Articles to impeach President Joe Biden over his decision to withhold aid to Israel for political reasons are in preparation, freshman Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) announced Thursday.

Biden’s decision to withhold bombs from Israel is concerning due to its political implications. Biden’s base wants him to defund Israel, while many moderate Democrats support Israel’s ability to defend itself against terrorists. Biden appears stuck between competing coalitions during an election year. He currently trails in the polls to Trump and has a historically low approval rating to win reelection as an incumbent.

Democrats accused former President Donald Trump in 2019 of withholding military aid from Ukraine for alleged political reasons.

“These are the same accusations made against President Trump, which resulted in his impeachment by Democrats. The same must happen for Joe Biden, which is why we’re drawing up articles of impeachment now,” Mills told Fox News.

Impeachment proceedings already have some support. “The House has no choice but to impeach Biden based on the Trump-Ukraine precedent of withholding foreign aid to help with reelection,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted on X. “Only with Biden, it’s true.”

Trump also believes Biden withheld aid for political reasons. “He did it as a political decision,” Trump said.

“You have to do the right decision, not the political decision,” Trump said Thursday before he entered a Manhattan courtroom for his criminal trial.

Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak reported on the contrast between Trump and Biden’s decision to withhold aid for reported political reasons:

In 2019, Democrats impeached then-President Donald Trump for allegedly withholding security funds from Ukraine for political reasons, though the funds were eventually delivered and there was never proof of a “quid-pro-quo.” In this case, the Biden administration is withholding much-needed munitions in the middle of a “hot” war against a terrorist army and other terrorist groups on several fronts, as well as against attacks from their Iranian sponsors.

Biden recently signed billions of dollars in new military aid to Israel, after first proposing a supplemental aid package several months ago, but did not push the legislation for months and tied it to other priorities, like funds for Ukraine.

Israel entered Rafah on Monday after Hamas attacked a humanitarian aid crossing and refused to agree to terms for a hostage release deal. The last four Hamas battalions are said to be in Rafah along with the remaining Israeli hostages.

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of former Trump White House senior aide Steve Bannon for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The appeals court rejected Bannon’s argument that he was not guilty because his attorney had advised him not to comply with a subpoena from the House committee.

The ruling by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit makes it more likely that Bannon will soon have to begin serving a sentence of four months in jail for his conviction of two counts of contempt.

Bannon could ask the full judicial line-up of the D.C. Circuit to hear his appeal again, which might postpone his jail term. He also could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal of Friday’s ruling.

But such requests typically face very long odds of success.

Bannon was convicted of flouting the House committee subpoena after a five-day trial in U.S. District Court in Washington. He has remained free pending the outcome of his appeal.

In March, Peter Navarro, another former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump, began serving a four-month federal jail sentence after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his conviction for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House committee.

In its ruling Friday on Bannon’s case, the D.C. appeal court panel noted that in September 2021 “the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued a subpoena to appellant Stephen Bannon to testify and provide documents.”

“Bannon did not comply — he knew what the subpoena required but did not appear or provide a single document,” the ruling said.

The law that Bannon was convicted of violating makes it a crime to “willfully” fail to respond to a congressional subpoena.

“Bannon insists that ‘willfully’ should be interpreted to require bad faith and argues that his noncompliance does not qualify because his lawyer advised him not to respond to the subpoena,” the appeals panel wrote in its ruling.

“This court, however, has squarely held that ‘willfully’ in [that law] means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact ‘advice of counsel’ defense is no defense at all.”

The panel added, “As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority.”

“Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm,” the panel wrote.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating an alleged interaction between a New York real estate lawyer and the judge who issued a $454 million judgement against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC New York.

Real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey said he had a conversation with Judge Arthur Engoron a few weeks before the judge’s decision was due, NBC New York reported. Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.

“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey said in the Feb. 16 interview, according to NBC New York. “I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right.”

#WATCH | Judge Arthur Engoron is ‘under investigation’ for reportedly accepting unsolicited legal advice from a well-known attorney before fining Donald Trump $454 million, pic.twitter.com/nWfJIh4QWN

— VOZ (@Voz_US) May 9, 2024

“No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual,” a spokesman for Engoron told NBC New York.

The New York State Rules of Judicial Conduct states that judges cannot “initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers concerning a pending or impending proceeding,” with some exceptions.

An “ex parte communication” is one in which a judge or member of the jury communicates with an outside party without all involved parties present, NBC New York reported.

“The Commission on Judicial Conduct is constrained by a strict confidentiality statute and has no comment on this matter,” Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A New York appeals court judge in March reduced the bond Trump needed to pay to appeal the ruling. Engoron previously ruled on Sept. 26 that Trump was liable for fraud, ordering that several business licenses Trump held were to be rescinded, but an appeals court stayed the ruling on Oct. 6.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to fight Hamas with his fingernails as he dismissed US President Joe Biden’s warning that he would not provide arms for a major military operation in Rafah.

“If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a message he issued on Thursday night. “I have said that if necessary – we will fight with our fingernails.”

“But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with G-d’s help, together we will win,” he said.

Arms have never before been withheld

He spoke Biden told CNN Wednesday “I’ve made it clear that if they [Israel] go into Rafah… I’m not supplying the weapons that have historically been used to deal with Rafah,”

That statement followed one made earlier that day by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that a shipment of precision munitions designated for Gaza had been paused.

Should Biden make good on his pledge, it would mark the first tie-in presidency and indeed in over 40 years of American-Israel relations, that arms were withheld from Israel.

It was a move that displayed the growing enmity between Washington and Jerusalem over the Gaza war. Israel has insisted that a major military operation in Rafah was necessary to defeat Hamas and the Biden administration has been adamant that there were other ways to neutralize the threat.

Pundits warned that Biden’s statement sent a dangerous signal to Israel’s enemies, even as the Jewish state waged an existential war, that the United States did not have did not have Israel’s back.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X a simple message that went straight to that point, stating “Hamas loves Biden.”

Israel has viewed the Rafah operation as an important pressure lever to sway Hamas to finale a hostage deal, negotiations for which have taken place on and off in Cairo all week.

On Thursday, in the aftermath of Biden’s statement opposing a Rafah operation, KAN news reported that talks had fallen apart and that Israel’s delegation had returned home.

CIA Director William Burns left the region after shuttling between Cairo, Dohan, and Jerusalem this week in an attempt to make a deal. US National Security Advisor John Kirby told reporters that his departure was prescheduled and that talks were still ongoing in Cairo.

In Washington Republicans rallied behind Israel, issuing blistering attacks against Biden, heightening the extent to which the Gaza war is now a partisan issue in the Presidential race.

Trump condemns Biden

Former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee, “Crooked Joe” is taking the side of Hamas just like he sided with the “radical mobs” taking over college campuses.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that Biden has long had a bitter history with Israel, as he recalled that as a Senator he had threatened to cut off military aid to Israel over its actions in Lebanon.

We have no choice but to enter Rafah

Cruz recalled how former Prime Minister Menachem Begin famously responded, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.”

“Even though Joe Biden wants to abandon Israel and even though the Democrats in the Senate and House apparently support him in wanting to abandon Israel, America does not and we should not let him we should stand together and say America stand united with Israel and Hamas should be utterly destroyed,” Cruz stated.

In Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz, vowed to press forward with the Rafah operation.

“We have no choice,” Gallant stated. “We have no other country. We will do whatever is necessary, and I repeat – whatever is necessary, to defend the citizens of Israel, to remove the evil threats against us, and to stand up to those who attempt to destroy us.”

“We will work to crush the Hamas terrorist organization,” he stressed.

Gantz underscored the strong bonds between the US and Israel, but said, that the Jewish state “has a moral and security obligation to continue to defend itself to ensure the return of the hostages and remove the threat Hamas poses to Southern Israel.”

“The US,” he stressed, “has the moral and strategic obligation to supply Israel with the necessary tools to complete its mission.”

President Isaac Herzog came to Biden’s defense, calling Biden a “great friend of the State of Israel, and who proved as such from the first day of the war.”

Kirby defended Biden’s record on Israel, in talking to reporters in Washington, stating, “The arguments that somehow we’re walking away from Israel fly in the face of the facts,” Kirby said as he touted Biden’s record in support of Israel, particularly since October 7.

This included, Kirby explained, visiting Israel and sending massive amounts of military aid as well as defending it from the first-ever Iranian drone and missile attack, together with a coalition of armies from France, Great Britain, Jordan, and Israel.

Biden has long stressed to Israel that he believes a military operation in Rafah would create a humanitarian disaster given that over 1.3 million Palestinians are in that area. Many of them fled there in the early stages of the war to avoid bombings in the north.

“We propose alternative methods of defeating Hamas that do not involve a major ground operation in Rafah,” Kirby said, adding that talks with Israel on those options were ongoing.

He clarified that the US has not yet withheld the shipments of certain kinds of weapons but that it would do so if Israel proceeded with the operation.

Israel has understood that this is Biden’s position for some time, he said. Kirby stressed that the US would continue to provide Israel with other weapons that it needs to defend itself “against all of its enemies, including Hamas.”

The Biden administration wants to provide Israel with all the assistance it needs to defeat Hamas, Kirby said.

“Smashing into Rafha in his view, will not advance that objective,” Kirby stated.

The US will help ensure that the Egyptian border is not used to smuggle weapons into Gaza and would help Israel target the Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, Kirby said.

The Biden administration would also work with Israel to create an alternative governance structure in Gaza, that does not include Hamas.

“Whatever post-conflict Gaza looks like, it can’t look like what it does now with Hamas in control,” Kirby said.

He also noted that a Rafah operation would strengthen Hamas’s hand at the negotiating table for a hostage deal and would weaken Israel’s,’ he said.

The high civilian casualty count resulting from an IDF military operation in Rafah would also feed Hamas’s anti-Israel narrative.

“It could cast Israel in the worst possible way” and would give Hamas “more ammunition for its twisted narrative,” Kirby said.

A shocking video posted to X showed a man wrapping a belt around a woman’s neck, dragging her body onto a street in New York City, and raping her.

According to NYPD, the 45-year-old woman was attacked and sexually assaulted near 152nd Street and 3rd Avenue in the Bronx on May 1 around 3 am.

The attacker covered his face with a white towel as he assaulted the woman. No arrests have been made.

PIX11 reported:

A man wrapped a belt around a woman’s neck and dragged her unconscious body between two parked cars before raping her on a Bronx street, according to police and a viral video.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked near 152nd Street and Third Avenue at around 3 a.m. on May 1, according to the NYPD. The woman was walking down the street when a suspect came up from behind and looped the belt around her neck, the viral video shows.

The man, who covered his face with a white towel, then used the belt to pull the passed-out woman several feet along the sidewalk and into the street between two parked cars, the video shows. Police said the suspect then raped her.

The video shared on social media does not depict the entire assault. There have been no arrests, and the investigation is ongoing.

The video posted to X does not show the entire assault.

Police are urging anyone with information about this horrific assault to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

WATCH (graphic warning):

Graphic Warning: Disgusting video out of New York shows a man snag a woman with a belt before dragging her behind a vehicle. Video was posted online without further information.
If you recognize this man contact your local police. #nyc #newyork #crime pic.twitter.com/5111yRTJwQ

— PPV_TAHOE (@ppv_tahoe) May 9, 2024

Police in riot gear began dismantling an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Pennsylvania early Friday and arresting protesters after more than two weeks of the demonstration on campus.

The officers, wearing tactical gear, gave the protesters a 2-minute warning around 6 a.m. to leave the Philadelphia campus or be subject to arrest, NBC10 reported.

It’s unclear how many protesters were detained at the encampment, which was erected 16 days ago.

As of 7 a.m., the majority of the protesters had dispersed or been taken into custody, the outlet reported.

Six students had previously been given “mandatory leaves of absences” from the Ivy League school over their participation in the protest.

“Today, the University issued mandatory temporary leaves of absence for six students in accordance with our policies and pending the results of the Center for Community Standards and Accountability disciplinary investigations. These actions are a result of the University’s continuing response to the unauthorized encampment on College Green,” the school said in a statement Thursday.

🚨 Happening Now: Police arresting protesters at UPENN#UniversityWar #UPENN #protest pic.twitter.com/FRAL2dWtaR

— 50 States of Lie (@50StatesOfLie) May 10, 2024

Demonstrators on campus refused a mandate to show school ID — and one anti-Israel group celebrated last week that no arrests were made for not complying in the days after that request.

“Because of our collective will and strength, we were able to call the administration’s bluff, resist the panic they intended to set in and win this first battle,” UPenn’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine wrote on Instagram on Monday.

The UPenn encampment is one of the many anti-Israel protests occupying college campuses across the US over the past couple of weeks.

Most of the demonstrations cropped up in response to a tent movement at Columbia University, where hundreds of students and other protesters have been arrested for trespassing and other infractions.

The encampment protesters are calling on universities to divest from Israel due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip — though the demonstrations have been called out for their antisemitic and hateful rhetoric.

Peter Thiel was reportedly trapped inside a debate hall at Cambridge University in the UK on Wednesday as a crowd of anti-Israel supporters refused to let him leave for about an hour after he was accused of facilitating “genocide” in Gaza.

Thiel, the 56-year-old co-founder and chairman of Palantir, a software company that counts among its clients the Israeli military, was a keynote speaker at an event held at Cambridge Union, the famed debating society, on Wednesday afternoon.

According to reports, Thiel, who made his fortune as an early angel investor in Facebook and co-founder of PayPal, had to arrive three hours before the event in order to avoid the large crowd.

During his talk, he was interrupted by at least two students who gave monologues accusing him of helping Israel commit “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Photos and videos circulating online show several of the demonstrators being escorted out of the event after they disrupted Thiel’s talk.

“Since October 7th, 14,000 children in Palestine have been murdered, and Palantir is complicit in that. Your actions are complicit in the genocide of thousands of people,”one protester could be heard telling Thiel in a video that was posted on X.

🚨NEWS: A mob of protestors against Israel have trapped Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel inside the Cambridge Union.$PLTR pic.twitter.com/PcG0PbTLcv

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) May 8, 2024

“Your technology is ensuring that hospitals are being bombed,” the protester said.

Sabrina Miller, a journalist for the Mail on Sunday, posted video on the X social media platform showing the crowd outside the venue.

“Peter Thiel trapped inside Cambridge Union. Protesters not letting him leave,” Miller wrote.

Several of the demonstrators camped outside of the debate hall waved Palestinian flags and chanted.

The students were later escorted out of the event by security, according to The Telegraph.

After the event, Thiel went outside and taunted the large crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators by smiling and waving at them.

At one point, Thiel reportedly started snapping photos of them.

Peter Thiel trapped inside Cambridge Union. Protesters not letting him leave. pic.twitter.com/ouBlIQhs1Q

— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) May 8, 2024

Thiel was prevented from leaving for an hour as demonstrators blocked his vehicle, according to reports.

Earlier this week, Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir who co-founded the company alongside Thiel, blasted anti-Israel protesters who have caused chaos on college campuses.

Karp said that the protesters should be deported to North Korea as part of an “exchange program” to give them perspective.

“We’re gonna do an exchange program sponsored by Karp,” he said. “A couple months in North Korea, nice-tasting flavored bark. See how you feel about that.”

Earlier this year, Karp said that his company has lost employees due to its overt support for Israel.

Palantir, the data-mining company, provides the Israeli military as well as that of other countries with artificial intelligence models.

Karp said that he didn’t mind losing employees who objected to his company’s ties to Israel.

“This is not a small issue. From my perspective it’s not just about Israel,” Karp told CNBC earlier this year.

“Do you believe in the West? Do you believe that the West has created a superior way of living. Are you willing to admit you believe that?”

Apple has apologized and admitted it “missed the mark” with its latest iPad Pro advertisement.

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad,” Myhren said. “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Apple confirmed the statement it provided to AdAge but declined to provide further comment.

The ad shows symbols of human creativity, like musical instruments, paint cans, an ’80s arcade video game and a bust of a human head crushed by a giant hydraulic press. As the metal slabs of the hydraulic press lift, Apple’s new iPad Pro is revealed.

“Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Cook wrote in a post on X accompanying the video.

Internet backlash to the ad was instantaneous: “The symbolism of indiscriminately crushing beautiful creative tools is an interesting choice,” wrote one social media user. “This ad effectively convinced me I need less technology in my life,” wrote another.

Other users said the ad was in poor taste amid growing fears that AI could replace workers – even those in creative fields. Actor Hugh Grant wrote on social media that Apple’s ad represented “the destruction of the human experience.”

Apple no longer plans to run the ad on TV, according to AdAge.

The mea culpa was rare for Apple, though the ad has not been deleted from Cook’s X account.

Watch:

Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024

Donald Trump’s defence lawyers have grilled Stormy Daniels on the transaction at the centre of the former president’s hush money trial, pressing her on why she accepted a 130,000 dollar payment to keep quiet about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump instead of going public.

“Why didn’t you do that?” lawyer Susan Necheles asked, wondering why Ms Daniels did not hold a news conference as she had planned to tell reporters about the 2006 encounter, which Trump denies ever happened.

“Because we were running out of time,” Ms Daniels said.

Did she mean, Ms Necheles asked, that she was running out of time to use the claim to make money?

“To get the story out,” Ms Daniels countered.

The negotiations happened in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, a critical point in the case against Trump because prosecutors are arguing that he and his allies snatched up these potentially damaging stories and buried them in an illegal effort to influence the November results.

Trump denies any wrongdoing.

Ms Daniels returned for more testimony on Thursday, avoiding eye contact with the former president as she walked into the Manhattan courtroom and made her way to the witness stand.

Trump’s lawyers have sought to paint the adult film actor as a liar and extortionist who is trying to take down Trump after drawing money and fame from her story about him.

Turning pointedly to Ms Daniels’ career as an adult film actor, writer and director, Ms Necheles asked: “You have a lot of experience in making phoney stories about sex appear real?”

“The sex in those films is real, just like the sex in that room,” Ms Daniels replied. “The character themes might be different, but the sex is very real. That’s why it’s pornography, not a B movie.”

Ms Daniels was first called as a witness on Tuesday, describing what she said happened during their 2006 encounter in graphic detail. That testimony came after jurors heard others in Trump’s orbit testify that they saw Ms Daniels around Trump Tower. The jury also heard nuts-and-bolts testimony about bank records and payments received.

Trump scowled and shook his head through much of Ms Daniels’ description of their alleged sexual encounter after she met Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe celebrity golf outing where sponsors included the adult film studio where she worked.

At one point, the judge told defence lawyers during a sidebar conversation – out of earshot of the jury and the public – that he could hear Trump “cursing audibly”.

Ms Daniels testified earlier this week that while she was not physically menaced, she felt a “power imbalance” as Trump, in his hotel bedroom, stood between her and the door and propositioned her.

As for whether she felt compelled to have sex with him, she reiterated on Thursday that he did not drug her or physically threaten her. But, she said: “My own insecurities, in that moment, kept me from saying no.”

As Ms Necheles continued comparing Ms Daniels’ testimony with past interviews, the witness insisted: “My story hasn’t changed.

“You’re trying to make me say that it changed, but it hasn’t changed at all.”

Her testimony has been an extraordinary moment in what could be the only criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial before voters decide in November whether to send him back to the White House.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and casts himself as the victim of a politically tainted justice system working to deny him another term.

As she negotiated a nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen, Ms Daniels was also talking with other journalists as a “back-up” plan, she testified on Thursday. Ms Necheles accused her of refusing to share the story with reporters because she would not be paid for it.

“The better alternative was for you to get money, right?” Ms Necheles said.

Ms Daniels said she was most interested in getting her story out and ensuring her family’s safety.

“The better alternative was to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn’t get hurt,” Ms Daniels replied.

Meanwhile, as the threat of jail looms over Trump following his repeated gag order violations, his lawyers are fighting the judge’s order and seeking a fast decision in an appeals court. If the court refuses to lift the gag order, Trump’s lawyers want permission to take their appeal to the state’s high court.

“Here we sit after two and a half weeks, and I think you’ll see some very revealing things today,” Trump said outside court.

Inside the courtroom, Ms Necheles ran through the finer points of the nondisclosure agreement, asking Daniels to confirm that she agreed to highlighted portions. Ms Daniels responded in terse one-word answers, “Yes,” adding: “I signed this only based on what my attorneys suggested.”

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organisation business records. The charges stem from things such as invoices and cheques that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organisation records. Prosecutors say the payments largely were reimbursements to Mr Cohen for the 130,000 dollars hush money payment to Ms Daniels.

Testimony so far has made clear that at the time of the payment to Ms Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the October 2016 publication of the never-before-seen 2005 Access Hollywood footage in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.

Prosecutors have argued that the political firestorm over the Access Hollywood tape hastened Mr Cohen’s payment to keep Ms Daniels from going public with her claims that could further hurt Trump in the eyes of female voters.

Trump’s lawyers have sought to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family – not his campaign – by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life.

President Biden said Wednesday that “I’m not supplying the weapons” if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward with a full attack on the Hamas-controlled city of Rafah — before signaling he wants Israel to surrender the Gaza Strip’s transitional administration to Arab states.

“I made clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gotten into Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in a rare sit-down interview.

Biden’s threat drew swift condemnation from Israel supporters in Congress and followed days of obfuscation by the White House about reports the administration had stopped the transmission of powerful precision bombs. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed to Congress earlier Wednesday the shipment had been “paused,” but claimed a final decision about its fate had not yet been made.

“Biden’s dithering on Israel weapons is bad policy and a terrible message to Israel, our allies, and the world,” tweeted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Biden told Burnett the arms denied to Israel could expand to artillery shells as well — before saying that he was in talks with five Arab leaders about potentially occupying Gaza after Israel defeats Hamas, which could conflict with Jerusalem’s plans to administer the area.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said of US arms shipments.

“It’s just wrong. We’re not gonna — we’re not gonna supply the weapons and artillery shells used.”

He added that “I’ve made it clear to [Netanyahu] and the war cabinet, they’re not going to get our support if in fact they go into these population centers.

In a potentially paradigm-shifting evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Biden proceeded to suggest that Arab nations might temporarily occupy Gaza — which Israeli leaders have floated being subject to a transitional phase akin to denazification in Germany after World War II.

“Who is going to occupy Gaza?” Biden said, before answering his own question.

“I’ve been working with the Arab states, I won’t mention them because I don’t want to get them in trouble, but five leaders in the Arab community who are prepared to help rebuild Gaza, prepared to help transition to a two-state solution.”

Burnett asked Biden, “To govern it?”

“To maintain the security and peace while they’re working out a Palestinian Authority that is real and not corrupt,” Biden replied.

Although Biden didn’t name any of the Arab nations, close US partners in the region include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

It’s unclear if any Arab states actually would want to administer Gaza, which was controlled by Egypt until the 1967 Six-Day War — though Cairo has since relinquished its claims.

Biden has warned Israel for weeks not to attack the final major bastion of Hamas power in Rafah and repeated the message Monday in a call to the Israeli head of government.

More than a million displaced Gazans are believed to reside in and around Rafah.

Biden told Burnett he would “continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks like came out of — in the Middle East recently.”

The president, who is regularly heckled by anti-Israel protesters who have dubbed him “Genocide Joe,” has for months criticized Israel for allegedly doing too little to avoid killing civilians and aid workers in Gaza.

On Tuesday, however, Biden gave a pro-Israel speech at an event commemorating the Holocaust, saying that protesters were “forgetting” that Hamas started the war by killing about 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.

“Too many people [are] denying downplaying, rationalizing and ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews. It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” he said in that speech.

Polls show Biden’s re-election is at risk due to backlash over his pro-Israel stance from key Democratic constituencies including younger voters, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans.

Netanyahu has pushed back on Biden’s mounting criticism.

“If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a defiant speech Sunday at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

“Eighty years ago in the Holocaust, the Jewish people were totally defenseless against those who sought our destruction. No nation came to our aid. Today, we again face enemies bent on our destruction,” Netanyahu said.

“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself… We will defeat our genocidal enemies.

“‘Never again’ is now.”

A teenage girl was ‘loaned out’ by her ‘lover boy’ boyfriend to be sexually abused by his friends in Belgium who filmed the attack on their phones and shared images on social media, according to reports, in a case that has shocked the country.

The 14-year-old girl was abused by ten minors on up to three occasions between April 2 and April 6 over the Easter holidays, prosecutors say.

The main suspect – the girl’s 14-year-old boyfriend – is alleged to have taken the girl with him to a wooded area called Kabouterbos in Kortrijk, West Flanders. The spot is popular with mountain bikers and sits close to a highway.

Once there, the boyfriend is said to have attacked his young partner before allegedly allowing several other boys to sexually assault her as well. Reports said the group filmed the attack on their smartphones and posted clips to social media.

Prosecutors arrested ten suspects aged between 11 and 16 – all reported by local outlets to be boys of ‘immigrant origin’ – and hauled them in for interrogation.

Since then, more details have emerged about the suspects.

Citing ‘well placed sources’, Belgian outlet Nieuwsblad described the boyfriend as a ‘loverboy boy’ type who deliberately allowed his friends to abuse his young partner.

‘Lover boy’ in this case is a term used to describe human traffickers who typically operate by trying to make their young victims fall in love with them.

Nieuwsblad said prosecutors turned up ‘reprehensible behaviour’ on the part of the suspects and ‘revenge-mongering facts’, citing the sources close to the investigation who said the alleged perpetrators showed ‘a complete lack of sense of norms’.

The girl is thought to have spent at least two days in the forest where she was raped, tormented and abused by the gang of minors. She also returned a third time, reports say, but was not raped on that occasion.

The group took turns abusing the victim, and all participated ‘to a greater or lesser extent,’ Nieuwsblad said in its report.

The girl is understood to have been raped by several of the boys while others filmed the attacks on their smart phones, before sharing the clips with others.

Images were also shared on social media, reportedly over Snapchat – an instant messaging app that allows users to easily share pictures and videos.

The youngest of the boys, an 11-year-old, is said to have been used as lookout.

None of the group urged their friends to stop the abuse, sources said.

The investigation has been conducted in the utmost secrecy by the West Flanders prosecutor’s office to avoid any chance of family members of the victim or members of the public learning the identities of those involved.

Although the alleged attack took place in early April, the girl didn’t come forward for several days out of fear of telling her parents and the police.

It wasn’t until April 25 that the police were able to arrest the suspects.

In total, ten boys were detained. Six of the suspects were placed in a closed institution, while the other four were placed under house arrest.

They have since been questioned – all simultaneously and separately, so that investigators can compare all statements.

Citing its sources, Nieuwsblad said many of the statements given by the boys were contradictory, a number of the suspects blaming each other.

Some of the six minors placed in the institution appeared in juvenile court on Wednesday afternoon. It was reported that two were released on conditions.

Nieuwsblad reported that four more minors are now in custody – including the 14-year-old boyfriend who, it is understood, has been made the main suspect.

Prosecutors are now working to establish what extent each suspect was involved in the assault on the 14-year-old girl, or if any were bystanders.

Tom Janssens of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said that on account of the age of all those involved, little is being said publicly on their identity.

He did confirm that ten suspects had been identified and arrested, and that all were minors. ‘Because the perpetrators are so young, we are not releasing much information about their identity,’ Janssens told The Brussels Times.

According to the boyfriend’s lawyer, her client has disputed the events as they have been reported. ‘My client also wants the truth to come to light and for the matter to be thoroughly investigated,’ lawyer Nur Demirtas told Nieuwsblad.

‘He understands that he is now locked up, but this is also traumatising for him. This is also very difficult for his parents, wealthy people who have tried to give their son a good upbringing. They don’t understand how this could happen,’ Demirtas said.

‘It also strikes me that suspects of such crimes are becoming younger and younger. That is very disturbing.’

Lawyer Kelly De Caluwé, who is defending a 16-year-old suspect of Somali origin, said the minors had ‘all been interrogated simultaneously and the investigators will now test the statements to find out the truth’.

‘These are horrible facts,’ she said. ‘The question is how it is possible that these children have lost all sense of norms. What should we do with this?

‘How are we going to solve this? It is a question that should be asked not only to the juvenile judge but also to society as a whole. I have not yet experienced such facts in my fifteen-year career.’

Caluwé said her client said things he did not mean during the questioning and has asked for a re-examination.

‘I asked for a re-examination because due to the language barrier he said things that did not match what he meant,’ she said, according to Nieuwsblad.

‘To me he is not a rapist. Although he realises that something very wrong has happened. That realisation comes gradually.’

Kortrijk mayor Vincent Van Quickenborne said he was shocked when he first learned about the case that he has known about behind closed doors ‘for some time’.

‘The public prosecutor’s office does not allow me to say anything about the facts themselves, but I had been aware of the investigation for some time,’ he said.

‘These are cra*py acts for which there are no words. I say that not only as a politician, but also as a father of 3 young children.’

The criminal age of responsibility in Belgium is 18, meaning the suspected sexual abusers were sent before a juvenile judge and are likely to have been placed into a personal rehabilitation programme in youth facilities.

But it is possible the 16-year-old in question could be dealt with under adult criminal law, given the exceptional nature of the case.

The victim, meanwhile, is receiving specialist guidance following her ordeal.

The case in Belgium comes three years after another, similarly horrific incident shocked the country when a 14-year-old girl was raped by a group of young men in a cemetery in Ghent, in East Flanders.

Aged between 14 and 19, the group filmed the attack and circulated the footage on social media. The victim later took her own life.

The case sparked debate in Belgium about the country’s juvenile delinquency laws, as well as around increasing the minimum penalty for sexual offences.

Belgium eventually tightened the juvenile delinquency laws.

This made it possible to lock up children as young as 12 for longer periods if they are found guilty of rape and gang rape, and since 2022, offenders aged 16 and over who committed such crimes can be tried as adults.

Commenting on the recent case, East Flanders’s Justice Minister Zuhal Demir – who advocated for the tightening of such laws – said parents of children who commit such crimes ‘must be held accountable’.

‘You simply cannot deal with this kind of violence with lower [sentences],’ she said, according to The Brussels Times.

‘Such [perpetrators] must be taken off the streets and their parents must be held accountable. Juvenile judges should make more and full use of the recent tightening of juvenile delinquency law.’

On why it likely took the 14-year-old girl time to come forward after the early April incident, professor of forensic psychology Frédéric Declercq told De Morgen: There is always under-reporting of sexual crimes, whether it concerns a gang rape or an individual case. It is a well-known fact that victims usually feel more guilty than the perpetrators.’

‘In addition, there is a lot of shame in reporting crime. What also plays a role, for both female and male victims, is stigmatisation. You are no longer who you always were. If you come out, you are a rape victim.’

A Boeing 737-300 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister, an airline safety group and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire.

“Our plane just caught fire,” wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft at the airport in Dakar. In the background, people can be heard screaming.

Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.

The airport reopened on Thursday morning after closing overnight.

The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest. Boeing referred a request for comment to the airlines.

It was the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Also on Thursday, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey’s transportation ministry said.

“ Boeing 737 plane ✈️“ Catches Fire 🔥 in Senegal 🇸🇳 💔AFTER FAILED TAKEOFF ATTEMPT

With people running for their lives pic.twitter.com/9Rci6SYlI3

— OjoToTheWorld (@OjoToTheWorld) May 9, 2024

The company has been under intense pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration in February gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building planes after the accident.

The incident has raised scrutiny of Boeing to the highest level since two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. About a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash have been pushing the U.S. government to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement.

In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company had taken manufacturing shortcuts to turn out 787s as quickly as possible that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, described the plane as a Boeing 737-38J. The network published photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field, surrounded by fire suppressant foam, on X, formerly known as Twitter. One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.

ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and tracks accidents.

An airman was killed at his home after police allegedly forced their way into the wrong apartment and shot him as his horrified friend watched on FaceTime.

US Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, was identified as the young man shot dead in a shooting last Friday afternoon.

It took place at Fortson’s off-base residence – an apartment complex on 319 Racetrack Road in Okaloosa County, Florida.

A Okaloosa County deputy was responding to report of a disturbance and ‘reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun,’ cops say.

A witness, who was on FaceTime with Fortson during the time of the shooting, claimed Fortson heard a knock at the door and asked who was there.

When he did not receive a response but heard another ‘very aggressive knock,’ Fortson peered through the peephole – but did not see anyone and grew concerned.

Out of concern, Fortson retrieved a gun – which he owned legally, according to the witness.

When he returned to his living room with the gun, authorities allegedly pushed through his door and shot him six times.

The traumatized witness, who remained on the FaceTime call for the duration of the horrifying shooting, recalled that Fortson said ‘I can’t breathe,’ after the shots were fired. Fortson later died at the hospital.

The deputy involved in the incident has since been placed on administrative leave while the shooting continues to be investigated.

The 23-year old was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida. He entered active duty on Nov. 19, 2019

He was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider aircrew was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions.

The Air Force’s 1st Special Operations Wing said its priorities are ‘providing casualty affairs service to the family, supporting the squadron during this tragic time, and ensuring resources are available for all who are impacted.’

A similar incident happened involving the same sheriff’s office back in November – in which the officer shot an unarmed and handcuffed man after he mistook the sound of a falling acorn for a gunshot, according to The Washington Post.

The Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings from 2015 to April this year found that police killed the highest number of people on record in 2023.

Black Americans are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans.

Initial filings for unemployment benefits have hit their highest level since late August 2023, a potential sign that an otherwise robust labor market is changing.

Jobless claims totaled a seasonally adjusted 231,000 for the week ending on May 4, up 22,000 from the previous period and higher than the Dow Jones estimate for 214,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was the highest claims number since Aug. 26, 2023.

The increase in claims follows a string of mostly strong hiring reports, though hiring in April was light compared with expectations. Also, job openings have been declining amid expectations that the labor market is likely to slow through the year.

The report also showed that continuing claims, which run a week behind, increased to 1.78 million, up 17,000 from the previous week. The four-week moving average of claims, which helps smooth out weekly volatility in numbers, increased to 215,000, up 4,750 from the previous week.

“Weekly jobless claims are one of the timeliest indicators of when the economy is starting to undergo serious deterioration, and the magnitude of new layoffs this week looks worrisome,” wrote Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.

“One week does not a trend make, but we can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 175,000 in April, below the Wall Street estimate of 240,000 and the smallest gain since October 2023. However, the unemployment rate was at 3.9%, continuing to hold below 4% since February 2022.

Markets reacted little to the jobless claims release, with stock market futures slightly negative and Treasury yields mixed.

Excluding seasonal adjustments, claims totaled 209,324, up 10.4% from the previous week. New York alone saw an increase of more than 10,000, accounting for more than half the total rise.

“A low number of claims had become almost monotonous, and while this surprising spike could well be a blip, we should expect more volatility and a trend toward higher claims as the labor market normalizes,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

Federal Reserve officials are watching the jobs numbers closely as they continue efforts to bring inflation back to 2%. Following their meeting, policymakers noted that “job gains have remained strong.” But those remarks came before the April employment report release.

Markets are expecting the central bank to begin lowering interest rates in September.

A federal jury in New York on Thursday convicted an investor of insider trading in the stock of a shell company ahead of its announcement in October 2021 that it would merge with Trump Media.

The investor, Bruce Garelick, had been on the board of directors of the publicly traded company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., at the time he was accused of sharing and exploiting non–public information with others about its plans to merge with then-privately held Trump Media, the owner of the Truth Social app.

Trump Media’s majority shareholder is former President Donald Trump, who was not accused of any wrongdoing in the case against Garelick in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

But Garelick’s trial, which began on April 30, took place just blocks away from where Trump is on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court on criminal charges related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Two co-defendants of Garelick, the brothers Michael and Gerald Shvartsman, pleaded guilty to insider trading charges on April 3.

Jurors in Garelick’s case began deliberating on Wednesday afternoon after hearing closing arguments from prosecutors and a defense lawyer. After several hours of deliberation Thursday, jurors returned guilty verdicts on the five counts of securities fraud and conspiracy that the 54-year-old Garelick faced.

Garelick, who testified at his trial, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 12.

Garelick was an investment advisor to Michael Shvartsman’s venture capital firm, Rocket One Capital. Prosecutors said Garelick shared non-public material information about DWAC’s merger plans with Trump Media with the Shvartsman brothers in 2021 after joining DWAC’s board.

All three men then bought up DWAC stock based on that non-public information and then sold their shares after the price soared following the announcement of the deal to combine with Trump Media, prosecutors said.

Garelick made a profit of just $49,000 on the illicit trades, but the Shvartsmans earned a whopping $23 million, according to prosecutors.

“Bruce Garelick was part of a sophisticated group of individuals invited to invest in Digital World Acquisition Corporation …, a special purpose acquisition company that had raised funds with the intention of later investing in a target company, Trump Media & Technology Group, not yet known to the public,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement Thursday.

“When he was given that opportunity, Garelick promised to keep the information about DWAC’s interest in acquiring Trump Media secret and not use it to trade in the stock market. Garelick was also given a seat on DWAC’s board, which gave him direct access to additional non-public information regarding the acquisition,” Williams said.

“As a unanimous jury has just found, Garelick blatantly violated the law by using the information that he obtained as an insider at DWAC to trade and tip others,” the top prosecutor said. “Garelick’s federal conviction is yet another stark reminder that insider trading is always a losing bet.”

DWAC and Trump Media completed their merger in late March. Public trading of the company’s stock under the new ticker DJT began a day later.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Trump Media’s auditor with what the regulator said was “massive fraud” involving the auditor’s accounting work for hundreds of publicly traded companies, affecting 1,500 SEC filings.

The auditor, BF Borgers CPA, and its owner, Benjamin Borgers, agreed to be permanently suspended from practicing as accountants before the SEC, and to pay a combined $14 million in civil penalties.

Trump Media hired a new auditor, Semple, Marchal & Cooper LLP last weekend to replace BF Borgers.

A transgender high school runner is set to compete in the girls’ varsity track and field championship today after having left the other female competitors in the dust during the semi-finals.

Aayden Gallagher, who identifies as a girl, dominated in the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals on Wednesday.

The 10th grader took first place in the girls 400 meter varsity run and second place in the 200 meter race, qualifying him for the finals today at Lincoln High School.

If he places in the top two in any of today’s events, Gallagher will move on to compete in the Oregon State Championships.

Gallagher’s eligibility to compete in the girls league has sparked outrage in recent weeks, with former NCAA swimming championship Riley Gaines among those to publicly criticize the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), which regulates high school athletics in the state, and its policies.

Under current OSAA policies, students are permitted ‘to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity.’

Biological male (in red) who identifies as “transgender” blitzes the field in Girls Varsity 400m race in Portland. He will compete in the girls finals tomorrow. Joe Biden legalised this BS thru his Title 9 changes. #LetWomenSpeak #TransWomenAreConMen pic.twitter.com/G8IIMkS572

— Black Semi Fascist (@BFacist) May 8, 2024

Gallagher, a sophomore at McDaniel High School, was cleared to participate in the semi-finals on May 7 and competed in both the girls varsity 200m and 400m races.

He placed second in the 200m contest, finishing in 24.49 seconds. He was beat out by Roosevelt High School sophomore Aster Jones who finished the dash in 24.32 seconds.

But Gallagher placed first in the 400m race, crossing the finish line in 56.14 seconds. Runner-up Ellie Heslam, a junior at Roosevelt High School, finished the contest in 56.37 seconds.

Gallagher has faced public scrutiny in recent weeks after footage of him performance during Heat 1 of the Sherwood Need for Speed Classic last month was circulated online.

The video showed Gallagher speeding past a group of biologically female athletes to cross the finish line way in front of the rest of the pack.

Gallagher competed in several other events throughout the day, finishing in consistently high positions at the event in Sherwood, Oregon.

The video from the Sherwood Need for Speed Classic was originally posted by Reduxx, a feminist magazine, and quickly racked up millions of views.

Gallagher revealed in an interview with him high school newspaper last year that he will be pursuing hormone replacement therapy.

‘I feel like it’ll make me a lot more confident,’ said the student, at the time a high school freshman.

‘Because right now I’m just going to keep on getting more and more masculine. More facial hair, stuff like that. And I don’t want that. Estrogen and other hormones and getting vocal training would make me a lot happier and more confident.’

It is not clear if Gallagher has begun a hormone replacement regime.

Speaking to an interviewer after the Sherwood meet last month, the student said he ‘wasn’t really in front of a lot of people at the beginning of the race,’ adding, ‘I like to not go out super strong.’

He was ultimately defeated by another runner as the competitors came to the last hundred meters.

‘We were both trying to get first. And she’s been doing it for a long time, this is my first year,’ the sophomore said. ‘Really proud of her, she did great. I hope to see her in other track meets.’

The high schooler quickly became the target of criticism on social media as accounts with tens of thousands of followers circulated the video of him crossing the finish line.

‘This is sick and disgusting and I want to know why his parents are allowing him to mock female athletes, why his coach is allowing him to cheat, and why these girls’ coaches and parents aren’t speaking up,’ wrote Meghan Murphy, a Canadian author and podcaster.

‘Championing boys in girls sports is blatant misogyny,’ wrote the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS).

The founder of OutKick, where former NCAA swimming champ Riley Gaines hosts a podcasts, Clay Travis wrote: ‘another proud moment for “women’s” sports!’

Female athletes also joined the conversation.

Gaines, who is perhaps the most well-known example of a female athlete who was stripped of an award because a biologically male swimmer was given preference in her college sport, blamed the ‘adults’ at the Oregon track event for allowing Gallagher to compete.

‘Let’s call this what it is,’ she wrote on X. ‘Encouraged AND celebrated cheating at the hands of the “adults” in the room.

‘So many fingers to point, but shame on the parents, the schools, the boy, our weak administration,’ and the Oregon School Activities Association.

Carilyn Johnson, two-time member of Team USA, wrote: ‘At some point, we have to all be willing to see this for what it is. Please stop pretending like this is anything other than telling young female athletes they don’t matter.’

April Hutchinson, a powerlifter on Team Canada, branded the student ‘a prime example of a male cheat.’

‘Beats women, then lingers around, waiting for congratulations, and constantly seeks validation. You’re a liar to yourself and everyone in that facility. Shame on all the enablers,’ she wrote.

Amelia Strickler, a shot put champion who was twice awarded the British national title, asserted, ‘Biology has to be the rule.’

The Oregon School Activities Association’s policy for the participation of trans athletes in school sports states as follows:

‘The OSAA endeavors to allow students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students.’

The rule aims to ‘promote harmony and air competition among member schools by maintaining equality of eligibility and increase the number of students who will have an opportunity to participate in interscholastic activities.’

The policy also states that once a transgender students has told the school about their new identity, the student ‘shall be consistently treated as that gender for purposes of eligibility for athletics and activities, provided that if the student has tried out or participated in an activity, the student may not participate during that same season on a team of the other gender.’

It will soon be Barron Trump’s time to step into the political spotlight.

Trump, former President Donald Trump’s youngest child, who will graduate from high school next week and has largely been kept out of the political spotlight, was picked by the Republican Party of Florida on Wednesday night as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, according to a list of delegates obtained by NBC News.

“We have a great delegation of grassroots leaders, elected officials and even Trump family members,” Florida GOP chairman Evan Power said. “Florida is continuing to have a great convention team, but more importantly we are preparing to win Florida and win it big.”

Trump’s position as a delegate will be his highest-profile political role thus far.

In a family full of politically involved children, Barron Trump, who turned 18 in March, has retained much more of a private life than his older brothers, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., both of whom will also be Florida at-large RNC delegates, along with Trump’s daughter Tiffany.

He was pulled into political headlines last month at the start of his father’s New York criminal trial related to hush money payments to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 election.

The former president’s attorneys argued that he should be allowed a break from trial to attend Barron Trump’s May 17 high school graduation, which Judge Juan Merchan agreed to allow.

The Trump family will have an outsize impact on Florida’s RNC delegation.

Eric Trump, the delegation’s chairman, joined Power, the state GOP chairman, on a phone call with party leaders Wednesday night.

Donald Trump has won the state twice, including by more than 3 percentage points during his 2020 failed re-election bid, and the state party has largely lined up behind his presidential bid this year even before he has been formally nominated.

The party was put in a difficult position this cycle with Gov. Ron DeSantis also running for the GOP presidential nomination, but even with their home-state governor in the race, Florida party officials signaled they would back Trump.

In September, party leaders voted to remove a loyalty pledge requirement that would have required GOP presidential candidates to support the eventual Republican nominee to be on the state’s March 19 primary ballot. The proposal was supported by Trump but openly opposed by DeSantis’ campaign.

Beyond Trump family members, the Florida GOP approved several of the former president’s top supporters as RNC at-large delegates.

Others include Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée; Michael Boulous, Tiffany Trump’s husband; former state Attorney General Pam Bondi, a longtime Trump ally who has run pro-Trump super PACs; longtime Trump adviser Sergio Gor; former Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, a prominent Trump donor; and a series of state-level Republican politicians who took the risk of endorsing Trump over DeSantis.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has officially started the clock on her doomed effort to hold a referendum on Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership.

The Georgia firebrand brought up the so-called motion to vacate as privileged, meaning GOP leadership is required to bring it up for a floor vote within two legislative days. It’s the second attempt to depose a speaker within seven months.

House leaders are expected to immediately move forward on a vote to block her effort, according to a person familiar with leadership’s plans.

Greene and her ally in the ouster effort, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), opted to move on their resolution after Johnson didn’t move quickly on a slew of their demands, some of which they wanted attached to a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Greene had pushed for Johnson to agree to four key demands, including not passing further Ukraine aid and defunding the special counsel probes into Donald Trump in upcoming appropriations bills.

The speaker had largely shrugged off the two hardliners and the House is expected to pass a one-week FAA extension in the afternoon vote.

Johnson hasn’t indicated that any of their asks would be included in a broader reauthorization bill Congress will have to consider later this month.

Many members booed and heckled Greene as she read her resolution on the House floor. She fired back that her colleagues were part of the “uni-party,” a term conservatives use to deride Republicans who work with Democrats.

The upcoming vote to block her effort is referred to as a motion to table, which Democrats are expected to support — helping most Republicans block the attempt to depose Johnson.

So far, Greene and Massie have two other Republicans in their corner: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has backed ousting Johnson, and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who has said he will vote with them against tabling the resolution.

Several other Republicans — including Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — have declined to say whether they would support Greene. Republicans have warned that others could join her; with Democratic support, it gives them an outlet to vent frustrations without actually threatening his speakership.

And a handful of others have stated that they would save Johnson for now, despite despising how Johnson has handled a series of divisive votes for the party. Instead, that group said, they will wait until after the election in November to show their disapprobation.

Ex-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo disclosed he is taking the pharmaceutical drug Ivermectin to treat his “long Covid” diagnosis, despite disparaging others who promoted the drug in 2020, stating they “need to be shamed.”

Cuomo, who now works for NewsNation, issued the disclosure during an appearance on Patrick Bet-David’s podcast “PBD.”

While the anchor stated that he stands by his earlier remarks on alternative Covid regimens that differed from the vaccine, he asserted that the US government’s guidance on Ivermectin “was wrong” and that he offered his initial analysis based on alleged facts provided by the government at that time.

Now Chris Cuomo is claiming to be taking Ivermectin, a horse paste that has been proven to have no medical use for treating COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/mms2ZIUMgt

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) May 8, 2024

“My doctors say I have ‘Long Covid,” he said, later adding that “I’m doing all the protocols”

“I do not fault myself for telling people at the time what the government was giving us as best practices…I am going to tell you something else that is going to get you a lot of hits. I am taking a regular dose, whatever, of Ivermectin,” said Cuomo.

“Ivermectin was a boogeyman early on in COVID. That was wrong. We were given bad information about Ivermectin,” he continued.

“The real question is why?… The entire clinical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you. They knew it, Patrick. I know they knew it. How did I know it? Because now I am doing nothing but talking to these clinicians who at the time were overwhelmed but they weren’t saying anything, not that they were hiding anything. But it’s cheap, it’s not owned by anybody and it’s used as anti-microbial and an anti-viral in all these different ways and has been for a long time,” said Cuomo.

The NewsNation host then revealed that his doctor and her family were taking Ivermectin during the pandemic, saying “It was working for them. So they were wrong to play scared on that. Didn’t know it at the time, know it now, admit it now, reporting on it now.”

Israel has committed to the United States and Egypt to restrict its operation in Rafah, which started on Monday, aiming only to deny Hamas authority over the border crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt, and concentrating on the eastern side of the city.

The parties agreed that a private American security company will assume management of the crossing after the IDF concludes its operation. Israel has also pledged not to damage the crossing’s facilities to ensure its continuous operation.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that he is not aware of Israel agreeing to transfer control of the crossing. The White House also said it was unaware of such an agreement.

Prior to the ground invasion of Rafah, Israel made it clear in talks that the operation’s objective is to exert pressure on Hamas in the hostage negotiations and to harm the crossing’s reputation as a symbol of Hamas power, as it serves as Gaza’s main lifeline.

Israel believes that Hamas’ loss of control over the Rafah crossing would be a significant setback for the group. It will not be able to collect taxes imposed on trucks and goods and will no longer be able to bring in weapons and other items banned from entering Gaza.

The Egyptians and Americans initially opposed any wide-ranging operations by the Israel Defense Forces in Rafah out of fear it would lead to heavy civilian casualties in the densely populated area.

Egyptian officials made clear during the discussions that they opposed an assault on Rafah out of concern that civilians would force their way over the border fence to take shelter against it. According to them, Hamas might try to destroy part of the fence to help large numbers of Gazans to flee.

According to the Gaza Crossings Authority, between 8,000 and 10,000 Gaza Strip citizens have fled to Egypt since the start of the war. Israeli defense officials who spoke with Haaretz said the U.S. made it clear that, should Israel proceed far into Rafah without the express approval of the administration, it faces the prospect of having its access to weapons restricted.

As part of Israel’s efforts to win agreement for a Rafah operation, negotiations have been underway with a private company in the U.S. that specializes in assisting armies and governments around the world engaged in military conflicts. The company has operated in several African and Middle Eastern countries, guarding strategic sites like oil fields, airports, army bases and sensitive border crossings. It employs veterans of elite U.S. Army units.

Under the understandings between the three countries, when Israel has completed its limited operation in the border crossing area, the U.S. company will take responsibility for operating the facility. That includes monitoring goods arriving in the Gaza Strip from Egypt and preventing Hamas from re-establishing control of the crossing. According to the agreement, Israel and the U.S. will assist the company as necessary.

The Egyptians submitted a complaint to Israel on Tuesday regarding IDF troops who had uploaded videos showing the Israeli flag being flown at the Rafah crossing. The Egyptians argued that such a symbolic and public step harms their efforts to downplay the action close to their territory.