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Category: Politics

States warn Biden could miss ballot. Dems say exceptions have been made for GOP

States warn Biden could miss ballot. Dems say exceptions have been made for GOP

The Washington Post reports: Democratic officials are looking at their options after Republican secretaries of state in Ohio and Alabama warned them that President Biden might not appear on their ballots in November because of the timing of his expected nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Publicly, the Biden campaign is expressing confidence that he will appear on the ballot in both states. But the situation has created new headaches for Democrats and stoked distrust with election officials over what…

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Mouin Rabbani: Israel’s ultimate goal is to make Gaza unfit for human habitation

Mouin Rabbani: Israel’s ultimate goal is to make Gaza unfit for human habitation

  President Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a temporary ceasefire to allow in more aid in a televised interview on Tuesday. While Israel has pledged to open new aid crossings, the U.N. said on Tuesday that there has been “no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza,” and the Biden administration has not actually changed its policies or withheld any arms transfers to Israel….

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Israel’s ‘disproportionate response’ in Gaza a global threat, says Spain’s PM

Israel’s ‘disproportionate response’ in Gaza a global threat, says Spain’s PM

AFP reports: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned Wednesday that Israel’s “disproportionate response” in the Gaza war with Hamas risks “destabilising the Middle East, and as a consequence, the entire world”. Sanchez also insisted that the recognition of a Palestinian state, long resisted by Israel and its key allies, is “in Europe’s geopolitical interests”. Sanchez had already raised the subject of statehood during a visit last week to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, when he told reporters that Spain could…

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Israel inflates truck count by halving volume of each truckload then restricting distribution across Gaza

Israel inflates truck count by halving volume of each truckload then restricting distribution across Gaza

Reuters reports: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is disputing claims by Israel and the US that aid into Gaza has been significantly increased. “There has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north,” UNRWA says in its daily situation report. Red Crescent officials in Egypt say more than 350 trucks had crossed from there into Gaza on Monday and 258 on Sunday. That was much more than in recent…

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U.S. intel warns of imminent Iranian strike on Israel

U.S. intel warns of imminent Iranian strike on Israel

The Daily Beast reports: The Biden administration believes that an Iranian attack on Israel is imminent, according to a Bloomberg report released Wednesday. The dramatic escalation would come days after a strike on an Iranian mission in Damascus killed a top Iranian commander and other IRGC officials. Iran has blamed Israel for the attack and vowed to retaliate. The Israeli military has been on “heightened” alert for possible attacks from Iran in the aftermath of the assassination, although it has…

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Nuclear deal in tatters, Iran edges close to weapons capability

Nuclear deal in tatters, Iran edges close to weapons capability

The Washington Post reports: For the past 15 years, the most important clues about Iran’s nuclear program have lain deep underground, in a factory built inside a mountain on the edge of Iran’s Great Salt Desert. The facility, known as Fordow, is the heavily protected inner sanctum of Iran’s nuclear complex and a frequent destination for international inspectors whose visits are meant to ensure against any secret effort by Iran to make nuclear bombs. The inspectors’ latest trek, in February,…

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America fell for guns recently — and for reasons you will not guess

America fell for guns recently — and for reasons you will not guess

Megan Kang writes: Of all the potential explanations we tested, we discovered that the post-Second World War economic boom and relaxed federal gun regulations most drove the surge in demand for guns. As unemployment rates decreased and incomes increased, firearms – once deemed a luxury or practical necessity – grew within reach for more and more Americans. Simultaneously, cultural attitudes surrounding gun ownership may have shifted, as multiple generations of Americans returning from the Second World War, the Korean War…

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Rebuilding Gaza was seen as a ‘Herculean’ task before Oct. 7; six months of bombing has led to crises that will long outlive the war

Rebuilding Gaza was seen as a ‘Herculean’ task before Oct. 7; six months of bombing has led to crises that will long outlive the war

Palestinians look for survivors after a Israeli strike in Gaza on Oct. 31, 2023. AP Photo/Doaa AlBaz By Dima Nazzal, Georgia Institute of Technology Over a decade ago, a United Nations report described the Gaza Strip as virtually unlivable, adding that it would require “Herculean efforts” to change that. Today, after six months of bombardment, mass displacement and siege by Israel, the task of rebuilding Gaza seems practically unimaginable. I’m a scholar and a systems engineer who, as research director…

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Gaza: Israel’s imposed starvation deadly for children

Gaza: Israel’s imposed starvation deadly for children

Human Rights Watch: Children in Gaza have been dying from starvation-related complications since the Israeli government began using starvation as a weapon of war, a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. Doctors and families in Gaza described children, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration, and hospitals ill-equipped to treat them. Concerned governments should impose targeted sanctions and suspend arms transfers to press the Israeli government to ensure access to humanitarian aid and…

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Arizona’s zombie abortion ban is back. It’s every state’s future if Trump wins

Arizona’s zombie abortion ban is back. It’s every state’s future if Trump wins

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write: On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that its total abortion ban, a seemingly dead law dating back to 1864, is once again enforceable, despite more recent legislation that seemed to supercede it. The zombie ban makes virtually all abortions a felony, imposing a prison sentence of two to five years for any provider. There is no exception for rape or incest. The law was enacted before women could vote, and was long…

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Inside the election denial groups planning to disrupt November

Inside the election denial groups planning to disrupt November

Wired reports: As the most consequential presidential election in a generation looms in the United States, get-out-the-vote efforts across the country are more important than ever. But multiple far-right activist groups with ties to former president Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are mobilizing their supporters in earnest, drawing on one baseline belief: Elections in the US are rigged, and citizens need to do something about it. All the evidence states otherwise. But in recent weeks, these groups have…

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European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction

European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction

BBC News reports: A group of older Swiss women have won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights. The women, mostly in their 70s, said that their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves linked to climate change. The court said Switzerland’s efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate. It is the first time the powerful court has ruled on global warming. Swedish campaigner Greta…

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Leaders of Jordan, France and Egypt: Cease fire now in Gaza

Leaders of Jordan, France and Egypt: Cease fire now in Gaza

King Abdullah II, Emmanuel Macron and Abdel Fatah El-Sisi writes: The war in Gaza and the catastrophic humanitarian suffering it is causing must end now. Violence, terror and war cannot bring peace to the Middle East. The two-state solution will. It is the only credible path to guaranteeing peace and security for all, and ensuring that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis ever have to relive the horrors that have befallen them since the Oct. 7 attack. On March 25,…

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Germany is accused of complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza

Germany is accused of complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza

  Germany has been accused of aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza, in a case before the UN’s top court. It was brought by Nicaragua and calls for emergency measures to stop Germany from selling weapons to Israel. It also wants Berlin to restore funding to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Nicaragua’s lawyer had harsh words for the dual role Germany’s playing in what the ICJ’s already ruled to be a plausible case of genocide. Al Jazeera’s senior…

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Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide

Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide

Politico reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes international officials could find that Israel’s assault on Gaza legally constitutes a genocide, she said during an event at a local mosque last week. “If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren (D-Mass.) said Friday while taking audience questions during an event at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts. A video…

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IRC President on delivering aid to Gaza: ‘We need a paradigm shift’

IRC President on delivering aid to Gaza: ‘We need a paradigm shift’

  This week Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the Israeli attack on a World Central Kitchen envoy an ‘inflection point’. President of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband tells Ali Velshi that what is really needed is a ‘paradigm shift’ to get more aid into Gaza. ‘Aid workers have a legal right to go about their business without being killed. This couldn’t be more serious.’