Friday, Jul 04th
Last update06:56:44 AM GMT
The cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and six other people have been arrested after disrupting a United States Senate hearing to protest Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
The arrests on Wednesday came as US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was giving testimony to lawmakers on his shake-up of federal health agencies.
“Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the US,” Cohen said as he was escorted away by police.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not among the names listed by the Kremlin as being due to attend peace talks on the war in Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday, despite calls from Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky for him to attend.
Russia's delegation will instead be headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, according to the Kremlin statement.
Zelensky had previously said he would attend the talks and meet Putin in person if the Russian president agreed, and said he would do everything he could to ensure the face-to-face meeting took place.
US President Donald Trump will also not be attending, according to media reports, despite previously hinting he would if Putin were there.
A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down one of the key remaining ways of enforcing the federal Voting Rights Act in seven mainly Midwestern states.
For decades, private individuals and groups have brought the majority of lawsuits for enforcing the landmark law's Section 2 protections against racial discrimination in the election process.
But in a 2-1 ruling released Wednesday, the three-judge panel found that Section 2 cannot be enforced by lawsuits from private parties under a separate federal statute known as Section 1983.
That statute gives individuals the right to sue state and local government officials for violating their civil rights. Section 1983 stems from the Ku Klux Klan Act that Congress passed after the Civil War to protect Black people in the South from white supremacist violence, and voting rights advocates have considered it an antidote to a controversial 2023 decision by a different federal appeals panel that made it harder to enforce Section 2 in the 8th Circuit.
Sen. Chris Murphy said he wants Congress to have a say in arms deals with countries that have made investments in Trump’s personal businesses.
In an interview with Here & Now’s Asma Khalid, Murphy singled out Qatar for offering to give President Trump a jet the White House could use as a temporary Air Force One.
“Qatar has been a really important ally of the United States, and so it is disturbing that a country like Qatar, who should know better, is engaging in this kind of corruption,” Murphy said. “And part of the message that we're sending to these countries is that if you go forward with this, it will compromise in the long run your relationship with the United States. There will be a democratic president someday, and they will remember the ways in which these nations were willing to facilitate the corruption of US foreign policy.”
President Trump campaigned on a pledge to fight antisemitism.
"Antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society," Trump said at an event in 2024.
However, the president's critics question whether antisemitism may have found a place within his administration.
NPR has identified three Trump officials with close ties to antisemitic extremists, including a man described by federal prosecutors as a "Nazi sympathizer," and a prominent Holocaust denier.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Trump administration has used the fight against antisemitism as justification for the deportation of pro-Palestinian student protesters and funding cuts to universities.
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, argues that the administration is using antisemitism as a pretext.
Chemical firm 3M has agreed to pay up to $450 million to address water pollution and other environmental damage from PFAS, or "forever chemicals," New Jersey officials have announced.
The agreement would resolve 3M's liability for PFAS contamination from the 1,455-acre Chambers Works complex in Pennsville and Carneys Point. PFAS was supplied to the sprawling plant by 3M until 2001.
It also would resolve lawsuits against 3M over the presence of PFAS in fire-fighting foam across the state and over pollution at a company facility in Sayreville, Middlesex County.
The Georgetown academic Badar Khan Suri was released from Ice detention hours after a Virginia federal judge’s order on Wednesday.
Khan Suri was among several individuals legally studying in the US who have been targeted by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism. He has spent two months in detention.
US district judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the ruling was effective immediately with no conditions and no bond. She added that Khan Suri’s release was “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech” during the hearing. The judge explained in her ruling how the government did not submit sufficient evidence on several of its claims.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard fired two senior officials at the National Intelligence Council after it released a report concluding the Venezuelan government is unlikely to be directing the activities of Tren de Aragua, in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s countless claims to the contrary.
Trump has repeatedly asserted, while offering no evidence, that Venezuela is somehow guiding the actions of the street gang. Trump also invoked Tren de Aragua to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act shortly after taking office, leaning on the 1798 law to deport people without due process.
Michael Collins, the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and deputy Maria Langan-Riekhof were fired Tuesday, a source told CNN. It’s unclear what role, if any, Collins and Langan-Riekhof played in producing the analysis.
The firings come a week after an intelligence assessment produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government probably isn’t involved in Tren de Aragua’s operations in the U.S.
The existence of that partially declassified assessment was first reported by The Washington Post.
Popular children's content creator Ms. Rachel says that criticism for her continued advocacy for Palestinian children is unfair and that it "should be controversial to not say anything.”
Ms. Rachel, whose full name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, addressed the backlash she has gotten in recent months for her advocacy during an interview with journalist Mehdi Hasan, on his independent publication Zeteo.
“It’s sad that people try to make it controversial when you speak out for children that are facing immeasurable suffering,” Accurso said in the interview, posted May 12. “The idea that caring for a group of children in an emergency situation means you don’t care about orether children is false.”
Accurso said that her experience as a mother of two young children influenced her to raise awareness for the traumatic events being experienced by children in Gaza.
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