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Cuando tenía 20 años, Jill Dodd vivió una relación muy distinta a las que terminan en “y se casaron y vivieron muy felices” que se escriben para el cine en su nativa Los Ángeles.
El pasado de la empresaria y diseñadora Jill Dodd, fundadora de la marca internacional de ropa deportiva Roxy, es sin duda exótico. Su vida tuvo un giro inesperado un fin de semana a principios de los ochenta, cuando con 20 años trabajaba como modelo en París. Le reveló a la BBC un mundo que pocos conocemos.
Todo empezó con una invitación a una fiesta…
“Mi agente me llamó para preguntarme si yo quería ir a Monte Carlo con ella y le dije ‘¡Sí… maravilloso!’. La noche que llegamos fuimos a una fiesta loquísima”.
El lugar era Le Pirate, donde camareros de pelo largo y sin camisa tocaban guitarra mientras una fogata crepitante, de seis metros de altura, iluminaba el cielo.
“Un ‘pirata’ me entregó una copa de champán. Me lo tomé y tiré la copa al fuego, como los demás invitados. Todo era tan salvaje y decadente. Quería bailar y vi a un hombre sentado en la mesa que parecía inofensivo: era como el papá de una amiga. Nos miramos y empezamos a bailar alrededor de la fogata”.
“Mientras estábamos bailando, mi agente se acercó y me preguntó si sabía con quién estaba bailando. Le contesté que no, que no me importaba. Me dijo: ‘Adnan Khashoggi’ y le pregunté: ‘¿Qué es Adnan Khashoggi?’… no le entendí nada“.
Khashoggi era un multimillonario saudita, comerciante de armas y conocido por su papel en algunos de los más famosos escándalos de los ochenta, entre ellos el Irán-Contra o Irangate, (1985 y 1986), en el cual Estados Unidos, bajo el gobierno de Ronald Reagan, le vendió armas al gobierno iraní que estaba en guerra con Irak y financió el movimiento Contra nicaragüense, dos operaciones prohibidas por el Senado. Khashoggi fue un intermediario clave.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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A finales de los 80, Khashoggi fue extraditado a EE.UU. para ser juzgado por establecer negocios ilegales con Ferdinand Marcos de Filipinas. En la foto se le ve al salir de la cárcel en Nueva York tras pagar la fianza de US$10 millones. En 1990 fue absuelto.
Escrito con sangre
“Cuando nos sentamos, él me subió la manga y escribió “Te amo” en mi brazo en letras grandes y rojas”.
“Al principio no me di cuenta de que lo había escrito con sangre”.
“Me senté para tratar de entender lo que acababa de pasar (…)
Estaba perdida en mi propio mundo, mareada por el alcohol y rodeada de extraños en este loco lugar. Lo único que hacía era mirar mi brazo (…)
Me gustó que escribiera ‘Te amo’. No me lo limpié“
Jill Dodd en su libro “The currency of love” (La moneda del amor)
“Me pareció divertido. Cuando bailamos era tan inocente, infantil y divertido. Y cuando hizo eso me pareció que era muy imaginativo. La gente hace cosas locas en Europa en las fiestas… escandalosas, a veces”.
“Al final de la noche, mi agente me dijo que Adnan quería que fuera a su bote a tomar café. Le contesté que lo único que quería era irme a dormir”. Me dijo: ‘Pero es ese bote que ves allá’, señalando hacia el Mediterráneo. Ahí estaba un barco que parecía un transatlántico… yo nunca había visto un barco tan grande“.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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El yate de Khashoggi era el más grande del mundo en esa época y fue usado en la película de James Bond “Nunca digas nunca”. Cuando tuvo problemas financieros se lo vendió al Sultán de Brunei quien a su vez se lo vendió a Donald Trump.
Jill no fue a tomar café esa noche, pero aceptó una invitación a cenar la noche siguiente.
A bordo
“El barco era enorme. Tenía al menos diez habitaciones, una discoteca, un hospital en el que se podía hacer cirugía a corazón abierto (…) Cuando llegamos nos preguntó si nos queríamos cambiar de ropa y nos llevó a un cuarto repleto de trajes de noche de alta costura. Me impresionó”.
“Tras una elegante cena me preguntó si quería que me mostrara el barco. Fuimos a su cuarto: la cama estaba cubierta de pieles, las manijas de las puertas eran de oro y tenía paredes estilo James Bond que rotaban para revelar habitaciones ocultas… me pareció que todo era una gran máquina ingeniosa”.
Una máquina cuyo siguiente dueño fue Donald Trump, el actual presidente de Estados Unidos.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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Las paredes revestidas de piel de gamuza en una sala de estar amarilla, diseñada por Luigi Sturchio, a bordo del yate de 86 metros cuando ya era de Donald Trump. Él lo bautizó “Trump Princess”. (1988)
“Adnan se comportaba como si realmente quisiera saber quién era yo y cuáles eran mis intereses. Nos sentamos a charlar por horas. Aunque me dijo: ‘Tengo que ser honesto: sé todo sobre ti. Tuve que investigarte por razones de seguridad'”.
“Sabía dónde había nacido, que mi papá era bombero, en qué había trabajado… una persona normal se habría quedado atónita pero yo no era muy rápida juzgando a la gente”, recuerda.
“Después de esa noche, yo definitivamente quería volverlo a ver, pero no sabía si alguna vez sucedería. ¿Sabes cómo a veces conoces personas que te parecen familiares, como si las hubieras conocido antes, y no sabes por qué pero todo encaja?”.
“Además, me dejó una buena impresión el que no hubiera tratado de besarme. Eso hizo que pensara más en él”. Y así continuó la relación por un tiempo, sin que hubiera nada físico.
Derechos de autor de la imagen JILL DODD
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Jill se ganaba la vida como modelo en París.
Esposa de placer
“Estábamos con un grupo en Marbella y Adnan aún no había llegado. Una noche me despertó, me tomó de la mano y me llevó a su suite. Empezamos a hablar y de repente preguntó: ‘¿Te gustaría un baño de espuma?’. Me metí a la bañera, él se sentó en el borde y charlamos.
“Luego fuimos a su recámara y para entonces yo quería besarlo. Pero dijo: ‘No puedo besarte hasta que aceptes un contrato’. No entendía de qué estaba hablando. Me explicó: ‘Yo no me caso de la manera tradicional’. Se comparó con la realeza en Arabia Saudita y otros hombres poderosos que tienen permitido tener tres esposas legales y 11 esposas de placer.
“‘Me gustaría que fueras mi esposa de placer. Hagamos un contrato de 5 años. Yo me encargaré de ti, me podrás contactar en cualquier momento, si quieres verme enviaré el avión. Podrás salir con otros hombres…’, así me propuso matrimonio de placer”.
“A mí no me importaba todo eso. Yo quería ser independiente… y quería besarlo”.
Yo era unos 12 cms. más alta que él, su cabeza era redonda y calva y tenía barriga… ¡A mí me parecía adorable!”
El contrato no era escrito, sino verbal. Con un beso quedó sellado y Jill se convirtió en su esposa de placer.
“Eso significaba que yo tenía su estilo de vida cuando estaba con él: vivía en sus hermosas casas, atendida por empleados domésticos, alimentada por chefs, relajada por masajistas. A Adnan le fascinaba la moda y le gustaba vestirme”.
“No lo dejé todo para estar sólo con él. Seguí pagando mi arriendo, vivía sola y trabajaba”.
Armas
Jill era consciente de que estaba con un hombre extremadamente rico, pero no sabía todavía que Khashoggi era comerciante de armas.
“Ni siquiera sabía bien cuál era su apellido. Y no había internet… ¿cómo iba a encontrar esa información? Lo que sabía era que me interesaba y que quería estar más tiempo con él”.
“Pasó mucho tiempo antes de que me enterara de cómo ganaba dinero. Le pregunté al principio pero no mencionó armas”.
“Fue en un viaje a Las Vegas que me dijo que estaba cerrando un gran negocio. Cuando me explicó de qué se trataba exclamé: ‘¡Pero son máquinas de guerra!‘ y me respondió: ‘No tienen todos los países el derecho de defenderse de una guerra con otros países?'”.
Derechos de autor de la imagen JILL DODD
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Jill no dejó su trabajo cuando se “casó” con Khashoggi. La llamaban mucho para modelar trajes de baño. Después empezó a estudiar y eventualmente fundó Roxy, una marca conocida entre surfistas.
Las otras mujeres
“Conocí a las otras esposas de placer en reuniones o en cenas. Con el tiempo se volvió normal. Nos tratábamos con respecto pero guardábamos la distancia. Yo sentía que yo era especial para él. Fue más tarde que empezó a cambiar”.
“Una noche me trajo un collar que era para otra persona. Yo estaba dormida en mi cama y él entró en medio de la noche con un paquete. Me besó en la cabeza y me volteé y dijo: ‘¡Me equivoqué de habitación! Quédate con el regalo'”.
“Me sentí destrozada. Esa fue la primera vez que realmente me hirió”.
Separación
“Había empezado a estudiar y así que no estaba con él tanto como antes. Entonces me di cuenta de que estaba buscando otra mujer. Me pareció horripilante. Adnan y yo estábamos en su suite cuando un hombre entró con un folder negro grande que tenía fotos de modelos”.
Las empezaron a mirar y de repente caí en cuenta de lo que estaba pasando.
‘¿Qué estás haciendo? ¿Estás buscando chicas para comprar? ¿Fue así como me encontraste? ¿Me escogiste en un catálogo?‘. Se miraron y empezaron a reírse”.
“Me sentí traicionada. Todo estalló en ese momento. En ese entonces, él tenía hordas de mujeres a su alrededor. Todo era cada vez era más sórdido”.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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La actriz italiana Lory Del Santo en el baño del yate de su amigo Adnan Khashoggi, en marzo de 1981, la época en la que Jill Dodd todavía estaba con él.
“Luego conocí a una chica llamada René, que era idéntica a mí, sólo que menos alta y más joven. Empecé a sentir que era muy vieja para él (tenía 22 años)”.
El fin
Jill se fue, pero siguió en contacto con Khashoggi por años.
“Me llamaba y me preguntaba si quería volver con él. Si alguna vez me hubiera dicho que me amaba y que quería estar sólo conmigo, sin harén, lo habría considerado”.
“Adnan murió el día que publiqué mi libro (6 de junio, 2017). Para mí fue un shock que me duró una semana. En medio de la noche me levantaba llorando y sentía que estaba hablando con él, diciéndole que lo quería”.
Derechos de autor de la imagen jill dodd
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Khashoggi murió el mismo día en el que “La moneda del amor” salió a la venta.
“Realmente no tengo más que recuerdos gratos de él. Por más que suene loco, fue una de las relaciones más sanas que he tenido con un hombre”.
“Hubo mucha honestidad. Me respetó, nunca me habló con crueldad. De hecho, después de la relación con Adnan, estuve en una relación abusiva con un estadounidense que fue horrenda. Como una mujer adulta -tengo 57 años y he estado felizmente casada por casi 20 años- aún la recuerdo como una hermosa amistad”.
No obstante, si una de sus dos hijas le dijera que está en una relación como la que ella tuvo con Khashoggi, “sentiría terror”.
A public safety officer directs drivers where to go last week at a coronavirus testing site at the Lee Davis Community Resource Center in Tampa, Fla.
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A public safety officer directs drivers where to go last week at a coronavirus testing site at the Lee Davis Community Resource Center in Tampa, Fla.
Octavio Jones/Getty Images
Updated at 7:43 p.m. ET
Florida’s surge of COVID-19 cases shows no signs of slowing down. The state Department of Heath reported Florida set another daily record Thursday, with 10,109 cases, surpassing Saturday’s record of 9,585 cases. That brings Florida’s total confirmed coronavirus cases to nearly 170,000 and a death toll of 3,617 (with 67 new deaths reported Thursday).
The new record continues a marked upturn in cases that began last month, weeks after Florida started allowing businesses to reopen. Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended that decision, saying that for most of April and May, the number of new cases and the percentage of those testing positive for the virus remained low. But then, DeSantis said, he believes Floridians became complacent. “After Memorial Day, when it fell out of the news,” he said, “people kind of just thought, it was over.”
On Thursday, he met with Vice President Pence and other federal officials in Tampa. Speaking afterward, Pence thanked DeSantis for his leadership in combating the coronavirus and in reopening Florida’s economy. “It’s not an either-or choice,” Pence said. “The economic comeback that’s underway is a demonstration that we don’t have to choose between opening America and the health of our people. We can do both.”
DeSantis has resisted calls for a statewide order requiring face coverings for people in public places. As the numbers of COVID-19 cases have risen, many counties and cities have adopted rules making face coverings mandatory.
One of the most recent to do so is Jacksonville, which is set to host President Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in August.
Asked whether it will be safe for people over 65 or with underlying health conditions to attend the convention, Pence didn’t answer directly. “We’re excited about coming to Jacksonville,” he said. “I was at a meeting not long ago when I heard about very sophisticated plans to make sure it’s a safe and healthy environment.”
In Tampa, DeSantis was asked if he had any “personal responsibility” for the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Florida, while other states such as New York and New Jersey were seeing cases decline. “Well, do you give credit for Florida for having a much lower fatalities per 100,000 than all the states you just praised?” DeSantis shot back. “We have fewer fatalities than some of these states have just in nursing homes.”
At DeSantis’ direction, Florida has rolled back part of its reopening, closing all bars in the state last week to all but takeout business. Florida took that action as an increasing number of young people became infected with the virus and several bars closed voluntarily. To avoid encouraging large crowds, local governments in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties have ordered beaches closed through the July Fourth weekend.
And on Thursday night, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez announced a countywide daily curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice. He also rolled back the opening of entertainment facilities such as movie theaters, arcades, casinos, adult entertainment, concert houses and bowling alleys, effective Friday.
“This curfew is meant to stop people from venturing out and hanging out with friends in groups, which has shown to be spreading the virus rapidly,” he said.
DeSantis said he believes these measures are reminding residents they need to be careful. “Now, people understand, this thing doesn’t just go away,” he said. “You can do a lot of things if you take some small precautions.”
The rising numbers of coronavirus cases have raised questions about DeSantis’ leadership and his close ties to Trump, whom he consulted before allowing businesses to begin reopening.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, who represents parts of Miami, said, “In their rush to reopen, they’ve put politics ahead of public health.”
Shalala said DeSantis made a mistake by not acting sooner to shut the state down. “We needed at the beginning to hit this virus with a hammer, to starve it all the way down,” she said. “We didn’t do the right thing in the beginning, and now we’re trying to play catch-up.”
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Los bombardeos desde el Mar Caspio empezaron el miércoles 7 de octubre.
Funcionarios del ministerio de Defensa de EE.UU. informaron que cuatro misiles rusos disparados contra Siria desde el Mar Caspio cayeron en Irán.
Los funcionarios -que pidieron no ser nombrados- dijeron no saber si los misiles habían causado daño.
La principal agencia de noticias iraní IRNA (Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency) informó que, de acuerdo con el gobernador de la provincia occidental de Takab, un objeto volador desconocido se estrelló en el pueblo de Ghozghapan.
Pero IRNA sugirió que podría ser un avión no tripulado o una explosión en una mina.
Sin embargo, según la agencia de noticias AFP, el ministerio de Defensa de Rusia negó que tal cosa hubiera ocurrido.
“Cualquier profesional sabe que durante estas operaciones siempre fijamos el blanco antes y después del impacto. Nuestros misiles siempre dan en el blanco”, dijo el portavoz del ministerio, general Igor Konashenkov.
“Operación sicológica”
Agencias conservadoras de Irán describieron el reporte de que varios misiles rusos aterrizaron en Irán como “operaciones sicológicas” por parte de Estados Unidos contra Moscú.
“Durante la última semana, desde que Rusia comenzó su operación en Siria, medios comunicación y funcionarios occidentales comenzaron un asalto contra Moscú”, dijo la agencia de noticias privada Fars, considerada cercana a los sectores más conservadores de la clase política iraní.
“A pesar de hacer estas afirmaciones, los funcionarios de Estados Unidos dicen que no saben en dónde aterrizaron los misiles“, agrega la agencia.
El grupo Jóvenes Periodistas Conservadores, YJC por sus siglas en inglés, que es administrado y gestionado por la cadena estatal iraní, se refirió al informe como “un caso más de mentiras de los Estados Unidos” utilizando la misma terminología que Fars.
La decisión del gobienro ruso de bombardear lo que denominan posiciones “terroristas” ha causado sorpresa y resquemor en Occidente. La OTAN y Estados Unidos han dicho que entre los objetivos de los primeros bombardeos aéreos se encontraban civiles y grupos opositores aliados, algo que Rusia ha negado.
President Donald Trump is chipping away at former Vice President Joe Biden‘s lead in Arizona, raising the possibility that he could take the state, giving him some breathing room in his bath to the presidency.
CNN analysts said that new Maricopa County data shows Trump is gaining on Biden and, if votes continued that way, could even “meet and beat” Joe Biden in the state. Joe Biden is still winning the county, with 51.4 percent of the vote in the county but around 200,000 votes remain to be reported.
“Trump has been meeting the thresholds he needs to at least pull even,” CNN said. “The biggest question is the composition of what’s left.” Both campaigns will have a strong sense of the makeup of votes still to come in, with analytics on previous voting data which, CNN says, the “Biden campaign says they feel good about.”
Until recent results came in, Joe Biden was comfortably ahead in the state with 55 percent of the popular vote but now, that stands at around 50.5 percent, with Trump at around 48.1 percent. There is still around 15 percent of the vote to be reported.
On Tuesday night, the Associated Press and Fox News called Arizona for Biden, giving him 11 electoral college votes. With Arizona in Biden’s corner, Trump has to win all five of the remaining states, including Nevada that’s leaning toward Biden, but the president’s campaign pushed for the outlets to retract calling Arizona before all the votes were counted.
“No news outlet should stand by a called race in Arizona,” Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump campaign, posted on Twitter. “This thing isn’t over.” The tides started shifting in Trump’s favor on Wednesday evening. Unofficial results from 9 p.m. Eastern gave Trump 43,966 additional votes and Biden 30,322, bringing Biden’s lead in the state down from 92,817 votes to 79,173.
It put Biden at 1,469,341 votes statewide and Trump at 1,400,951 with 86 percent of the votes being reported, according to the New York Times, with Biden having 50.5 percent of the vote and Trump with 48.1 percent.
“HUGE gains for President Donald Trump in Maricopa County, Arizona,” Representative Andy Biggs posted on Twitter. “He is trailing by less than 80,000 votes now STATEWIDE. There are hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding.”
With Arizona going to Biden, as has been called by a number of networks, the Democratic candidate is only six votes away from the 270 threshold to become president of the United States. In that scenario, Trump will have to win the five remaining states—Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska—to win the election, while Biden only needs Nevada, a state that’s leaning Democratic.
However, if Trump secures a victory in Arizona, it would move Biden farther from the 270 vote goal post and means Trump could sacrifice Nevada and still have a path to victory.
As has been the case around the country, voters aren’t entirely confident in the validity of the election in Arizona. Voters were concerned about the accuracy of the count after people posted on social media that they were given a Sharpie marker to fill out their ballot and the ink caused it to be rendered invalid.
Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and Steve Gallardo, supervisor of District 5, pushed back on “misinformation spreading about the integrity of euro elections” and said Sharpies “do not invalidate ballots.”
“We did extensive testing on multiple different types of ink with our new vote tabulation equipment,” the two officials said in a statement. “The offset columns on ballots ensure that any bleed-through will not impact your vote.”
The reason behind the use of Sharpies was that they provide the fastest-drying ink and the officials reiterated that people who voted by mail could use Sharpies and blue or black pens. They also denied that changing results in the vote tally was a case of “fraud,” saying it’s actually “evidence of democracy.”
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized Monday after an inquiry found that Downing Street parties while Britain was in lockdown represented a “serious failure” to observe the standards expected of government or to heed the sacrifices made by millions of people during the pandemic
Johnson brushed off calls to quit over the “partygate” scandal, promising to reform the way his office is run and insisting that he and his government can be trusted. But he faced criticism from some of his own Conservative colleagues, who have the power to oust a leader some fear has become damaged goods. One Conservative lawmaker accused the prime minister of taking him for “a fool.”
“I get it, and I will fix it,” Johnson said in Parliament after senior civil servant Sue Gray published interim findings on several gatherings in 2020 and 2021 while the U.K. was under government-imposed restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Gray found that “failures of leadership and judgment” allowed events to occur that “should not have been allowed to take place.”
“The hardship under which citizens across the country worked, lived and sadly even died while observing the government’s regulations and guidance rigorously are known only too well,” Gray wrote.
“Against the backdrop of the pandemic, when the government was asking citizens to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives, some of the behavior surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify,” she added.
Gray’s glimpse inside a 10 Downing St. marked by excessive alcohol consumption and staff afraid to speak out about workplace problems are a blow to Johnson, despite the fact that Gray’s conclusions relate to just four of the 16 events she investigated.
Her findings on 12 others have been withheld at the request of the Metropolitan Police force, to avoid “any prejudice” to a criminal investigation launched last week into the most serious alleged breaches of coronavirus rules.
The force said Monday that it would be interviewing party attendees and looking at more than 300 photos and over 500 pages of documents it had received from Gray’s team. Anyone found guilty, including the prime minister, could face a fine.
Among the events under police investigation are a June 2020 birthday party for Johnson in Downing Street and two gatherings held on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021 — a service at which the widowed Queen Elizabeth II had to sit alone.
The allegations that the prime minister and his staff flouted restrictions imposed on the country — holding “bring your own booze” office parties, birthday celebrations and “wine time Fridays” — have caused public anger, led some Conservative lawmakers to call for Johnson’s resignation and triggered intense infighting inside the governing party.
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said the British public had made “heart-wrenching sacrifices” and endured “a collective trauma” during the pandemic.
He said the prime minister “held people’s sacrifice in contempt. He showed himself unfit for office.”
Johnson can ignore opposition criticism, because the Conservatives have a large majority in Parliament. His fate rests on how Conservative lawmakers respond to his apology. Some previously said they would push for a no-confidence vote if Gray found Johnson was at serious fault or had misled Parliament with his previous insistence that no rules had been broken. If Johnson lost such a vote, he would be replaced as party leader and prime minister.
Johnson urged his critics to wait for the conclusions of the police investigation.
But one Conservative legislator, Andrew Mitchell, said in the House of Commons that Johnson “no longer has my support.”
Another, Aaron Bell, recalled attending his grandmother’s small, socially distanced funeral in May 2020 and asked: “Does the prime minister think I’m a fool?”
Former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May said that either Johnson and those around him “had not read the rules, or didn’t understand what they meant. … Or they didn’t think the rules applied to No. 10. Which was it?”
Gray did not criticize the prime minister directly, but said “there is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government.”
That is unlikely to satisfy many of Johnson’s critics, some of whom accused the government of an attempted cover-up.
“This whole thing is a whitewash, there is no intent for anyone to tell the truth or be held accountable,” said David Garfinkel, a member of the group COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. “We have a prime minister who lies, who lies about lies and he is utterly insincere and incapable of leading.”
The government initially refused to promise that it would publish Gray’s full findings once the police investigation is finished. But after pressure from Conservative lawmakers, Johnson’s office committed to publishing her updated report.
Johnson, meanwhile, sought to change the subject from his personal woes, marking the second anniversary of Brexit on Monday by touting economic opportunities outside the European Union.
The U.K. officially left the now 27-nation bloc on Jan. 31, 2020, though it remained part of the EU’s economic structures for another 11 months.
Johnson announced a “Brexit Freedoms” Bill that the government says will slash red tape for British businesses by amending laws that were carried over from the U.K.’s years as an EU member.
Johnson also plans a diplomatic push to try to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine. He is expected to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone later Monday or Tuesday and to visit Ukraine on Tuesday as part of efforts to deter Russia from invading its neighbor.
Some political observers said Gray’s circumscribed and partial report may give Johnson at least a temporary reprieve from calls for his ouster.
“It’s too soon to tell,” said Alex Thomas, program director at the Institute for Government think-tank.
“It avoided some of the most damaging outcomes that we might have expected. … But in a way the more you read it, the more you look at the descriptions of the culture and the failings of leadership, the more damaging it was.”
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Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui and video journalist Jo Kearney contributed to this story.
If you are headed to President Donald Trump’s “Keep America Great Rally” in Wildwood on Tuesday Jan. 28, here is some important information that you should know before you go.
To get in line for the rally and into the event area — which will be restricted — attendees should go through the gate at Fox Park near Atlantic Avenue and be prepared to go through security.
People will be allowed to get in line, inside the event perimeter, beginning Monday at 6 p.m. A line was already forming outside Fox Park on Sunday afternoon.
President Trump will be landing at the Atlantic City Airport and his motorcade is expected to go along the Garden State Parkway, and down to the convention center. Expect intermittent road closures and delays as the motorcade makes it way to the rally.
Drivers should be warned there are some road closures and construction that will affect them. Rio Grande Avenue over George Redding Bridge — the main way into Wildwood — is down to one lane in each direction due to an ongoing construction project. Another way to access the island is through Route 147, or North Wildwood Boulevard into North Wildwood.
There will be road closures around the convention center itself, which were expected to start Monday.
Parking in the area will be tight. A number of parking lots around the convention will not be available because the roads to access them will be closed. A number of private parking lots may be open and charge to park in those locations. People who live in the city will not be allowed to charge people to park on their lawns. Also, none of the parking meters on the streets will be turned on.
There will be a limited amount of handicapped parking in the parking lot located at Hand and Ocean Avenues, near the Wildwood sign.
For anyone who is taking a ride-sharing service or is being dropped off in a personal vehicle, the drop-off location will be the 4600 block of New Jersey Avenue. It will be a two-block walk in the eastbound direction to reach Fox Park.
The drop-off area for attendees with disabilities will be at Rio Grande and Ocean Avenues. The people are asked to access the drop-off area by going down Hand Avenue.
The entrance to the event site will be at Fox Park. The entire event site area, extending two blocks west and then about eight blocks south, will be restricted and that perimeter could change, police said.
There’s a specific list of items that will be banned from inside the convention center and a different list of what is banned in the event area outside.
Inside the event area, the following items are prohibited: Alcoholic beverages, backpacks, coolers, drones, firearms, selfie sticks, umbrellas, weapons of any kind, aerosols, mace, pepper spray, packages, explosives, glass containers.
Signs are permitted but no sticks or poles attached to them. Chairs are allowed inside the event area but not inside the convention center. Any of these items that are found will be confiscated and not returned:
Inside, the following items are banned: aerosols, ammunition, non-service animals, backpacks and bags exceeding size restrictions, balloons, bicycles, coolers, drones, explosives, firearms, glass metal or thermal containers, laser pointers, mace/pepper spray, packages, selfie sticks, structures, supports for signs, toy guns, weapons.
Wildwood Police Chief Robert Regalbuto also “strongly urges” attendees outside and inside the rally to not bring any excess baggage, including backpacks, chairs or pets.
Public restrooms will be open on the boardwalk at Youngs Avenue and Leaming Avenue as well as the Doo Wop Museum at Fox park. Portable restrooms will also be set up within the event area.
Even if you like walking on the beach in the winter, do not do it Tuesday. The beach will be closed.
There will be outdoor heaters to keep people warm as they wait in line.
The Wildwoods prepare for the arrive of President Donald Trump and his “Keep America Great Rally,” Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.comTim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for
You can bring food and drinks inside the event area, but no coolers, backpacks, glass bottles or alcohol. There will be food vendors inside the event area on Tuesday and concession areas will be open inside the convention center.
As for restaurants in the area, according to the Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce, the following restaurants will be open on the day of the visit:
Mr. Trump was unmoved. “I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn,” he said. “He did not take notes.”
Mr. McGahn’s notes of the conversation about notes, of course, ended up in Mr. Mueller’s hands, as did his notes of times when Mr. Trump tried to order him to fire Mr. Mueller and later lie about it. After Mr. Mueller’s report was released last week, the president lashed out. “Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” he wrote on Twitter.
Among those whose notes or memos were obtained by Mr. Mueller were Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski, two of Mr. Trump’s campaign managers; George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign; Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s first White House chief of staff, and John F. Kelly, his second; and Annie Donaldson, Mr. McGahn’s chief of staff.
Others included James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director fired by the president; Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the former director of the National Security Agency; Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary; Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president; Jody Hunt, the former chief of staff to the attorney general; Tashina Gauhar, a Justice Department lawyer; and Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for the president’s private legal team.
Ms. Donaldson was known as a copious note-taker, whose constant documentation made colleagues anxious. Other aides said they were careful never to record anything while in the White House, but went home and wrote down conversations from earlier in the day to help store them in their memories — and then destroyed their notes before bed.
Mr. Lewandowski kept notes of one key conversation with Mr. Trump in his safe at home, “which he stated was his standard practice with sensitive items,” according to Mr. Mueller’s report. Admiral Rogers’s deputy was so stunned by a phone call that the two had with Mr. Trump about Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election that he memorialized it in a memo signed by both men and stored in a safe.
The reason Mr. Mueller wanted such documents was not particularly surprising. As his report said, “contemporaneous written notes can provide strong corroborating evidence.” Mr. Comey’s memos of his talks with Mr. Trump helped make the former F.B.I. director’s account more credible than the president’s, according to the report.
That, of course, was the central dilemma facing the Obama administration making its first, secret approach to Iran six years ago. At first, Mr. Obama’s aides insisted Iran would have to give up everything, but that the Tehran government could produce no material that might ultimately be diverted to a bomb.
Eventually, American negotiators concluded after years of running into walls that it would be better to leave Iran with a face-saving token capability for 15 years, and vigorous international inspections, than walk away with no agreement and the real prospect of war.
Many of Mr. Obama’s critics, including some Democrats, have said the negotiators gave up too much. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump quickly honed in on the nuclear agreement’s most glaring weakness: After 15 years, the Iranians could resume unlimited fuel production.
Mr. Obama’s essential bet was that in 15 years Iran will have different leadership, perhaps more interested in integrating with the world than keeping a bomb-making capability. So he brought into the negotiation a nuclear scientist in his cabinet, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Mr. Moniz, the former head of the M.I.T. nuclear physics lab, sat for months with his Iranian counterpart, who had done his graduate studies at M.I.T. They bonded, and emerged with an agreement that Energy Department scientists certified would assure Iran would need a year or more to “break out” and manufacture the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon — until the 15-year clock ran out.
Now Mr. Trump’s negotiators have decided they need the same thing — but it must be permanent.
The schedule that Mr. Rouhani announced to his nation last week would put Iran back on the path of nuclear fuel production. Sooner or later, it would cross that one-year threshold. Iran has never enriched at the level of purity needed to produce a weapon, inspectors say, but they have come close.
“If you want to keep Iran more than a year away from the capability to build a bomb, the way to do it is to go back into the deal,” said Jake Sullivan, a former Obama administration national security official who helped open the negotiations with Tehran. “Because that’s exactly what the deal does.”
“The decision to designate these entities is not based on any content produced by these entities, nor does it place any restrictions on what the designated entities may publish in the United States. It simply recognizes them for what they are,” State spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
In February, the Trump administration placed five other outlets, including Xinhua News Agency, under restrictions as it also claimed they served as China’s state propaganda outlets disguised as news agencies. Weeks later, the White House imposed a cap on the number of Chinese citizens who could work in the U.S. for the five outlets.
The Chinese government has not yet responded to the new designations, but it is expected to retaliate again. In March, following the first State announcement, China revoked the press credentials and expelled three reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. It openly acknowledged the move was retaliatory, calling the Trump administration’s restrictions “expulsion in all but name.”
MIAMI – Hurricane Dorian stalled over the northern Bahamas on Monday, pounding the islands with heavy rains, storm surge and howling winds that could linger all day before the storm directs its rage toward the U.S. coast.
Dorian’s slow and powerful advance westward along the archipelago slowed to 1 mph while top sustained winds eased slightly to 155 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Dorian thus slipped from Category 5 to Category 4 – still a brutal storm.
“On this track, the core of extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian will continue to pound Grand Bahama Island through much of today and tonight,” the hurricane center said in an 11 a.m. advisory.
Power and communications outages made damage assessment difficult. The few videos that have emerged from the Abaco Islands show destroyed homes, flooded roads and residents pleading for help and payers.
Florida and the U.S. East Coast remained a target. The storm will move “dangerously close” to the Florida east coast late Monday through Wednesday night, the center said. Dorian is forecast to turn toward the northwest, roaring parallel to Florida about 30 to 40 miles offshore, before continuing north along the East Coast deep into the week.
That gap remains right on the edge of delivering the worst of Dorian to the Florida coastline.
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NASA video shows hurricane Dorian as it passed over the Bahamas. USA TODAY
President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency and was being briefed regularly about what he called a “monstrous” storm.
“I spoke with President Trump. He’s fully engaged in this,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Tuesday news conference. “He just reiterated that he’s going to provide any resources we need to weather Dorian.”
DeSantis said all coastal counties have issued evacuation orders, and 72 nursing homes have been evacuated. More than 4,000 members of the state National Guard have been called up, and power companies are prepared to dispatch 17,000 personnel to combat outages.
The hurricane center said wind gusts were in excess of 220 mph when the storm made landfall in the Bahamas on Sunday afternoon. The winds matched the a records set by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, which tore through the Florida Keys, killing more than 400 people in the days before hurricanes were given names.
“This is probably the saddest and worst day for me to address the Bahamian people,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Sunday. “We are facing a hurricane that we have never seen in The Bahamas. Please pray for us.”
The only recorded storm that was more powerful was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 190 mph winds, though it did not make landfall at that strength.
Dorian made landfall in Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas around noon Sunday, then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco at 2 p.m.
The raging winds wrought destruction and terrified islanders who sought shelter in schools, churches and other facilities.
“It’s devastating,” said Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism and Aviation. “There has been huge damage to property and infrastructure.”
Florida, Georgia, Carolina coasts
The storm was located about 110 east of West Palm Beach, Florida. According to a Monday advisory from the center, Florida’s east-central coast may see a “brief tornado” sometime Monday afternoon evening.
After its brush with Florida, the hurricane is forecast to track near the Georgia and Carolina coasts late this week. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered mandatory evacuation of his state’s entire coast effective Monday. The order covers about 830,000 people, and State troopers planned to make all lanes on major coastal highways one-way heading inland.
“We can’t make everybody happy, but we believe we can keep everyone alive,” McMaster said.
A few hours later, Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, ordered mandatory evacuations for that state’s Atlantic coast, also starting at midday Monday.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned his state that it could see heavy rain, winds and floods later in the week.
“The time to prepare is now,” Coooper warned. “North Carolina must take this seriously.
Rodriguez and Bacon reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY; Michael Braun and Frank Gluck, Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press; Amber Roberson, Tallahassee Democrat; Dan DeLuca, Treasure Coast Newspapers; Associated Press
“I’m running for president because I’m the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nation’s number one priority,” Inslee said in a video released Friday.
Inslee, 68, joins a crowded field of Democratic contenders who have announced or are considering running for president.
He is the first governor enter the 2020 Democratic presidential contest while another Western governor also is considering a run — Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
In a Morning Consult survey last month, Inslee ranked 21st among Democratic primary voters. He was below Bullock and another potential contender, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Inslee has openly discussed his interest in a White House run for many months and from the start focused on climate change. The Democrat has already visited key early states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.
“We’re the first generation to feel the sting of climate change,” Inslee said in Friday’s video. “And we’re the last that can do something about it.”
The Washington governor is expected to make the White House bid official during an event Friday morning at a Seattle-area solar installation company. In a release, his campaign said Inslee’s policies have helped “grow Washington’s clean energy economy” and include signing a solar incentive jobs bill in 2017.
But not everyone considers climate change a top priority issue, according to Pew Research Center.
A Pew survey conducted in January found only 44 percent view climate change as a top priority of President Donald Trump and Congress, ranking it second lowest after global trade (39 percent). By comparison, 70 percent of those surveyed felt the economy should rank top as a policy priority and 69 percent identified health care costs.
Climate policies
In November, Inslee visited California after the Camp Fire destroyed most of the town of Paradise and later spoke about how climate change is contributing to more dangerous wildfires. Some of images in the launch video released Friday appear to show devastation from the Camp Fire, which destroyed more than 10,000 homes and killed 86 people.
Inslee, a two-term governor who applauds the Green New Deal, has been outspoken on the environmental issues and the need for clean energy for more than a decade. Prior to becoming governor, he served in Congress and authored “Apollo’s Fire,” a 2007 book about how to reduce greenhouse gases and gain energy independence.
Yet several other Democratic presidential contenders are also talking about climate change themes and a mix of ways to combat greenhouse gas emissions, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii. Also, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has weighed in on climate change as a human rights issue.
Carbon tax defeat
Inslee’s climate agenda suffered a setback last year when the oil industry funded a campaign to defeat a carbon emissions fee initiative the governor backed. The measure was seen as a way to raise revenue as well as to help the state achieve ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals.
One way around the voter setback is a pending clean energy bill that would require the state’s utilities to be carbon-free by 2045. The state already gets the majority of its power from hydroelectricity sources.
He also is a former criminal prosecutor and was a state legislator in Olympia before getting elected Washington’s 23rd governor in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. He could seek a third term if his presidential run isn’t successful.
The Washington governor also has strong views on other issues, including gun control, health care, immigration and labor issues.
Gun Control
Inslee is an advocate for stricter gun control laws and in 1994 while in Congress voted for the 10-year assault weapons ban. He also challenged Trump at a White House event last year on the issue of arming teachers with firearms.
Last year, Washington voters approved Initiative 1639, a measure Inslee supported that raised the age to purchase semiautomatic rifles to 21, from 18. The initiative also expanded background checks for rifles and added other new regulations, including firearm education and new standards for secured gun storage.
Health Care
Inslee backs a public health care option for the state that would compete with private insurers. The plan was proposed in January and promises that patients will spend no more than 10 percent of their income on premiums.
The Democrat has criticized the “instability” in the health care system that was caused by undermining Obamacare. His plan would expand subsidies to private insurers but has generated criticism due to concerns about costs from some critics.
Immigration
Inslee has been critical of Trump’s immigration policies and signed an executive order in 2017 that limited the state’s role in enforcing immigration enforcement laws. He also pushed to increase the state’s emergency funding to support civil legal aid services for immigrant families.
The governor also recently called Trump’s emergency declaration over the border wall “illegal” and last year slammed the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of separating families as “an intentional infliction, abusive behavior to punish innocent children.”
Labor
While he’s been governor, Washington state’s minimum wage has increased and currently stands at $12 an hour and is scheduled to jump to $13.50 in 2020. Seattle’s minimum wage last year jumped to $15 for those employers offering paid medical benefits while smaller employers have a wage floor of $14 an hour.
Inslee also has talked up progressive policies in the Evergreen State, including what he’s called one of nation’s “best paid family and medical leave” programs.
The throngs of new families are also affecting communities on the American side of the border. In El Paso, for example, where most of the families are being processed after submitting their asylum applications, a volunteer network that temporarily houses the migrants after they are released from custody has had to expand to 20 facilities, compared with only three during the same period last year. Migrants are now being housed in churches, a converted nursing home and about 125 hotel rooms that are being paid for with donations.
“We had never seen these kinds of numbers,” said Ruben Garcia, the director of the organization, called Annunciation House. He said that during one week in February, immigration authorities had released more than 3,600 migrants to his organization, the highest number in any single week since the group’s founding in 1978.
For the most part, Mr. Garcia said that his staff and volunteer workers had been able to keep up with the surge, often making frantic calls to churches to request access to more space for housing families on short notice. But sometimes their best efforts were upended, he said, including on one day last week, when the authorities dropped off 150 more migrants than originally planned.
“We just didn’t have the space,” Mr. Garcia said.
Border Patrol officials said that the biggest “pull factors” encouraging migrant families to make their way to the United States were federal laws and court settlements that prohibit the authorities from deporting Central Americans without lengthy processing, and from detaining migrant families for more than 20 days, after which they must be released into the country while they await immigration court proceedings. Others at the agency pointed to severe poverty and food insecurity in the Western highlands of Guatemala, where many of the families are from, as a primary motivation.
As of March 3, 237,327 migrants had been apprehended along the southwest border since the fiscal year began in October, a 97 percent increase from the previous year, according to government figures.
The larger numbers and the surge into more remote areas of the border have drawn new attention to longstanding problems with medical services provided by Customs and Border Protection. Migrant families, in particular, tend to arrive in urgent need of medical attention, the agency said, which has strained resources and drawn agents away from their law enforcement duties.
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Por primera vez Donald Trump le puso número a la cantidad de inmigrantes indocumentados que va a deportar de Estados Unidos cuando asuma la presidencia.
El presidente electo de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, dijo este domingo que entre dos y tres millones de inmigrantes indocumentados serán deportados o encarcelados en los primeros días de su gobierno.
En un adelanto del programa 60 Minutes de la cadena CBS, al cual brindó su primera entrevista como presidente electo, Trump explicó que los indocumentados que tengan antecedentes judiciales o sean identificados como pandilleros o traficantes de drogas serán expulsados de EE.UU.
En el fragmento de entrevista publicado, que será emitida completa esta noche a las 7 pm hora local (0:00 GMT), la periodista Lesley Stahl le pregunta a Trump si mantendrá algunas de las principales promesas de campaña, entre ellas la deportación de los inmigrantes indocumentados.
“Lo que vamos a hacer es atrapar a las personas que son criminales y tienen antecedentes criminales, miembros de pandillas, traficantes de drogas, que son muchas personas, probablemente 2 millones, quizá hasta 3 millones, y los vamos a sacar del país o quizá los vamos a encarcelar”, dijo el republicano.
Image copyright AP
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El programa “60 Minutes” de la cadena CBS entrevistó a Donald Trump en su apartamento en Nueva York.
Esta es la primera vez que Trump le pone un número concreto a la cantidad de personas que piensa deportar de EE.UU.
También aclaró que el destino de los otros ocho millones de indocumentados que se estiman viven en el país norteamericano será decidido una vez se “asegure” la frontera sur con México.
“Después de asegurar la frontera (sur) y de que todo se normalice, vamos a determinar qué hacer con esas personas de las que estamos hablando, que son una gente estupenda, pero vamos a tener que tomar una decisión al respecto“, afirmó.
“Pero antes de que tomemos esa decisión, es muy importante que aseguremos nuestra frontera”.
En septiembre Trump había dado un discurso ahondando en las medidas principales de su plan migratorio en donde afirmó que la única opción para todos los indocumentados sin antecedentes será salir de Estados Unidos y realizar el proceso legal estipulado, que ahora será más exigente.
Según el periodista de BBC en Washington DC Anthony Zurcher, si bien Trump afirma que ese primer grupo de deportados estará integrado por criminales, “para alcanzar una cantidad tan elevada será necesario o bien abarcar a las personas con antecedentes por infracciones menores o deportar a los extranjeros con residencia legal con antecedentes penales”.
En cualquier caso, agrega Zurcher, esto implicaría crear una ampliada “fuerza de deportación”, algo que esta misma semana han negado los más allegados aliados políticos de Trump, como el republicano Paul Ryan, actual presidente de la Cámara de Representantes.
Image copyright Getty Images
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Trump dijo además que el muro podría ser reemplazado por una valla en algunas zonas de la frontera con México.
El muro con México
Durante la entrevista, la otra promesa de campaña que Trump dijo que mantendrá es la construcción de un muro en la frontera sur con México, donde ya hay varios tipos de barreras erigidas.
Stahl señaló que hay miembros del Partido Republicano que estarían más de acuerdo con reemplazar el muro con un vallado, a cual Trump respondió que en algunas zonas de la frontera podría funcionar.
Y agregó: “Pero en ciertas áreas es más apropiado un muro. Soy muy bueno en esto, se llama construcción, y podría haber algún vallado”.
Está previsto que Trump asuma la presidencia el 20 de enero de 2017, luego de 8 años de gobierno del demócrata Barack Obama.
El presidente electo contará con mayorías republicanas en ambas cámaras del Congreso.
Image copyright Reuters
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Donald Trump y Barack Obama ya comenzaron el traspaso de mando de cara al 20 de enero.
Las declaraciones de Trump afirmando que cumplirá con sus promesas de campaña respecto a los inmigrantes indocumentados y el muro llegan 48 horas después de que dijera al diario The Wall Street Journal que estaría dispuesto mantener dos partes del Obamacare porque le “gustan mucho”.
Durante su campaña electoral, Trump dijo que la Ley de Protección al Paciente y Cuidado de Salud Asequible popularmente llamada Obamacare (por haber sido impulsada por el gobierno de Obama) era un “desastre total” y que iba a derogarla y reemplazarla.
También en un adelanto de la entrevista con el programa 60 Minutes Trump desdijo sus declaraciones a The Wall Street Journal afirmando que sí derogará y reemplazará Obamacare, pero que lo hará “simultáneamente”, para que nadie quede sin protección.
Desde que entró en vigor, en octubre de 2013 Obamacare permitió acceder a cobertura sanitaria a unos 20 millones de personas que hasta entonces no disponían de ella, aunque aún quedan unos 24 millones de personas sin seguro.
Sanders and Warren are vying for the progressive mantle in the Democratic presidential primary, but they have largely shied away from criticizing each other. Sanders, however, did point to some daylight on his signature issue of Medicare for All when asked on Tuesday by NBC News reporter Vaughn Hillyard how he would contrast himself with Warren.
“I’m not into attacking my colleagues,” Sanders told NBC. “We’re about differentiating differences of issues. And I think maybe one of the major differences is what I have said over and over again and I just repeated it right now, in my first week in office we will introduce a Medicare for All, single-payer program.”
Warren, in contrast, is not calling for introducing full-scale Medicare for All in her first week in office. She instead has a plan to pass an optional government-run health insurance plan as a first step in her first 100 days in office. Only by her third year in office does she call for passing additional legislation to implement full-scale Medicare for All.
Backers of Warren’s approach say it could be more realistic first to pass an optional program as a stepping stone to full Medicare for All, given resistance to fully abolishing private health insurance among many Senate Democrats whose votes will be needed to pass a bill.
Sanders, however, prides himself on pushing right away for full-scale Medicare for All, which would effectively abolish private health insurance, saying he will harness public pressure on Congress, even if it will be very difficult to get it passed.
“Senator Warren’s position is a little bit different,” Sanders said. “Check it out. Her transition period is quite different than ours.”
He touted that his proposal would expand Medicare benefits to cover dental, vision and hearing care and lower the eligibility age to 55 within the first year of a four-year transition plan under his legislation.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews look at the scene where dozens of people were killed and some 150 injured in a stampede during the Lag BaOmer festival at Mount Meron in northern Israel on Friday.
Sebastian Scheiner/AP
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Sebastian Scheiner/AP
Ultra-Orthodox Jews look at the scene where dozens of people were killed and some 150 injured in a stampede during the Lag BaOmer festival at Mount Meron in northern Israel on Friday.
Sebastian Scheiner/AP
JERUSALEM — At least 45 people were killed and some 150 more injured in a crush at a religious festival of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel, where tens of thousands of faithful had convened in one of the country’s largest events since the pandemic began.
The chaos at Mount Meron began early Friday at the festival of Lag BaOmer, which features bonfires and dancing around the Galilee tomb of a 2nd-century rabbi.
According to witnesses, at around 1 a.m. local time, in an area of the complex where the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community of Toldos Aharon was holding its celebration, participants were pushing through a slippery staircase. Suddenly, a row of people fell to the floor, piling atop of one other.
Witnesses said that people were asphyxiated or trampled in the tightly packed corridor. The stampede occurred in the men’s section of the gender-segregated festival, Reuters reported, quoting medics, who said that casualties included children.
Officials had limited the number of bonfires at the site this year in an attempt to control crowds because of COVID-19 concerns.
“There weren’t a lot of bonfires this year, and I believe that’s why everyone came all at once,” said a young survivor, identified as Avraham, speaking to Israeli Channel 12 television from his hospital bed.
Hezi Levi, the director general of Israel’s Ministry of Health, told NPR that he was concerned about a potential virus outbreak because of the large crowds.
“I expressed yesterday my concern of gathering together of hundreds of thousands of people who are coming to celebrate the Lag BaOmer, and we spoke about a scenario that might be very dangerous regarding corona,” Levi said. “We are not sure that everybody is vaccinated. We know children under 16 years old are not vaccinated. And it’s very dangerous to transfer the disease.”
Despite warnings from Israeli health officials, local media estimated the crowd at this year’s festival at around 100,000 people.
Another witness told Haaretz newspaper, “It happened in a split second; people just fell, trampling each other. It was a disaster.”
Rescue officials put the death toll at 45. Zaki Heller, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hurt in the stampede, six of them were in critical condition.
Authorities struggled to identify the dead, asking families to bring medical records and photographs of their relatives to Israel’s central morgue.
Relatives continued to search for their missing loved ones Friday morning, after buses evacuated crowds from the site overnight and cellphone service collapsed in the area. Israelis posted photos of their relatives, and the Israeli president’s office set up an emergency hotline to help families searching for missing relatives.
Families of those who died in the stampede are racing to bury the dead before sundown Friday, the start of the Jewish Sabbath when burials do not take place.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the site of an overnight stampede during an ultra-Orthodox religious gathering in the northern Israeli town of Meron, on Friday.
Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
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Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the site of an overnight stampede during an ultra-Orthodox religious gathering in the northern Israeli town of Meron, on Friday.
Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who briefly visited Mount Meron around midday Friday, called the tragedy “one of the worst disasters that has befallen the state of Israel.” He said Sunday would be a day of national mourning.
The death toll is similar to number of people killed in a 2010 forest fire, which is regarded as Israel’s deadliest civilian tragedy, according to The Associated Press.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Israel received an outpouring of condolences from Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and representatives of aboutadozen other countries, including the Gulf Arab kingdom of Bahrain, which established diplomatic ties with Israel last year.
One act of kindness caught local media attention: Despite the Muslim fast for Ramadan, residents of a Palestinian Arab town in the area set up food and drink for Jewish participants evacuating the pilgrimage site.
Facebook was right to ban Trump after his posts expressing support for rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Facebook’s oversight board said in its decision Wednesday. But, the board said, Facebook should not have made the ban indefinite, adding that it’s up to the company to decide the appropriate time frame for suspension — whether that’s a few weeks more or forever.
“In applying a vague, standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities,” wrote the board, an independent committee of 20 outside experts. “The Board declines Facebook’s request and insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty.”
The oversight board was created to adjudicate on some of the trickiest problems Facebook faces in operating a platform for a community larger than most nations. It’s funded by a trust created by Facebook but which the platform cannot control. The board’s recommendations are not binding.
Yet Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously committed the platform to following the board’s decision on the Trump ban, whatever it may be. Zuckerberg has long said he does not want to be the sole arbiter of truth for such a large community and has welcomed the presence of an outside body that could appear to play that role in a deliberative way — without taking away any of his power over the business.
That makes the board’s decision on the Trump ban perhaps the worst-case scenario for Facebook, at least in terms of the delicate diplomatic line it walks in Washington. It was clear long before the decision was made that half the country would likely be unhappy with whichever outcome the board chose, whether it was to permanently ban or to reinstate Trump’s account. But the actual decision has seemed to aggravate lawmakers on both the left and the right.
“Facebook is a disinformation-for-profit machine that won’t accept responsibility for its role in the safety of our democracy and people,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted following the decision on Wednesday. “Trump should be banned for good, but Facebook will continue to fumble with its power until Congress and antitrust regulators rein in Big Tech.”
“Break them up,” tweeted staunch Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
While some Democrats were more conciliatory toward Facebook, it’s clear they have a single outcome in mind once Facebook hands down its final decision, leaving the company in a tricky spot.
Zuckerberg can no longer deflect blame for a decision on Trump’s suspension. The oversight board gave Facebook up to six months to come up with an appropriate time frame for the ban and to explain their policy that justifies it. While the board’s co-chairs acknowledged the same case could land back on their desk after that, Facebook will have already been forced to state publicly one way or another whether it believes the former president should be allowed to return to its platform.
Still, the board did provide a list of recommendations to frame how Facebook should consider its decision, which could at least make its ultimate choice more clear to consumers. The board said that context matters when it comes to suspension decisions and preventing significant harm should take precedence over newsworthiness. It suggested that Facebook could assess whether risk of harm has diminished before reinstating an account.
There’s a lot on the line for Facebook. The company already faces antitrust lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of state attorneys general that have seen broad bipartisan support. Trump’s suspension from the platform seemed to rile up conservatives who had already felt the company was too powerful, motivating them to join with Democrats seeking reforms to antitrust law and the legal liability shield that protects tech platforms known as Section 230.
Even if Facebook allows Trump back on the platform, it’s hard to know if Republicans will forgive the original suspension, while Democrats will likely be motivated to push even harder for reforms.
Already, Republicans have seemed to express willingness to go further than previously in terms of tech reform after Wednesday’s decision. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement that Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent suggestion of regulating social media like common carriers “offers a sound basis for legislation that would bring accountability to this industry.” Categorizing platforms as common carriers would come with far greater regulation than they experience today, possibly making their content moderation practices too risky to continue in their current form.
A Facebook spokesperson referred to the company’s earlier blog post on the board’s decision.
“We will now consider the board’s decision and determine an action that is clear and proportionate,” Facebook VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote. “In the meantime, Mr. Trump’s accounts remain suspended.”
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