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Uncommitted Delegates Call For a Palestinian Voice on D.N.C. Stage
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Crew of Oil Tanker Hit by Missiles in Red Sea Is Rescued
The crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that came under gun and missile attack in the Red Sea has been rescued after they were forced to evacuate the vessel into a lifeboat, a European Union naval mission said on Thursday. The attack appears to have been the most serious in weeks against commercial shipping off the coast of Yemen.The Yemen-based Houthi militia, which has staged a series of attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, has not claimed responsibility.A Houthi fighter on the beach in December, with the Galaxy Leader cargo ship, seized by the Houthis in November, in the background.Yahya Arhab/EPA, via ShutterstockThe tanker, the Sounion, was sailing about 90 miles west of the Yemeni port of Hudaydah early on Wednesday when two small boats approached it, said a statement on social media from Britain’s maritime trade agency, which is based in Dubai.“The first craft had three to five persons onboard while the second had approximately 10,” the statement said. “The two small craft hailed the merchant vessel, leading to a brief exchange of small-arms fire.”The small craft retreated and the ship was then hit by three “unidentified projectiles,” starting a fire and causing the ship to lose engine power, it said. It was not clear on Thursday whether the fire had been extinguished.The crew were rescued by a ship from an E.U. military mission, Operation Aspides, that has been mounted in response to attacks by the Houthi militia, according to a statement the mission posted on social media Thursday.The statement included a photograph showing an enclosed lifeboat, typical in the oil industry, bobbing in the water and a second photo of crew members aboard a rescue speedboat.After coming under attack, the ship’s captain called for help. The E.U. military destroyed what it described as an “unmanned surface vessel” that had posed an imminent danger to the Sounion. The crew was being transported to Djibouti, the statement said.The stricken vessel, which was carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, was still floating and had become a “navigational and environmental hazard,” according to the E.U. statement. A statement from Delta Tankers, the ship’s operator, said it would be moved to a safer place for repairs. It was not clear whether any oil was leaking.The Houthi militia, which is backed by Iran, began firing late last year on ships entering the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal, which is a vital artery for vessels moving between Asia, Europe and the eastern United States.The United States and Britain have launched strikes against the Houthis in response, but analysts have said they have done little to damage the militia’s military infrastructure. The attacks have continued, forcing ships to find alternative routes and disrupting global trade. Oil prices on Thursday were little changed, trading near their lowest levels of the year.Over the course of dozens of attacks, at least two vessels have sunk and at least three crew members have been killed.Jason Karaian More
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Parents of Gaza Hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Plead for Peace at DNC
It was a remarkably somber moment inside the arena as Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg spoke of their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a hostage in Gaza for more than 10 months — 320 days, as the tape on their shirts said.While the Israeli-Hamas war has been one of the only divisive undercurrents of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, delegates stood in rapt attention as Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Polin took the stage.The crowd chanted, “Bring them home,” and Ms. Goldberg doubled over in tears.“This is a political convention,” Mr. Polin said, “but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue.”Mr. Goldberg-Polin, 23, is one of eight U.S. citizens in captivity in Gaza. Part of his left arm was blown off by a Hamas grenade as he was abducted on Oct. 7.Ms. Goldberg emphasized the diversity of the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza.“They are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists,” she said. “They are from 23 different countries. The youngest hostage is a 1-year-old redheaded baby boy, and the oldest is an 86-year-old mustachioed grandfather.”Mr. Polin ended with a plea for peace.“There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East,” he said. “In a competition of pain, there are no winners.”Citing Jewish texts, he added: “Every person is an entire universe. We must save all these universes.” More
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AOC, Once an Outsider, Takes Center Stage at DNC
Four years ago, Democrats allotted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York a scant 90 seconds to speak at their convention. She used it to symbolically nominate Senator Bernie Sanders for president and never mentioned Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s name.So when Ms. Ocasio-Cortez took the convention stage on Monday night in Chicago shortly before Hillary Clinton, her prime-time speaking slot offered a vivid display of how far the Democratic Party and the leader of its progressive wing have moved to embrace each other since 2020.Greeted with chants of “A-O-C,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist who made her name by taking on the Democratic establishment, delivered an affectionate tribute to Mr. Biden, laced into Donald J. Trump and forcefully endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as a champion of working Americans.“We know Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing palms of his Wall Street friends,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.”She added: “The truth is, Don, you cannot love this country if you only fight for the wealthy and big business.”The thunderous applause that followed would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. At their last convention, Democrats seemed more comfortable spotlighting Republicans supporting Mr. Biden than a young leftist like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, whose policies and rhetoric they feared would alienate moderate swing voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Democrats Unveil Convention Platform With Familiar Themes
Democrats released their party platform on Sunday, unveiling a document that offers plenty of political comfort food for a newly energized party ahead of its convention in Chicago.As a sign of what Democrats believe will mobilize their forces — and the head-spinning transformation that has remade their presidential ticket — the document mentions former President Donald J. Trump’s name 150 times.Vice President Kamala Harris, the new nominee who has brought her party back together after a bruising internal fight over President Biden’s candidacy, is mentioned by name just 32 times.The platform seems intended to avoid stirring any controversy that could derail that fresh feeling of unity.At the top of the list of issues that could threaten the party’s cohesiveness is the war in Gaza. Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are descending on Chicago, and roughly 30 delegates representing the Democratic primary voters who opposed Mr. Biden, mostly in protest over Gaza, will attend the convention, which begins on Monday.The platform repeats a traditional Democratic message supporting Israel, condemning the brutal Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and backing “an immediate and lasting cease-fire deal” that will return hostages still being held by the terrorist group and address “the displacement and death of so many innocent people in Gaza.”Democrats will vote to approve the platform on Monday evening. It was passed by the party’s platform committee, a group of party insiders, with wider input from “community leaders from coalitions across the Democratic Party,” according to the Democratic National Committee.On other issues, the platform represents a predictable collection of Democratic policy priorities, including calls to make investments in infrastructure and manufacturing; to cut taxes on working families while making big corporations and the wealthy “finally pay their fair share”; and to fight climate change.Another section addresses efforts to lower costs on everyday items like food, housing and health care, in similar terms to the economic agenda that Ms. Harris rolled out last week. And there are also calls to protect abortion rights, restore democratic norms and combat gun violence.On the other side, Mr. Trump took a direct hand this summer in reshaping — and shrinking the size — of the Republican platform, which focuses more on his own priorities than on a traditional laundry list of policies.The Democratic platform says that Mr. Trump’s vision for the country is one of “revenge and retribution,” a reflection of the party’s attempt to make the 2024 election a referendum on the former president.The party’s former presumptive nominee, Mr. Biden, is mentioned by name 287 times.Lisa Lerer More
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Democrats’ Unity Convention Has One Giant Exception: The Gaza War
Harris campaign officials and Democratic leaders have stepped up outreach to Arab and Jewish voters before the event, but large protests are still expected.Even as feel-good displays of joy and confidence are set to dominate the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, one painful issue is bitterly dividing the Democratic establishment from its left flank: Israel’s war in Gaza.The specter of convention-upending protests that hovered over a gathering hosted for President Biden has receded somewhat with the rise of a new candidate in Kamala Harris, who is seen as more sympathetic to Palestinian rights activists. But tens of thousands of protesters are still expected to convene just outside the event’s security perimeter, and the potential for high-profile disruptions remains real.Emphasizing the unity theme, convention planners have tried to mollify both Muslim and Jewish Americans.Speaking slots have been allotted to the families of American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. One of the most prominent Muslims in national politics, Keith Ellison, the progressive attorney general of Minnesota, will be given time onstage. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Ms. Harris, is expected to speak proudly of his Judaism. And the Democratic platform highlights America’s commitment to Israeli security.At the same time, Ms. Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, held a series of meetings last week to hear the concerns of Arab Americans and some delegates representing Democratic primary voters who cast “uncommitted” ballots in the Democratic primary to protest Mr. Biden’s Israel policy.Despite such efforts, the convention will be shadowed by large protests against the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to a war that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that left 1,200 people dead in Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Blinken Travels to Israel Amid Push for Gaza Cease-Fire
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautioned that the negotiations were “very complex,” as the secretary of state flew to Israel to try to clinch a deal. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was heading to Israel on Sunday to try to clinch a deal that could end the war in Gaza, even as the Middle East remained on edge amid the looming threat of wider regional conflict.The visit, part of an intensive diplomatic campaign led by the Biden administration, comes days after Israel’s negotiating team held talks in Qatar with senior American officials, as well as Qatari and Egyptian representatives who are mediating between Israel and Hamas.Those talks ended without a major breakthrough, but the White House said on Friday that the United States had put forward a “bridging proposal,” with Egyptian and Qatari support, aimed at closing the remaining gaps between the sides. It said that teams would continue to hash out details and that senior negotiators hoped to reconvene in Cairo before the end of this week to finalize an agreement.While the Biden administration had suggested that the process was “now in the end game,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel cautioned on Sunday that the negotiations were “very complex” and called his approach to the talks one of give and take — “not give and give.” “There are things we can be flexible about, and there are things we cannot be flexible about,” he said in remarks recorded at the beginning of his weekly cabinet meeting.“We know very well how to distinguish between the two,” Mr. Netanyahu added, saying that he was insisting on certain principles that he considered vital for Israel’s security.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Protesters Will Converge on Chicago. City Leaders Say They’re Prepared.
As delegates arrive in Chicago on Sunday ahead of the Democratic National Convention, protesters plan to march along Michigan Avenue. On Monday, as the political show begins inside the United Center, demonstrators say they will gather by the thousands outside. And as the convention goes on, activists say, so too will the protests, every single day, showcasing divisions on the left during a week when Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to project Democratic unity and enthusiasm.From the moment the Democrats chose Chicago as the site for their nominating convention, it was a foregone conclusion that protesters would show up in large numbers. The city has a long tradition of left-wing activism, and nominating conventions tend to attract demonstrations. But as the war in Gaza left tens of thousands dead and divided the Democratic Party, expectations for large protests heightened, as did the memories of protests devolving into clashes with the Chicago police outside the party’s 1968 convention.City officials have argued in recent days with activist groups over protest details, including the length of a march route and whether a sound system will be allowed. Still, the city, long led and dominated by Democrats, has sought to convey an openness to the demonstrations and confidence that everything will go smoothly.Security Perimeters and Chicago’s Proposed Route for the Coalition to March on the D.N.C. More
