A Cow Called Boy
Emmaline Sasportas
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the 59th commemoration of the Bloody Sunday Selma bridge crossing on Sunday in Selma, Ala. Harris called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza in her remarks but reiterated that Israel has "a right to defend itself." Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images hide caption
TEL AVIV, Israel - Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to meet with Benny Gantz, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet, as pressure builds for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the war in Gaza.
Monday's meeting in Washington, D.C., comes one day after Harris called for an immediate, temporary cease-fire in Gaza to facilitate an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Harris is expected to continue pressing Israel to pause the fighting and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
According to an Egyptian source close to the talks, a Hamas delegation will be in Cairo until Tuesday, meeting with mediators from Egypt and Qatar to broker a deal that would include a 6-week cease-fire as well as the exchange of dozens of Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas for several hundred Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
The source told NPR that Hamas is demanding temporary housing in Gaza until reconstruction is completed in the enclave, where at least 60% of homes have been destroyed by the war. They also want a withdrawal of Israeli troops, and for Palestinians who have been displaced from northern Gaza to be able to return.
Family and supporters of the hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza complete the final leg of a four-day march from the Israel-Gaza border to Jerusalem, to demand the immediate release of all hostages, in Jerusalem, on Saturday. Mahmoud Illean/AP hide caption
Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, is where over a million displaced Palestinians have been sheltering for weeks, and where Israel says a number of Hamas battalions remain. The Israeli military has been carrying out sporadic strikes there, including a strike on Saturday afternoon that killed 11 people and wounded at least 50 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. In a separate strike in eastern Rafah on Saturday, 14 members of the same family were killed, and as many as 10 others were trapped under rubble.
If ultimately agreed upon, the deal would be the second cease-fire deal since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7. That's when Hamas led an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 240, according to Israeli officials. The Israeli response has killed more than 30,500 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The humanitarian situation is Gaza is spiraling, with a least a quarter of the enclave's 2.2 million residents now "one step away from famine," according to the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. On Friday, the World Health Organization said it recorded the 10th child in Gaza to have starved to death.
Adele Khodr, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF, called for "entry points that would allow us to bring aid in from all possible crossings, including to northern Gaza; and security assurances and unimpeded passage to distribute aid, at scale, across Gaza, with no denials, delays and access impediments."
Palestinians say Israeli soldiers fired on them when they tried to get food from an aid convoy in Gaza City on Thursday, with the shooting and surrounding chaos resulting in at least 115 deaths. The Israeli military on Sunday released a statement saying most of the civilians died in a stampede and that Israeli soldiers only "responded" to civilians approaching them.
Israeli media reports that Gantz's visit to Washington was not pre-authorized by the prime minister's office, and that Netanyahu has asked that the Israeli embassy decline to facilitate Gantz's trip and to not allow any embassy staff to attend any of his meetings. There are also reports of a heated phone conversation, in which Netanyahu reportedly told Gantz that Israel has "only one prime minister."
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz speaks during a press conference with his Greek counterpart in Athens, Greece, in November 2022. Gantz was due in Washington, D.C., on Monday for a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris. Michael Varaklas/AP hide caption
However, in a Facebook post, Knesset member Hili Tropper, a member of the National Unity Party, wrote, "There is indeed one prime minister for Israel...but we also have one Israel and anyone who can help for its success in the war must do so... Now is the time to put the ego aside, put political calculations aside, and concentrate on partnership for the benefit of the State of Israel."
Even before the war, there was a rift between Netanyahu and Gantz over a number of issues - from Israel's military operations in Gaza to whether ultra-Orthodox men should be compelled into military service.
In a speech on Thursday night, Netanyahu, who is holding on to power with a narrow majority in the Knesset, dismissed the call for early elections as a tactic of "extremists," and called for unity in the country.
President Harry Truman was desperate. With fewer than four months remaining before election day, his public approval rating stood at only 36 percent. Two years earlier, Congress had come under Republican control for the first time in a quarter century. His opponent, New York governor Thomas Dewey, seemed already to be planning his own move to the White House. In search of a bold political gesture, the president turned to the provision in the Constitution that allows the president "on extraordinary occasions" to convene one or both Houses of Congress.
On July 15, 1948, several weeks after the Republican-controlled Congress had adjourned for the year leaving much business unfinished, Truman took the unprecedented step of using his presidential nomination acceptance speech to call both houses back into session. He delivered that speech under particularly trying circumstances. Without air conditioning, delegates sweltered in the Philadelphia convention hall's oven-like atmosphere. By the time the president finally stepped before the cameras in this first televised Democratic convention, organizers had lost all hope of controlling the schedule.
At 1:45 in the morning, speaking only from an outline, Truman quickly electrified the soggy delegates. In announcing the special session, he challenged the Republican majority to live up to the pledges of their own recently concluded convention to pass laws to ensure civil rights, extend Social Security coverage, and improve health care. "They can do this job in 15 days, if they want to do it." he challenged. That two-week session would begin on "what we in Missouri call 'Turnip Day,'" taken from the old Missouri saying, "On the twenty-sixth of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."
At the conclusion of the 11-day Turnip Session, the 80th Congress sent two bills to the president for his signature: one aimed at inflation and one to spur housing starts. Though he signed both bills into law, predictably, Truman called the bills inadequate. "Would you say it was a do-nothing session, Mr. President?" asked one reporter at a press conference. "I would say it was a do-nothing session," Truman responded delightedly. "I think that's a good name for the 80th Congress." The term stuck: the "do-nothing" Congress. In November, defying pundits and pollsters, Truman won and Democrats gained majorities in both houses of Congress.
How often do we fail to realize that we are called to be Christ's witnesses to the world? How often do we reach out to our missing brothers and sisters by inviting them to join us at Mass or by asking why they no longer feel welcomed at Church? Did you know that through our baptism, we are called to proclaim the Good News to all people, everywhere and at all times. How often do we fail to realize that we are called to be Christ's witnesses to the world?
Paris, 7 July 2020 - So-called stablecoins have the potential to spur financial innovation and efficiency and improve financial inclusion. While so-called stablecoins have so far only been adopted on a small-scale, new proposals have the potential to be mass-adopted on a global scale, particularly where they are sponsored by large technology, telecommunications or financial firms.
In the same way as any other large-scale value transfer system, this propensity for mass-adoption makes them attractive to criminals and terrorists to launder their proceeds of crime and finance their terrorist activities.
Bins of the empty envelopes from ballots are stored along a wall as election office workers process ballots while counting continues from the general election at the Allegheny County elections returns warehouse in Pittsburgh, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A Luzerne County worker canvases ballots that arrived after closing of voting until Friday at 5 p.m. and postmarked by Nov. 3rd as vote counting in the general election continues, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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