-19 cases plummet to lowest levels since last June,” AP: “As the seven-day average for new cases dropped below 30,000 per day this week, ROCHELLE WALENSKY, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed out cases have not been this low since June 18, 2020. The average number of deaths over the last seven days also dropped to 552 — a rate not seen since July last year. It’s a dramatic drop since the pandemic hit a devastating crescendo in January.”
FOR YOUR RADAR — “C.D.C. Is Investigating a Heart Problem in a Few Young Vaccine Recipients,”NYT: “The [C.D.C.] is looking into reports that a very small number of teenagers and young adults vaccinated against the coronavirus may have experienced heart problems, according to the agency’s vaccine safety group.
“The group’s statement was sparse in details, saying only that there were ‘relatively few’ cases and that they may be entirely unrelated to vaccination. The condition, called myocarditis, is an inflammation of the heart muscle, and can occur following certain infections. The C.D.C.’s review of the reports is in the early stages, and the agency has yet to determine whether there is any evidence that the vaccines caused the heart condition.”
FAILING THE TEST — “Vaccines’ success could undercut Biden’s multibillion-dollar school testing plans,”by David Lim: “The Biden administration has struggled to launch a $650 million program it announced in February to set up regional Covid-19 testing hubs for schools and facilities like homeless shelters. Federal officials had hoped to have the first hub open and coordinating 150,000 tests per week by late April, but have not yet awarded any contracts.
“And while the White House announced in March that it would spend $10 billion in stimulus money to support testing programs in schools across the country, planning has been left largely to states, cities and local school districts. … Now, with vaccination slowing the virus’s spread, some schools are reopening without the kind of widespread Covid-19 screening that Biden once envisioned as crucial.
AMERICA AND THE WORLD
IRAN SO FAR AWAY — “Iran says inspectors may no longer get nuclear sites images,”AP: “Iran’s parliament speaker said Sunday that international inspectors may no longer access surveillance images of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts in Vienna to save Tehran’s atomic accord with world powers. …
“‘Regarding this, and based on the expiration of the three-month deadline, definitely the International Atomic Energy Agency will not have the right to access images from May 22,’ [parliament speaker MOHAMMAD BAGHER] QALIBAF said. … Hours later, however, a website called Nournews that’s believed to be close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council quoted an anonymous official suggesting Tehran’s deal with the IAEA could be extended ‘another month.’”
PANIC ON DOWNING STREET — “British PM’s former top adviser says early COVID-19 plan was a ‘disaster,’” Reuters: “Britain’s early plan to combat COVID-19 was a ‘disaster’ and ‘awful decisions’ led to the government imposing lockdowns that could have been avoided, Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON’S former top adviser said.
“DOMINIC CUMMINGS, who left Johnson’s staff late last year, made his comments in a series of tweets just days before he is due to give evidence to members of parliament about the government’s handling of the pandemic. Before his sudden departure, Cummings had been Johnson’s most influential adviser on Brexit and played an important role in his successful 2019 election campaign.” Cummings’ epic (and ongoing) Twitter thread
A U.S.-CHINA COLD WAR IN AFRICA — “U.S.-China Tech Fight Opens New Front in Ethiopia,”WSJ: “A U.S.-backed consortium beat out one financed by China in a closely watched telecommunications auction in Ethiopia — handing Washington a victory in its push to challenge Beijing’s economic influence around the world. The East African country said Saturday it tapped a group of telecommunications companies led by the U.K.’s Vodafone Group PLC to build a nationwide, 5G-capable wireless network. The group had won financial backing for the multibillion-dollar project from a newly created U.S. foreign-aid agency.”
MEGATREND — “Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications,” NYT: “A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate change and reduce household burdens for women. But the census announcements this month from China and the U.S., which showed the slowest rates of population growth in decades for both countries, also point to hard-to-fathom adjustments.
“The strain of longer lives and low fertility, leading to fewer workers and more retirees, threatens to upend how societies are organized — around the notion that a surplus of young people will drive economies and help pay for the old. It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation. Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older. Imagine governments laying out huge bonuses for immigrants and mothers with lots of children. Imagine a gig economy filled with grandparents and Super Bowl ads promoting procreation.”
EYES ON THE SKIES — “U.S. to Downgrade Mexico’s Air-Safety Rating,”WSJ: “U.S. officials are planning to downgrade Mexico’s aviation-safety rating in coming days, people familiar with the matter said, complicating a rebound in what has become the world’s largest air-travel market between two nations.
“The Federal Aviation Administration has determined that Mexico’s oversight of aviation safety falls short of the top tier of international standards, the people said. Mexico currently has a Category 1 air-safety rating and would be dropped to Category 2, some of the people added. The downgrade would restrict Mexican carriers from increasing service between U.S. cities and limit marketing agreements with U.S. airlines.”
DOWN UNDER — “U.S. Activists Try to Halt an Australian Way of Life: Killing Kangaroos,”NYT: “[T]he campaign is being revived through a collaboration between international activist groups, a California member of the U.S. House of Representatives and an Australian politician who is the lone elected representative of the Animal Justice Party.
“Their goal is to persuade companies, consumers and lawmakers to boycott or ban anything that comes from what is often described as the largest commercial animal kill in the world. They argue that especially after the fires that tore through Australia last year, possibly killing several million kangaroos, the commercial industry must be shut down.”
A DEVELOPING CRISIS IN SAMOA — “A Late-Night Proclamation Blocks a Woman From Leading Samoa,” NYT: “The Pacific island nation of Samoa hurtled toward a constitutional crisis on Saturday, when the country’s head of state announced that he was suspending Parliament just two days before it was scheduled to swear in the country’s first new prime minister in more than two decades.”
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
A GLIMPSE AT THE 2022 GOP PLAYBOOK — “Pa. Republicans are taking aim at Tom Wolf, not Biden, as they look to win the 2022 governor’s race,” Philly Inquirer: “When Pennsylvania Republicans celebrated the passage of two ballot questions this week reining in the emergency powers held by the governor’s office, they saw more than just a rebuke to Democratic Gov. TOM WOLF. They saw a path to winning the office themselves next year. … Republicans hoping to replace Wolf are making the lame-duck governor and his handling of the coronavirus a central issue in the very early days of the 2022 contest. …
“With President Joe Biden enjoying strong public approval ratings early in his tenure and Wolf’s slipping as his eight years in office near a close, Republicans are making the governor an even more prominent target — and largely ignoring Democrats’ big-spending ambitions in Washington.”
VOTING RIGHTS LATEST IN TEXAS — “Polling places for urban voters of color would be cut under Texas Senate’s version of voting bill,” Texas Tribune: “The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to change how Texas polling sites are distributed, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Voting options would be curtailed most in areas with higher shares of voters of color.
“Relocating polling sites is part of the GOP’s priority voting bill — Senate Bill 7 — as it was passed in the Texas Senate. It would create a new formula for setting polling places in the handful of mostly Democratic counties with a population of 1 million or more. … Under that provision, counties would be required to distribute polling places based on the share of registered voters in each state House district within the county. The formula would apply only to the state’s five largest counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis — and possibly Collin County once new census figures are released later this year.”
DEEP DIVE — “Andrew Brown Jr. Shooting: Videos Cast Doubt on Police Use of Force,”NYT: “A New York Times review of bodycam footage showing the fatal police shooting of ANDREW BROWN JR. in April raises questions about whether officers were in imminent danger when they used lethal force as he drove away to avoid arrest. The officers have not been charged in the shooting.
“R. ANDREW WOMBLE, the district attorney for North Carolina’s First Judicial District, determined that they were justified in their actions because Mr. Brown was using his car as a ‘deadly weapon.’ … A review of slowed-down bodycam footage by The Times shows that 13 of the 14 gunshots — including the fatal one — were fired as Mr. Brown was driving away from officers, not at them.”
A FENTANYL CRISIS IN CALIFORNIA — “San Francisco on course for record-breaking number of drug overdoses in 2021,”SF Chronicle: “San Francisco suffered an epidemic in 2020 that was more deadly than COVID-19. Drug overdoses resulted in more than 700 deaths last year, while the communicable disease declared a global pandemic killed fewer than 300 — and 2021 looks to be even worse.
“This year’s preliminary tally of 252 accidental overdose deaths from January to April … suggests San Francisco is on track to surpass 2020 in overdose deaths, which was a record-breaking year itself — 181 people fatally overdosed over the same time period in 2021. … The chief medical examiner’s data shows that overdose fatalities in San Francisco began to skyrocket in 2019, when fentanyl entered the city’s drug supply.”
MEDIAWATCH
SANTORUM OUT AT CNN — “CNN Drops Rick Santorum After Racist Comments About Native Americans,”HuffPost: “[RICK] SANTORUM, a former Republican senator and two-time failed GOP presidential candidate, sparked outrage last month after claiming there was ‘nothing’ in America before white colonizers arrived and that Native people haven’t contributed much to American culture, anyway. …
“On Saturday, a CNN senior executive told HuffPost that the network quietly ended its contract with Santorum this week. This executive, who requested anonymity to speak openly, said the decision to cut ties with Santorum came after he went on one of the network’s shows, ‘Cuomo Prime Time,’ to explain himself shortly after he made his racist comments. He blew it, said this executive, and after that, nobody at the network wanted to keep him around.”
TRUMP CARDS
PENCE RESETTLING IN INDIANA — “Mike and Karen Pence move back to Indiana,” USA Today: “The Pences, who had been renting a house in suburban Virginia after leaving office in January, purchased a home north of Indianapolis, a spokeswoman told USA TODAY. They are moving in this weekend, providing the native Hoosier a chance to launch a potential bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination from his home state.”
PLAYBOOKERS
WEEKEND WEDDING — Jessica Skaggs, deputy comms director for the House Ways and Means Committee and a Ted Cruz alum, and Will Henrichs, vendor relationship manager at Stand Together and a Roy Blunt alum, got married on Saturday in Edgerton, Kan. The two met at Liberty University. SPOTTED: Tanner Wilson, Bryan Bashur, Christian McMullen, Maria Jeffrey Reynolds, Ryan Reynolds, Lauren Aronson and Phil Bianchi, Hannah Schwartz and Molly Jenkins. Pic… Another pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) … William Minor of DLA Piper … Tom Heinemann … WaPo’s Dana Priest … Shekar Narasimhan … ABC’s Mary Bruce … Nate McDermott … NBC’s Danielle Dellorto … Megan McKinley … CNN’s Adam Levy … Melanie Fonder Kaye … PhRMA’s Sarah Sutton … Reuel Marc Gerecht … Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli … Rachel MacKnight … DSCC’s Helen Smith … former A.G. Bill Barr … Georgiana Bloom … Mel Lukens … Jorge Martinez of York Exponential (49)
Send Playbookers tips to [email protected]. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.
More than 1 million total COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Latin America and the Caribbean as of Saturday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The region — which accounts for 8% of the world population — has reported approximately 29% of all global COVID fatalities.
“This is a tragic milestone for everyone in the region,” Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Carissa F. Etienne said Friday in a statement. “This pandemic is far from over, and it is hitting Latin America and the Caribbean severely, affecting our health, our economies, and entire societies.”
With more than 446,000 deaths, Brazil has the highest death toll in the region and accounts for 44.5% of Latin America’s deaths. The country has reported the second-highest number of deaths globally, behind only the United States.
Mexico has the second highest number of deaths in the region with more than 221,000, the fourth-highest death toll in the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given the country the highest travel advisory possible, recommending that tourists “avoid all travel.” However, under Mexico’s federal stoplight metric system used to determine closures in the country during the pandemic, there were no states designated “red” — the strictest lockdown level — between May 10 and May 23, the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico said.
Despite rising deaths in the region, only about 3% of citizens in Latin America and the Caribbean have been vaccinated, PAHO reported Friday.
Etienne said that the region’s vaccination gap in comparison to reported vaccination numbers from other countries may be due to an “overdependence on imports for essential medical supplies.” She said Wednesday that less than 4% of medical products used during the pandemic have come from within Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Expanding our regional capacity to manufacture strategic medical supplies – especially vaccines – is a must, both for our people and as a matter of health security,” Eitenne said. “We urgently need more vaccines for Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that has been put to the test by this pandemic.”
President Joe Biden on Monday announced that the U.S. will send an additional 20 million doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines internationally, bringing the total number of doses sent abroad to 80 million by the end of June.
In contrast, a simple message from Hamas that it would fight to the death for Jerusalem resonated with Palestinians who despair at the inability of President Abbas to slow down, let alone stop, the steady increase of Jewish settlement, illegal under international law, on occupied land they want for a state.
Twenty-one people, including two of China’s top marathon athletes, died after freezing rain and high winds struck a 62-mile mountain race in northwestern China, local officials said on Sunday.
Liang Jing, 31, an ultramarathon champion, and Huang Guanjun, the winner of the men’s marathon for hearing-impaired runners at China’s 2019 National Paralympic Games, were among those found dead, according to state news media.
The deaths prompted outrage in China, with online commentators questioning the preparedness of the local government that organized the race, held at Yellow River Stone Forest Park in Gansu Province.
Hours into the event on Saturday, the weather suddenly deteriorated as the runners were climbing 6,500 feet above sea level to the 12-mile mark, according to Zhang Xuchen, the mayor of the nearby city of Baiyin, who fired the starting pistol. Runners dressed in shorts and T-shirts were suddenly facing freezing conditions, and rain turned to hail. Some passed out from the cold.
Arizona Democrats called on Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly to help eliminate a controversial procedural hurdle that allows Senate Republicans to block key legislation.
At its state convention on Saturday, where hundreds of Democratic foot soldiers gathered virtually, the Arizona Democratic Party also seized on the spectacle of the Republican-led review of 2.1 million ballots from the 2020 election.
Local and national party leaders condemned the review as a desperate and extreme attempt to defy the will of voters and upend democracy, using it as a rallying cry to organize ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, where they hope to hold onto a U.S. Senate seat and make gains statewide and at the GOP-controlled state Capitol.
“They’re running this audit trying to undermine a free and fair election,” party chair Raquel Terán said. “The Arizona GOP is out of touch. Elected Republicans are letting the fringes of their party drive their agenda.”
State committee members passed three resolutions, which are not binding but express the will of the party.
One formalized the party’s position on the U.S. Senate’s legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes for the chamber to act on most legislation. The filibuster is a major obstacle to advancing Biden’s agenda in the tied Senate, where Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tie-breaking vote.
The “We Call For An End To The Filibuster” resolution called on Sinema, D-Ariz., and Kelly, D-Ariz. to declare support for ending the filibuster and voting to eliminate it from Senate rules.
Terán said she appreciates the senators’ desire to work with Republicans, “but we need to make sure that every option is on the table to make sure that we get Joe Biden’s agenda passed.”
“There’s a lot of talk about, ‘Oooh, the pressure is mounting and the pressure is out there,’” Sinema said in a recent interview with The Arizona Republic’s political podcast, The Gaggle.
Democrats also passed resolutions that urge the senators to “do whatever it takes” to pass legislation before Labor Day that seeks to expand voting rights and labor rights.
Both senators support the For The People Act, which would provide sweeping expansion of voters’ rights and election security. They have also previously expressed support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, an update of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has not yet been introduced in the Senate this year.
Neither senator has signed onto the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021, which almost certainly will not advance in the Senate, given the filibuster. The act would reform labor laws and give workers more power to organize after decades of setbacks to unions.
During the hours-long meeting, party activists also heard pre-recorded video messages from Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, who commended Democrats for seeking to block the Senate GOP’s ballot recount.
“Your efforts have exposed this dangerous process for what it is,” Abrams said. “… Just a few years ago, no one would have believed that your state and my state would be the states to defeat Donald Trump or that Arizona would have been the one to set the pace. But together, we flipped both of our U.S. Senate seats from red to blue. We worked hard and now we have to work even harder.”
Saturday’s gathering offered a preview of Democrats’ strategy in the months ahead, where they will promote the White House’s coronavirus economic recovery package and infrastructure proposal while highlighting Arizona Republicans’ continued loyalty to Trump.
For eight years, Derenda Hancock has ushered women from their cars to the doors of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, donning a rainbow vest as she shields them from protesters waving religious pamphlets and shouting “turn back!” through bullhorns.
Hancock, a 62-year-old part-time waitress, grew accustomed to repeated attempts by lawmakers and anti-abortion activists to block access to abortions at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization where she leads the clinic’s volunteer escorts.
But the future of that access feels threatened like never before after the U.S. Supreme Court thrust the clinic’s noisy city block into the center of the country’s contentious debate over abortion rights.
The court on Monday agreed to review Mississippi’s bid to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a Republican-backed measure enacted in direct challenge to the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
The court’s new 6-3 conservative majority, which is not expected to rule on the case until next year, could decide to weaken or overturn that ruling, which established a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus is viable, usually between 24 and 28 weeks.
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, known locally as the “Pink House” because of its bubble gum-colored paint, is named in the case.
“Our little case here, everything hangs on it,” said Hancock, tears forming under her lavender eye shadow as she talked about patients, some who drive hundreds of miles and scrape together the $150 needed for an initial appointment.
“If they do overturn Roe, we’re done,” she said. “I know in my heart this is the big enchilada.”
Mississippi is one of six states with a single abortion clinic. It is also one of about 10 states with “trigger laws” that would effectively ban abortion outright without Roe v. Wade, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.
Three others border Mississippi – Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee – meaning an overturn of Roe could eliminate legal abortion access for millions of women in the U.S. South.
Mississippi has enacted other laws that impede the ability to get abortions. Women must wait at least 24 hours between their first consultation and the procedure, there are mandatory sonograms, minors need parental consent, and public funding through Medicaid does not cover most cases.
The Jackson clinic has been on the brink of a shutdown before as a result of various restrictive laws. After the Supreme Court news broke last week, the clinic received a flurry of calls from panicked patients asking if it would stay open, said its director, Shannon Brewer.
Sitting at her office desk a few days later, Brewer’s eyes darted constantly to a television showing feeds from the clinic’s security cameras. She said she could not break the nervous habit: People have vandalized the property in the past, and Brewer fears for the safety of the staff and doctors.
“The impact it would have affects so many clinics, so many women,” Brewer said. “This one has a huge impact across the country.”
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM FOR ABORTION OPPONENTS
The Supreme Court’s review is a victory for anti-abortion lawmakers who have pushed hundreds of abortion restrictions through Republican-led state legislatures in recent years.
Outside the Pink House, most of the anti-abortion protesters said a favorable decision would not be enough.
“Ideally I’d like a constitutional amendment that recognizes the humanity of the unborn,” said Dr. Beverly McMillan, a former Mississippi abortion provider who now opposes the procedure.
She paced along the clinic sidewalk praying her rosary beads, part of a group of protesters that included street preachers blasting gospel music and soft-spoken elderly women handing out prayer cards.
Allan Klein, an engineer also praying rosary beads, said he felt removing the constitutional right to abortion was just an initial step and that religious reasoning was needed to prevent women from ending pregnancies.
“I’m more interested in getting people to change their minds,” he said. “Ultimately, law enforcement isn’t going to completely keep people from doing what they want to do.”
For L.W., a 33-year-old mother of two who asked to go by her initials for privacy, difficult circumstances led her to shift her stance on abortion.
A Jehovah’s Witness, she previously leaned against abortion. But financial hardship and her struggle with alcoholism played a role in her decision to get a medication abortion at eight weeks pregnant, she said.
“I struggled between ‘I don’t want to do it’ and ‘I have to do it,’” L.W. said, sitting in the clinic’s gated courtyard last week after a check-up.
In Mississippi, where some 20% of residents live in poverty, the majority of abortion patients get financial assistance through national abortion funds to cover the procedure, which can exceed $600. The women often still have to save up for the cost of at least two trips – one for state-mandated counseling and another for the procedure.
About half of women who get abortions in the United States are in poverty, according to Guttmacher’s most recent data from 2014.
L.W. said her experience made her more passionate about protecting abortion rights.
“No one here knows what I’m going through,” she said, her hands folded in her lap as shouting and music echoed from the street.
FAIRFIELD TWP., New Jersey — Two people were killed and another 12 others were injured in a mass shooting during a house party near Bridgeton, New Jersey.
The victims who died were a 30-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, state police said. Their names have not been released.
One of the 12 people who were injured is in critical condition. All of the victims were adults, according to investigators.
No arrests have been made, state police say. The motive remains under investigation.
Officers were called to a home on E. Commerce Street in Fairfield Township, Cumberland County around 11:50 p.m. Saturday.
More than one hundred people were at that home for a party at the time, officials said.
Chopper video showed the aftermath on Sunday morning. A tent that appeared to have been knocked over was on the ground. Debris was scattered around the yard.
Cars were parked all along the street, and police say some were parked blocks away.
Police were investigating a vehicle that was parked at a nearby graveyard, though it was not clear if there was a connection between the vehicle and the shooting.
The uncle of one of the victims was at the scene. He said his niece was a “good girl” and he was “absolutely heartbroken.”
Police say some of the wounded victims were taken to the hospital by medics, while others drove themselves.
Multiple police agencies are now on the scene as the investigation continues.
The reverend of the church right across the street from the shooting scene heard the gunfire.
“I just started hearing at first what I thought was fireworks, it was really gunshots, and I heard nine in rapid succession,” said the Rev. Michael Keene of the Trinity AME Church.
Community leaders say the gathering was a 90s-themed birthday party and was attended mostly by young people.
“We have a lot of challenges in this community and we’ve had a lot of tragedies,” said Melissa Helmbrecht of the HopeLoft Community Center.
Helmbrecht said the partygoers were excited about the warm weather and opportunity to get together.
“I’m just worried for our friends, our family, our employees. Over the coming days we’re going to have a lot of pieces to put back together,” she said.
“If you’re going to a party why do you need to take a gun?” said Keene. “If you’re there to have a good time why do you need a gun with you? That means you’re expecting trouble to me.”
In a statement, Gov. Phil Murphy expressed gratitude for the efforts of law enforcement and first responders while condemning the violence.
“Let there be no mistake: This despicable and cowardly act of gun violence only steels our commitment to ensuring New Jersey leads the nation in passing and enforcing strong and commonsense gun safety laws,” he said. “No community should ever experience what occurred last night in Fairfield.”
More than half of Republican Party voters, 53 percent, said they think Donald Trump is currently the “true president” of the United States, not Joe Biden, a new poll shows.
An Ipsos/Reuters poll published Friday addressed “The Big Lie” election fraud allegations touted by Trump and his most fanatical supporters since his November 2020 loss to Biden. This most recent poll of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that 56 percent of Republicans still believe the election was “rigged or the result of illegal voting.”
Eighty-seven percent of Republicans surveyed said it’s important for the government to place new limits on voting to protect future elections from fraud, and 54 percent agreed the Capitol riot was led by “violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad.”
One-quarter of Americans from all political affiliations said they think Biden’s victory was the result of illegal ballot-counting or election rigging, compared to a 55 percent majority overall who say it was “legitimate and accurate.”
Fewer than one-third of Republicans, 30 percent, said they are confident that absentee or mail-in ballots were accurately counted during the November presidential election. By comparison, an overwhelming 86 percent majority of Democratic Party voters said they believe such votes were counted with accuracy. Thirty-nine percent of Republican respondents said they “strongly agree” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
A slight majority of Independent voters, 54 percent, responded that they are confident mail-in and absentee ballots were counted accurately, the Ipsos-Reuters poll revealed. Only 16 percent of Independent voters said they think Biden won as a result of election rigging or illegal voting.
Looking ahead to 2024, nearly two-thirds of Republican-leaning voters said they think Trump should run for president again during the next election. Only 12 percent of Republicans said they strongly agree that Trump played some role in the deadly January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
More than 80 percent of the 2,007 U.S. adults polled in this latest Ipsos-Reuters survey identified themselves as registered to vote at their current address. The pollsters noted that the results are the most recent evidence that “Trump’s stronghold over the Republican Party remains” months after his departure from the White House.
Just shy of half of Americans overall said they “strongly agree” that Trump should not run for president again in 2024, compared to 81 percent of Democrats and 48% of Independents.
Newsweek reached out to representatives for the former U.S. president Saturday afternoon for any additional response or reaction.
Over half of Republicans say Trump is the “true president” and the Capitol riot was led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make him look bad, according to an Ipsos/Reuters poll published Friday. Above, a Trump supporter checks his phone on November 9, 2020 in Philadelphia. MARK MAKELA / Stringer/Getty Images
Palestinians inspect the rubble of their destroyed houses in Beit Hanun, northern Gaza Strip, on Saturday. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding.
Fatima Shbair/Getty Images
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Palestinians inspect the rubble of their destroyed houses in Beit Hanun, northern Gaza Strip, on Saturday. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding.
Fatima Shbair/Getty Images
JERUSALEM — The cease-fire between Israel and Gaza held for a second day Saturday, as focus turned to rebuilding after 11 days of fighting left more than 240 Palestinians and 12 Israelis dead.
At the center of talks is the reconstruction of Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes destroyed hundreds of homes and commercial buildings, damaged six hospitals and 53 educational facilities, and damaged roads and electricity lines, according to the United Nations. Israel says it was targeting Hamas militants.
Electricity shortages have created other problems: desalination plants that provide drinking water and sewage treatment plants are offline. About 800,000 people in Gaza are without regular piped water.
Any rebuilding effort will likely cost billions. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi pledged $500 million. But other international donors — including the U.S. — are wary that aid could be misused for military purposes by Hamas or any investment in Gaza could be destroyed in another war.
Additionally, the materials necessary for rebuilding — such as cement and pipes — have long been subject to restrictions by Israel, which, along with Egypt, has for years held Gaza under blockade. Israel argues that the materials are used by Hamas to build up its military capabilities.
The negotiations are being mediated by Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and maintains direct contact with Hamas, unlike the U.S. Next week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive to participate in talks.
There is also the question of which Palestinian group will handle the funds. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is regarded as a terror organization by the U.S. and Israel.
In administering aid, President Biden announced Thursday that the U.S. would work with the Palestinian Authority, the political group that administers the West Bank and rivals Hamas in claiming to represent the Palestinian national movement.
“We will do this in full partnership with the Palestinian Authority — not Hamas, the Authority — in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal,” Biden said, adding that he’d spoken multiple times with the Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas has loudly proclaimed victory in this month’s conflict, and Palestinians across the region celebrated Friday in support. The group’s popularity had previously been in decline over the last decade, but now some in Israel worry the conflict will lead to a rise in its popularity.
“Militarily, Hamas was defeated, yet they still have achievement in the position that they put themselves in the Palestinian leadership. They got into the vacuum that Abu Mazen created,” said retired IDF major general Amos Yadlin, referring to Abbas by another frequently used name.
Until those questions are resolved, Israel and Gaza have continued to maintain what’s called a “quiet for quiet” agreement — so long as Hamas fires no rockets, Israel says, they will not fire either, and the same for Hamas.
On the second day of the ceasefire, many of Israel’s Jewish communities stood quiet in observance of the Sabbath. In Gaza, residents turned out to survey the damage, visit shops and restaurants for the first time in two weeks, and — for the families of the 243 Palestinians who died, according to Gaza officials, including dozens of children — mourn loved ones.
After being holed up for 11 days as rocket fire from Gaza militants and Israeli airstrikes raged throughout the night, many Palestinians celebrated what they viewed as a Hamas victory and expressed relief at the pause in hostilities.
“I feel much better. I can’t even describe the past days. Every minute I was thinking, ‘I’m going to die,’ ” said Aysha Abu Sultan, a Gaza resident who said she’d spent the last 11 days feeling “terrified.”
In previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza, cease-fires have repeatedly broken down soon after taking effect, especially during the war in 2014.
Perhaps the biggest test for the 2-day-old ceasefire is the forthcoming ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court about a set of evictions in an East Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah.
That ruling had originally been scheduled for earlier this month. But as protests grew and tensions mounted, even before the beginning of the rocket fire, the judgment was delayed. The court is now expected to rule in about two weeks.
A Congo government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, said Saturday that Goma’s evacuation plan had been activated, as the Associated Press reported that thousands were already fleeing, often on foot. A din of people and honking horns could be heard in videos of the red-glowing eruption shared on social media, and Rwandan officials said that more than 3,500 Congolese people had sought refuge across the border in nearby Rwanda.
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