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      Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025

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      Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.The proposal comes from an executive order signed by the president on Earth Day in 2022 that directed the US Forest Service and the land management bureau to conduct an inventory of old-growth and mature forest groves as well as to develop policies that protect them.“We think this will allow us to respond effectively and strategically to the biggest threats that face old growth,” the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, told the Washington Post. “At the end of the day, it will protect not just the forests but also the culture and heritage connected to the forests.”The US Forest Service oversees 193m acres of forests and grasslands, 144m of which are forests. In its inventory conducted after Biden’s executive order, the agency found that the vast majority of forests it oversees, about 80%, are either old-growth or mature forests. It found more than 32m acres of old-growth forests and 80m acres of mature forests on federal land.The land management bureau defines old-growth forests as those with trees that are in later stages of stand development, which typically means at least 120 years of growth, depending on species. The giant sequoias in California, for example, are old-growth trees. Mature forests, meanwhile, have trees that are in the development stage immediately before old growth.Advocates for years have been pushing the Biden administration to explicitly ban logging in old-growth and mature forests. Trees that are in their old-growth stage are able to store more carbon than younger trees, making them a natural solution to fighting the climate crisis.In 2022, shortly before Biden announced his executive order, a group of more than 130 scientists wrote a letter to Biden advocating a ban on logging in old-growth forests.“Older forests provide the most above-ground carbon storage potential on Earth, with mature forests and larger trees driving most accumulation of forest carbon in the critical next few decades,” the letter read. “Left vulnerable to logging, though, they cannot fulfill these vital functions.”The ban will come into effect in early 2025, allowing time for the forest service to finalize rules that will protect old-growth forests from logging. Because it comes under an executive order, its existence depends on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, making advocates worried about the protections’ vulnerability to the country’s political climate.But federal agencies have also been under pressure from the timber industry, which argues that logging creates economic activity and helps to fight wildfires. The proposal focuses on most old-growth forests, leaving mature forests still vulnerable to logging, which is a middle ground between environmentalists and the timber industry.Chris Wood, the president of Trout Unlimited and a former official with the US Forest Service, told the Associated Press the policy “is a step in the right direction”.“This is the first time the Forest Service has said its national policy will be to protect old growth,” Wood said.Other advocates are emphasizing that this is just Biden’s first step toward fulfilling his executive order.“Protecting our old-growth trees from logging is an important first step to ensure these giants continue to store vast amounts of carbon, but other older forests also need protection,” Randi Spivak, public lands policy director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release. “To fulfill President Biden’s executive order and address the magnitude of the climate crisis, the Forest Service also needs to protect our mature forests, which if allowed to grow will become the old growth of tomorrow.” More

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      Israel-Gaza war sets Biden at odds with youth of America

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      Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza nearly two months ago, outraged young Americans have been at the forefront of a growing Palestinian solidarity movement.They have led protests in Washington and across the country to demand a permanent ceasefire and to voice their disapproval of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe.A generational divide on the conflict is shifting the terms of the foreign policy debate in Washington, where support for Israel has long been bipartisan and near-unanimous. And, ahead of an already contentious election year, there are signs the issue could pose a threat to Biden’s prospects of winning re-election in 2024.“There’s something profound taking place in the way young Americans, particularly Democrats, think about the issue,” said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, who has studied American public sentiment on the Israeli-Palestine conflict for decades.Shifting attitudesThere was a surge of support for Israel in the wake of the 7 October attack, when gunmen killed at least 1,200 people, roughly two-thirds of whom were civilians, and seized as many as 240 hostages, more than 100 of whom have been freed so far. But attitudes have evolved in the two months since, especially among young Americans, thousands of whom have taken to the streets in protest of Israel’s air and ground offensive, which has killed at least 17,000 Palestinians and displaced more than three-quarters of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents.Americans overall continue to sympathize with Israel, but surveys show stark divides by party affiliation and age. Young Americans are far more likely than older Americans to express sympathy for Palestinians and to disagree with Biden’s response and strategy, a trend that is especially pronounced among Democrats.A pair of University of Maryland Critical Issues Polls, the first taken shortly after 7 October and the second taken four weeks after the attack, found that the number of young Democrats who said Biden was “too pro-Israeli” had doubled while the percentage who said they were less likely to support him in 2024 based on his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue more than doubled.“It is the deepest shift in a short period of time that I’ve seen,” said Telhami, who is the director of the Critical Issues Poll. While public attitudes often evolve during the course of a war, he said such a significant swing suggests “this isn’t episodic”.Among voters 18-34, a majority – 52% – said they were more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released in mid-November. It marked a sharp reversal from the survey taken the previous month, after the 7 October assault, when 41% of young people said their sympathies lay with the Israelis, compared with 26% who said the Palestinians.The poll also found young people were about equally divided between those who believe supporting Israel is in the US’s national interest – 47% – and those who don’t – 45% – compared with older cohorts who overwhelmingly said it was.According to a recent NBC poll, a striking 70% of voters ages 18 to 34 say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. A Pew poll published this week charted a similar trend, with just 19% of Americans under 30 approving of the president’s response.Watching a young, multiracial coalition champion Palestinian rights has been a glimmer of hope amid the horrors of war in Gaza and a rise in Islamophobia in the US, said Nihad Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair).“We hope to see a break with the past,” said Awad, who is Palestinian American, “and a shift not only in the public opinion among young people but hopefully among the general public, ultimately towards a policy that reflects universal values of justice and freedom for all.”‘What moral standing is there?’Many Americans of Biden’s generation can remember Israel as a young, left-leaning democracy founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust – a vulnerable country in a hostile region and a place the 81-year-old president has described as an indispensable haven for Jews. Biden, who was five at the time of Israel’s founding, has said: “If there weren’t an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”Younger Democrats, by contrast, have mostly known Israel as a military power led by the rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has aligned himself closely with Republicans in the United States and is accused of undermining democratic institutions in Israel.Those generational tensions have roiled the party, pitting young staffers against their bosses at the White House and at agencies across the administration, on Capitol Hill and at the Democratic National Committee. In letters, cables and in some cases, resignations, they have expressed their concern over the administration’s policy toward Israel.Polling shows Biden’s support deteriorating among the nation’s youngest voters, considered a key part of the Democrats’ electoral coalition. In 2020, Biden won voters under 30 by more than 20 percentage points, according to exit polls. Recent surveys show the president competitive with or in some cases trailing Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, among young people.Last month, a coalition of youth-centered progressive organizations signed an open letter calling on Biden to support a ceasefire, which he has resisted, and warning that his approach to the war in Gaza “risks millions of young voters staying home or voting third party next year”. Unless he changes course, they cautioned that Democrats would probably struggle to recruit the often young volunteers, organizers and staffers to work on Democratic campaigns.“Biden ran on a promise to restore America’s moral standing in the world. What moral standing is there when you allow for more than 6,000 children to be killed?” said Zohran Mamdani, a 32-year-old Democratic state lawmaker from New York who staged a five-day hunger strike outside of the White House to protest against Biden’s handling of the war. “If the fabric of your coalition was built on promises that you are betraying, you cannot be surprised if that coalition cannot be reactivated once more.”In the days after 7 October, Biden condemned Hamas’s attack on Israel as “sheer evil” and offered his administration’s unwavering support for Israel. The White House has argued that Biden’s strategy of standing by Israel as it wages war in Gaza has allowed his administration to push for diplomatic breakthroughs. The president has earned some praise for his administration’s efforts to restart the flow of desperately needed aid into the besieged region and to secure a week-long truce last month that saw the release of more than a hundred hostages held by Hamas.Amid global outrage at the scale of the death and destruction in Gaza, the president and his administration have become more blunt in expressing their concern over Israel’s military campaign as well as Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.“I have consistently pressed for a pause in the fighting for two reasons: to accelerate and expand the humanitarian assistance going into Gaza and, two, to facilitate the release of hostages,” Biden said recently.Many young activists, especially young Arab and Muslim Americans, say the president’s support for Israel is abetting a war that is already outpacing the bloodiest conflicts of the 21st century. They have been alarmed by some of his rhetoric, particularly his comments questioning the veracity of the casualty figures kept by health officials in the Hamas-run enclave, which struck many as dehumanizing. And they say the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian boy and the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont underscore the threat facing Arab and Muslim American communities.“No amount of time will erase the last two months from our memory,” said Munir Atalla, 30, of the Palestinian Youth Movement.Why it’s happeningPolitical scientists, activists and lawmakers on both sides of the debate say a range of factors are shaping the way young people perceive Israel’s war against Hamas. Social media, where young people have watched the horror of war unfold in real time on their cellphones, is one.About a third of American adults under 30 say they regularly get their news from TikTok, where videos discussing the war have racked up billions of views.Nerdeen Kiswani, 29, co-founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization that staged a peace protest near the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Times Square, New York, last month, said young people distrust traditional media. Instead, she said they rely on social media to hear directly from Palestinian civilians and journalists in Gaza.“They can see with their own eyes,” she said. “Social media now has really democratized what news comes out there.”But young people’s interest in Israel-Palestine – and the US’s approach to the conflict – is not new and the conversation is not only happening online, said Rachel Janfaza, the founder of the Up and Up newsletter that explores gen Z political culture.“While social media is one element of where young people are getting their news and information about what’s going on between Israel and Hamas,” she said, “there’s also a robust campus conversation about the conflict that predates the existence of TikTok.”Many leftwing activists have embraced the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial justice movement that mobilized following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. For them, the fight for Palestinian rights is linked to domestic causes like police brutality and climate justice.“When I go to marches, when I go to rallies, when I go on hunger strike and I look around, these are the same people that I was marching with for Black Lives Matter,” said Mamdani. “That solidarity is at the crux of why so many young people are able to stand up for justice wherever it applies.”A searing conversation over Palestinian rights has swept college campuses and even high schools, where educators are struggling to foster civil discourse as they confront a rise in bias attacks against Arab, Muslim and Jewish students.At protests, pro-Palestinian activists describe Israel as a “colonial” power and an oppressive, occupying force. Behind claims of anti-Israel bias, they see an effort to silence any criticism of the Israeli government, which many activists now charge with perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people.Supporters of Israel have argued that viewing the Israel-Palestinian conflict through a lens of power and privilege often flattens the complex roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict and ignores Jewish people’s history of persecution. They say some of the slogans and rhetoric used by pro-Palestinian activists cross a line into antisemitism and denialism of the atrocities of the 7 October attacks.“It’s one thing to criticize Netanyahu, his policies,” said Tyler Gregory, 35, CEO of the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). “It’s another thing to demonize Israel in the same way that Jews have been demonized for millennia, as being the source of the world’s problems.”Young Jewish peopleIsrael’s military campaign in Gaza has also divided young American Jews, a group that tends to be politically liberal and secular.A survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute conducted a month after the war began revealed a significant generational split among American Jews that mirrored the US population as a whole.While nearly three-quarters of American Jews said they approve of Biden’s response to the conflict, it found that Jewish voters aged 18 to 35 were far more likely than their older counterparts to disapprove.With chants of “not in our name”, young progressive Jewish activists have led several of the major ceasefire protests, some of which have drawn rebukes from prominent Jewish advocacy groups.Meanwhile, young Jews were among the tens of thousands of demonstrators who gathered in Washington last month to show solidarity with Israel and voice support for its war against Hamas as calls for a ceasefire grow.Joe Vogel, a 26-year-old Maryland state delegate running for Congress, said it had been deeply worrying to see attempts from some on the left to “justify” the violence on 7 October.“The only way that we’re really going to secure peace and justice for everyone in Israel and Palestine is if we move away from the binary thinking,” said Vogel, who is Jewish and describes himself as a “pro-Israel progressive”. “We have to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. We have to be pro-Jewish and pro-Muslim.”In 2020, Eva Borgwardt worked as a Democratic field director to help elect Biden in Arizona. Now the 27-year-old is helping to lead protests against him as the national spokesperson of IfNotNow, a leftwing Jewish group demanding the president back a permanent ceasefire.“We know that the only way this horrific violence will end is with a ceasefire. You cannot bomb your way to peace,” she said. “That’s what young people are saying in the streets right now.”Audra Heinrichs contributed to this report from New York More

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      US imposes visa bans on Israeli settlers responsible for West Bank violence

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      In a rare punitive move against Israel, the US has announced it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in recent attacks on Palestinians in theWest Bank.The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, announced the decision on Tuesday after warning Israel last week that Joe Biden’s administration would be taking action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but officials said those would be coming this week and could affect dozens of settlers and their families.“We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Blinken said in a statement. “As President Biden has repeatedly said, those attacks are unacceptable.”“Today, the state department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said.He said the US would continue to seek accountability for settler violence against Palestinians as well as Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Israel, particularly as tensions are extremely high due to the conflict in Gaza.“Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the responsibility to uphold stability in the West Bank,” Blinken said. “Instability in the West Bank both harms the Israeli and Palestinian people and threatens Israel’s national security interests.”Some analysts described it as a positive step. Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, tweeted: “Finally, settler vigilantes will pay a price for their violent efforts to uproot West Bank Palestinians. I hope their Israeli government sponsors will not be allowed to fly either.”But Aaron David Miller, a former state department analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues, expressed doubt that the decision would fundamentally alter the situation. “It’s necessary but not sufficient,” he said. “It’s a welcome demonstration the administration takes seriously the reality of settler vigilantism. But as a practical matter it’s not going to change many hearts or minds.”Miller added: “I wouldn’t call it virtue signalling but in some respects it’s similar to the administration’s ban in the wake of [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi’s murder by the Saudi regime. There were visa restrictions imposed on a number of Saudis as well.”Tuesday’s move comes just a month after Israel was granted entry into the US visa waiver programme, which allows its citizens visa-free entry into the US. Those targeted will not be eligible for the programme, and those who hold current US visas will have them revoked.The Biden administration has firmly backed Israel since the Hamas attack on 7 October, even as international criticism of its military operation has mounted. But in recent weeks, the White House has stepped up calls on Israel to do more to limit civilian casualties as it expands its offensive and targets densely populated southern Gaza.Joe Biden and other senior US officials have warned repeatedly that Israel must act to stop increasing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. During meetings in Israel last week, Blinken told officials that the US was “ready to take action using our own authorities”.The first bans under the new policy would be imposed on Tuesday and more designations will be made in the coming days, a state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told reporters, adding it would ultimately affect dozens of people.Any Israeli with an existing US visa who was targeted would be notified that their visa was revoked, Miller added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince a 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. It has built Jewish settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.Daily settler attacks have more than doubled, UN figures show, since Hamas, which controls the separate Palestinian territory of Gaza, killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 hostage. Israel has since bombed and invaded Gaza, killing more than 16,000 people.James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, was sceptical of the Biden administration’s response, which he described as “cosmetic and not indicative of a serious effort to stem settler violence”.He said: “If we know who the people are then we ought to be pressing that they be prosecuted for the crimes they’ve committed. But no such effort is underway. A significant number of the settlers in the settler movement are American citizens. What is being done to deal with that issue? There’s been no answer on that at all.”On Tuesday, in a sign of the mounting pressure, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, condemned the violence by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, saying in a state of law only the police and the military had the right to use force. “There is, sadly, violence from extremists that we must condemn,” Gallant told a press conference.“In a state of law – and Israel is a state of law – the right to use violence belongs only to those who are certified to do so by the government, in our case that’s the IDF [military], the Israeli police, the Shin Bet [security service] and such,” Gallant said.“Nobody else has any authority to use violence,” he said. More

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      White House condemns protest targeting Philadelphia Jewish restaurant as ‘completely unjustifiable’ – as it happened

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      The White House has decried a Sunday evening protest targeting a Jewish restaurant in Philadelphia as “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable”.Video circulating on Twitter shows protesters chanting outside Goldie, a Kosher restaurant in the city owned by Israeli chef Michael Solomonov:Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro condemned the protest as “blatant antisemitism”, saying the restaurant was targeted simply because its owner is Jewish:In a statement from spokesman Andrew Bates, the White House echoed that criticism:
      It is Antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy, as Governor Shapiro has underlined. This behavior reveals the kind of cruel and senseless double standard that is a calling card of Antisemitism. President Biden has fought against the evil of Antisemitism his entire life, including by launching the first national strategy to counter this hate in American history. He will always stand up firmly against these kinds of undignified actions.
      Lawmakers condemned a Sunday evening protest in Philadelphia that called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza while also specifically targeting a Jewish restaurant owned by an Israeli chef. The White House said the demonstration was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable”, while Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, decried the protesters’ “hate and bigotry” – comments echoed by numerous members of Congress. Elsewhere, the White House is warning that it will run out of money to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion within weeks. A proposal to send military assistance to both Ukraine and Israel is tied up in negotiations over stricter border security, which reportedly have broken down.Here’s what else happened today:
      Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, winnowing the field to five major contenders.
      Antisemitism and Islamophobia have both increased since the 7 October terrorist attack and Israel’s invasion of Gaza, advocacy groups say.
      Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said lawmakers who oppose aid to Ukraine are helping Vladimir Putin’s invasion succeed.
      The US defense industry would benefit from increased aid to Ukraine and Israel, the White House is arguing, as it presses Congress to approve a new military assistance package.
      Liz Cheney said she hopes Democrats will win next year, arguing the GOP will help turn the country into a dictatorship.
      Speaking at the White House press briefing today, national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned members of Congress who oppose military assistance to Ukraine that they are helping Russian president Vladimir Putin’s campaign to conquer the country:Earlier today, the White House office of management and budget warned that the funds allocated for military assistance to Ukraine will run out by the end of the year. Joe Biden has proposed legislation that would approve more money for Ukraine and Israel’s militaries as well as to pay for tighter US border security, but it needs Republican support to pass, and the party wants even stricter border security before they will agree.Speaking of former members of Congress, the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports that ex-House lawmaker Liz Cheney is rooting for the Democrats:Liz Cheney, whose opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency alienated her from her fellow Republicans, has said she would prefer Democrats to win in the 2024 elections over members of her own party because she feared the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship”.In an interview with CBS on Sunday, Cheney suggested a Republican congressional majority that would be subservient to another Trump White House presented a tangible “threat” to American democracy.“I believe very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican party, but the Republican party of today has made a choice, and they haven’t chosen the constitution,” the former Wyoming congresswoman said when asked if she was rooting for Democratic victories in the 2024 election cycle. “And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025.”She went on to say that the US was “sort of sleepwalking into dictatorship” with Trump emerging as the clear favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, notwithstanding the fact that he faces more than 90 criminal charges, including some for attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election against his Democratic rival Joe Biden.George Santos’s departure has created a vacancy in Congress that must be filled via a special election.Democrats are keen to see one of their own win the open seat, as it would put them closer to retaking the chamber in 2024. Tom Suozzi, the congressman who Santos defeated last year, is running again, and Axios reports that he today announced endorsements from several mayors in the Long Island district:Here’s more from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore on the big news of this morning, when the White House warned it may run out of money to assist Ukraine within weeks:The White House has said it is “out of money and nearly out of time” to provide more weapons to Ukraine as it tries to ward off Russia’s invasion unless Congress acts to approve additional funding and support.The warning, issued on Monday in a letter to congressional leaders, laid out how the government had already gone through about $111bn appropriated for Ukraine military aid.“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, director of the office of management and budget, wrote in the letter, parts of which were published by the Hill.The latest plea for money comes after the White House asked Congress to act on a $100bn supplemental funding request in October, arguing that it “advances our national security and supports our allies and partners”.The request identified border security, allies in the Indo-Pacific, Israel and Ukraine. About $61bn covered money for Ukraine, which included $30bn to restock defense department equipment sent to support the country after Russia invaded in February 2022.In the letter to leaders in the House and Senate, Young said a failure to provide more funding would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories”.Lawmakers are condemning a Sunday evening protest in Philadelphia that called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza while also specifically targeting a Jewish restaurant owned by an Israeli chef. The White House said the demonstration was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable”, while Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, decried the protesters’ “hate and bigotry” – comments echoed by numerous members of Congress. Elsewhere, the White House is warning that it might run out of money to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion within weeks. A proposal to send military assistance to both Ukraine and Israel is tied up in negotiations over tightening border security, which reportedly have broken down.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, winnowing the field to five major contenders.
      Antisemitism and Islamophobia have both increased since the 7 October terrorist attack and Israel’s invasion of Gaza, advocacy groups say.
      The US defense industry would benefit from increased aid to Ukraine and Israel, the White House is arguing, as it presses Congress to approve a new military assistance package.
      Today is meanwhile the first day that the House of Representatives will convene without George Santos, the prodigious liar who represented a New York district until Friday, when the chamber voted to expel him.Throughout his tumultuous months in office, Santos juked and dodged when confronted about the many fibs, distortions and whoppers he issued – none of which saved him from getting booted out of office. The Guardian’s Edward Helmore went through many of them, so you don’t have to:The war between Israel and Hamas continues, with reports that communications have been cut in the northern Gaza Strip.We have a live blog covering the latest news from the conflict, and you can find it here:Criticism of the protest at Philadelphia Jewish restaurant Goldie continues to roll in, most recently from Democratic New Jersey congressman Josh Gottheimer:As well as from Mondaire Jones, a progressive and former Democratic congressman from New York who is campaigning to claim back his old seat next year. He’s faced criticism in the past for statements allegedly insulting Jews, and was forthright in condemning the Philadelphia protest:Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator John Fetterman also condemned the protest at Goldie in Philadelphia:As did Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California who is running to represent the state in the Senate:Since the start of the war in Gaza, the United States has experienced an uptick both in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidences, the Guardian’s Maya Yang reported last month:Islamophobia and antisemitism are seeing sharp increases across the US after war between Israel and Hamas erupted last month.According to a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization received a total of 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias between 7 October and 4 November.Cair, which has called the spike “unprecedented”, revealed that the recent increase in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment across the US mark a 216% increase over the previous year. In an average 29-day period in 2022, Cair received only 406 complaints.The top reported type of case was first-amendment – or free speech – issues, marking 23.39% of the anti-Arab and Islamophobia reports received by Cair. The organization also said 20.56% of the reports involved targeting employment, and 15.32% consisted of hate crimes. Cair said 9.2% of the anti-Arab and Islamophobia reports revolved around education and bullying.“The Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric that has been used to both justify violence against Palestinians in Gaza and silence supporters of Palestinian human rights here in America has contributed to this unprecedented surge in bigotry,” said Cair’s research and advocacy director, Corey Saylor. More

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      White House warns it is ‘out of money and nearly out of time’ to aid Ukraine

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      The White House has said it is “out of money and nearly out of time” to provide more weapons to Ukraine as it tries to ward off Russia’s invasion unless Congress acts to approve additional funding and support.The warning, issued on Monday in a letter to congressional leaders, laid out how the government had already gone through about $111bn appropriated for Ukraine military aid.“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, director of the office of management and budget, wrote in the letter, parts of which were published by the Hill.The latest plea for money comes after the White House asked Congress to act on a $100bn supplemental funding request in October, arguing that it “advances our national security and supports our allies and partners”.The request identified border security, allies in the Indo-Pacific, Israel and Ukraine. About $61bn covered money for Ukraine, which included $30bn to restock defense department equipment sent to support the country after Russia invaded in February 2022.In the letter to leaders in the House and Senate, Young said a failure to provide more funding would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories”.Young added that there is “no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment.We are out of money – and nearly out of time,” Young said.The Pentagon, she said, had used 97% of the $62.3bn it received as of mid-November. And the state department had run through all of the $4.7bn in military assistance it received, including money for humanitarian assistance and economic and civilian security assistance.“We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight. This isn’t a next year problem,” she added. “The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now. It is time for Congress to act.”The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said last week he was confident Ukraine and Israel funding would be approved. But he said the two should be handled separately, with the Ukraine funding linked to changes in US border policy – a red line for many Democrats.“Of course, we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe. And we understand the necessity of assisting there,” Johnson said last week. “If there is to be additional assistance to Ukraine – which most members of Congress believe is important – we have to also work on changing our own border policy.”The latest pressure to approve additional funding comes as an unreleased draft of a new Pentagon report on the defense industry was leaked to Politico.The National Defense Industrial Strategy, which is set to be released in the coming weeks by the Pentagon, warned that the US defense industrial base “does not possess the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resilience required to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale”.It noted the US buildt the best weapons in the world, but it could not produce them quickly enough. “This mismatch presents a growing strategic risk as the United States confronts the imperatives of supporting active combat operations,” the study said.Separately over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US had provided Israel with 100 bunker buster bombs, roughly 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells since Israel was attacked by Hamas on 7 October. More

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      ‘We hoped and prayed’: four-year-old American girl among hostages released

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      A four-year-old Israeli American girl who was among three US hostages held by Hamas was released Sunday.President Joe Biden confirmed on Sunday that the girl – Abigail Mor Edan – was in the hands of Red Cross officials.“We hoped and prayed today would come,” Liz Hirsh Naftali and Noa Naftali, Edan’s great aunt and cousin, said in a statement, thanking Biden and the Qatari government for their work in getting Abigail released. “There are no words to express our relief and gratitude that Abigail is safe and coming home.”Abigail’s grandfather, thrilled at his granddaughter’s return, thanked Biden for his role in gaining her release after more than 50 days in Hamas captivity.“I am very thankful to Biden. We love him for all the help he extends to us and also to all the Americans, thank you very much. We love you. Continue to support us. We are a democracy,” the grandfather, Carmel Edan, told Reuters.“Wow! I couldn’t believe it until I saw it. For a second I didn’t believe it,” he said while waiting for Abigail in Israel after her exit from Gaza.Although joyful at Abigail’s return, he lamented the loss of her parents, Roy and Smadar, during the rampage through southern Israel on 7 October.She was the first American hostage to be released under terms of the cease-fire. Biden said he did not have immediate information on Abigail’s condition. The White House said later that the president spoke by telephone with members of the girl’s family in the United States and Israel, in addition to having a call with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.“Nothing is guaranteed and nothing is being taken for granted. But the proof that this is working and worth pursuing further is in every smile and every grateful tear we see on the faces of those families who are finally getting back together again. The proof is little Abigail,” Biden said in remarks on the ongoing negotiations to free all hostages.Biden said in remarks from Nantucket, the Massachusetts islands where he spent Thanksgiving with his family, that the cease-fire agreement was “delivering lifesaving results”.The Associated Press, meanwhile, reported that 17 more hostages – including 14 Israelis – were freed in an additional set of releases under a four-day ceasefire deal in exchange for 39 Palestinian children who were being held in Israeli prisons.The hostages were transferred out of Gaza by Red Cross representatives, some leaving directly to Israel with others leaving through Egypt. One hostage was airlifted directly to an Israeli hospital.Sunday marked the first time a US national was released as part of the temporary ceasefire and hostage release agreement.As part of the deal looming over Sunday’s releases, a total of at least 50 hostages held by Hamas – all women and children who have been captive for 46 days – are expected to be released in exchange for about 150 Palestinian women and children prisoners held in Israel.Hamas militants stormed Abigail’s kibbutz, Kfar Azza, on 7 October and killed her parents. She ran to a neighbor’s home for shelter, and the Brodutch family – mother Hagar and her three children – took Abigail in as the rampage raged. Then all five disappeared and were later confirmed to be captives. They were among the more than 200 people taken to Gaza in the attack that touched off the war. Abigail had a birthday in captivity.“We know that they were taken, and the next thing we learned is that they’re hostages. We’re living in the dark,” Liz Hirsh Naftali, Abigail’s great-aunt in the US told CBS News last week.“They are literally in the dark. And we in America, Israeli families, have very little information and are also in the dark.”Along with Abigail, the Brodutch family was in the group released Sunday, ranging in age from four to 84. Red Cross representatives transferred the hostages out of Gaza. Some were handed over directly to Israel, while others left through Egypt. Israel’s army said one was airlifted directly to a hospital.“They’ve endured a terrible ordeal,” Biden said, and can now begin the “long journey toward healing”.Thirteen Israeli hostages and four Thailand nationals were released Saturday. All 41 foreign nationals released by Hamas so far have been reported to be in stable condition by medical professionals.
      Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Will Biden lose voters over response to Israel-Hamas war? – podcast

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      On Wednesday, the UN security council voted to back a resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza and the release of all the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The US and the UK abstained on the resolution, saying they could not give their full support because it did not explicitly criticise Hamas.
      Joe Biden is facing growing calls to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. In a letter presented to him on Tuesday, more than 500 political appointees and staff members criticised the extent of the president’s support for Israel. But what about the communities directly involved? What do Arab-American and Jewish American voters think of Biden’s response since the 7 October attacks?
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to Dr James Zogby, of the Arab American Institute, and Jodi Rudoren, of The Forward, to discuss it

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      China and US pledge to fight climate crisis ahead of Xi-Biden summit

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      China and the United States have pledged to work together more closely to fight global warming, declaring the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, hours before a key meeting in San Francisco between Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.The announcement further fuels hopes the two nations can mend relations following years of turmoil over issues including trade, human rights and the future of Taiwan.In a joint statement following climate talks in the US, they pledged to make a success of a crucial UN climate summit starting at the end of this month in Dubai.And they recommitted to the 2015 Paris climate accord goals of holding global warming to “well below” 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5C.“The United States and China recognise that the climate crisis has increasingly affected countries around the world,” the statement said. “They will work together … to rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time for present and future generations of humankind.”US and Chinese climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua met this month at the Sunnylands resort in California in a bid to restart stalled cooperation.Experts agree that keeping the Paris goals in reach will require an enormous collective effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions this decade.Xi began his first visit to the US in six years on Tuesday. He is due to meet Biden at an undisclosed location in San Francisco on Wednesday morning and then attend the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.Xi’s summit with the US president will be the first face-to-face meeting between the US and Chinese leaders in a year and has been billed by US officials as an opportunity to reduce friction in what many see as the world’s most dangerous rivalry.Xi waved from atop a passenger staircase attached to his Air China plane and then descended to meet US officials waiting on the tarmac, including treasury secretary Janet Yellen and US ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.He then got into his Chinese Hongqi, or “Red Flag”, limousine and departed the airport for the city, where demonstrations are expected both supporting and protesting against his visit.Less than two hours earlier, US secretary of state Antony Blinken addressed ministers of the 21-member Apec and stressed the US believed in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path … where goods, ideas, people, flow lawfully and freely”.Blinken did not mention China in his remarks, but his language echoed US rhetoric in recent years in which Washington has accused Beijing of bullying smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific and trying to undermine what the US and its allies call the existing “rules-based” order.US trade representative Katherine Tai, who with Blinken opened the Apec ministerial session, said the San Francisco meeting came at a time of “great uncertainty and challenges” for the region. She noted increasing geopolitical tensions, fragile supply chains and a worsening climate crisis.Earlier, Biden said his goal in his talks with Xi would be to improve the relationship with China after a period of strained ties. He said he would seek to resume normal communications between the two superpowers, including military-to-military contacts.White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Biden and Xi would also talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza as well as US efforts to support Ukraine.Democratic senator Ben Cardin wrote to Biden to push for immediate freedom for Mark Swidan, Kai Li and David Lin, whom the US government has classified as wrongfully detained in China. Republicans and other Democrats have also called for their release.“With the holiday season approaching, and the opportunity to start the new year on a more positive note in bilateral US-China relationships, I implore you to secure commitments from president Xi to release these Americans immediately,” Cardin wrote.Cardin also asked for the release and safety of US-based journalists’ family members whom he said are missing, jailed or detained in China due to their connection to the journalists.Economic issues will also be high on the agenda.Biden said the US does not want to decouple from China but wants to change the economic relationship for the better. His administration has made a push to “de-risk” some critical US supply chains from China as the two countries’ economic and military competition has grown.But it has been careful to assure countries in the region, including China, that the US does not seek complete economic separation, a notion that has fueled concerns among Washington’s partners and allies of a superpower showdown that would upend the global economy.The Chinese severed military-to-military contacts with the US after then House of Representative speaker Nancy Pelosi visited democratically governed but Chinese-claimed Taiwan in August 2022.Restoring the contacts is a top US goal to avoid miscalculations between the two militaries.Several hundred mostly pro-China demonstrators carrying Chinese flags gathered outside the Chinese delegation’s hotel ahead of Xi’s arrival in the US.Larger protests, including by rights groups critical of Xi’s policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and toward Muslim Uyghurs, are expected to gather near the summit venue on Wednesday.As Biden arrived in San Francisco, dueling demonstrators greeted his motorcade from the airport. Some waved Chinese flags and held banners calling for “kindly” and “warm” US-Sino ties. Others held signs condemning the Chinese Communist party.With Reuters and Agence France-Presse More