Joyce Vance writes: It turns out it wasn’t just a bad day for Trump, as I captioned my column Thursday night. It was a bad week. A really bad week. After Sidney Powell’s guilty plea, there was Kenneth Chesebro’s plea. His was to a felony charge of filing false information, but like Powell, he spends no time in prison and will be eligible under Georgia’s first-time offender provision to have his record expunged after he completes his probationary sentence successfully….
Paul Kane writes: Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Tex.) described his Monday meeting with Rep. Jim Jordan as “very cordial,” one that ended with the retired Navy fighter pilot explaining why he would quietly oppose the Ohio Republican’s bid for speaker. Three days later, as a group of Republicans opposed to Jordan’s candidacy met with the speaker-designate, Ellzey remained quiet, again. But he was restraining himself from yelling at Jordan. “I didn’t say anything. Because I would have said something to him,…
Inside Climate News reports: Soon after Italy approved a ban on offshore oil drilling, in 2015, the country received some alarming news: A British oil company that had been planning to drill was suing the government, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. The company, called Rockhopper, brought its claim not in Italian courts but through a system of international arbitration that allows foreign investors to sue governments. Last year, the company won the case along with an order…
كلمة جلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني في #قمة_القاهرة_للسلام التي تستضيفها جمهورية مصر العربية في إطار الجهود المبذولة لوقف الحرب على غزة #الأردن His Majesty King Abdullah II’s Speech at the #CairoSummitForPeace, held within the framework of efforts to stop the war on Gaza#Jordan pic.twitter.com/UrFf0XwjbU — RHC (@RHCJO) October 21, 2023 [Remarks in English start at minute 1 in the video above.] Cairo Peace Summit, October 21, 2023 Allow me to speak in English to our friends from Europe and the world…
Omar Shakir, Yasmine Ahmed and Akshaya Kumar write: The image of haggard doctors standing amid bodies and rubble following the explosive strike on al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza has sent shock waves around the world, which was still reeling from horrific Hamas-led attacks and the relentless Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza. In the past two weeks, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been killed with a speed and brutality that was previously unimaginable in Israel and Palestine. There is little sign that the spiral of…
Anne Applebaum writes: This summer I spent several days in Israel talking with people who were afraid for their country’s future. They were not, at that moment, focused on terrorism, Gaza, or Hamas. They feared something different: the emergence of an undemocratic Israel, a de facto autocracy. In January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his justice minister had announced a package of judicial “reforms” that, taken together, would have given their coalition government the power to alter Israeli legal institutions…
NBC News reports: A handful of influential but unreliable accounts, some of which have been promoted by Elon Musk, are dominating the flow of news on X around the Israel-Hamas war and easily outpacing established mainstream news outlets, according to research published Friday by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. Researchers analyzed viral posts about the conflict during a three-day period starting from the beginning of the attack against Israel on Oct. 7. They concluded that the…
Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports: Samantha Woll, a Democratic activist and prominent Jewish lay leader in Detroit, was stabbed to death outside her home. Police found Woll, 40, at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday in the city’s Lafayette Park neighborhood, local media said. She had been stabbed multiple times and was unresponsive. A trail of blood led to her home, which police believe may be the scene of the crime, the Detroit Free Press reported. No motive was known. Woll’s murder comes…
CNN reports: Two stalwart allies of former President Donald Trump flipped against him this week, a staggering turn of events that could now pose a grave threat to his ability to fend off criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The rapid-fire developments are a massive boost for prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and the separate but overlapping federal case against Trump that was filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. The pleas are…
The Washington Post reports: As Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) waged his battle to become House speaker, some House Republicans were uncomfortable with the possibility of having an election denier occupying the most powerful legislative seat in the U.S. government heading into a presidential election year. Jordan, who relinquished his nomination for the speakership on Friday after his third defeat on the House floor, was among the most prolific and vocal GOP lawmakers who worked to convince voters that the 2020…
HuffPost reports: President Joe Biden’s approach to the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine is fueling mounting tensions at the U.S. government agency most involved in foreign policy: the State Department. Officials told HuffPost that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his most senior advisers are overlooking widespread internal frustration. Some department staff said they feel as if Blinken and his team are uninterested in their own experts’ advice as they focus on supporting Israel’s expanding operation in Gaza, where…
Human rights investigators have shared new information with Channel 4 News that they say casts doubt on some aspects of Israel’s account of the Gaza hospital explosion.@alextomo reports. pic.twitter.com/h9C02qMYLj — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 20, 2023
BBC News reports: Meta has apologised for adding “terrorist” to the biographies of some Instagram users describing themselves as Palestinian. Meta said it fixed a problem “that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations” in some of its products. “We sincerely apologise that this happened,” it told the BBC. The platform has also faced accusations of suppressing content voicing support for Palestinians during the Israel-Gaza conflict. Some users say they have been “shadow banned” on Instagram over pro-Palestinian posts. This is when…
Politico reports: When Matt Gaetz stepped to the microphones during Thursday’s three-hour private House GOP meeting on the speakership, the speaker he ousted promptly yelled at him to “sit down.” Kevin McCarthy was not the only Republican to vent fury with Gaetz, the Florida conservative who successfully ousted the House’s leader. The room met Gaetz with booing, profanities and calls to back off, according to multiple lawmakers in the room. When Gaetz refused, Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) stood up and…