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      Providing Both Bombs and Food, Biden Puts Himself in the Middle of Gaza’s War

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      The president’s decision to send aid by air and sea represents a shift prompted by the growing humanitarian crisis. But it raised uncomfortable questions about America’s role.From the skies over Gaza these days fall American bombs and American food pallets, delivering death and life at the same time and illustrating President Biden’s elusive effort to find balance in an unbalanced Middle East war.The president’s decision to authorize airdrops and the construction of a temporary port to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza has highlighted the tensions in his policy as he continues to support the provision of U.S. weaponry for Israel’s military operation against Hamas without condition.The United States finds itself on both sides of the war in a way, arming the Israelis while trying to care for those hurt as a result. Mr. Biden has grown increasingly frustrated as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel defies the president’s pleas to do more to protect civilians in Gaza and went further in expressing that exasperation during and after his State of the Union address this past week. But Mr. Biden remains opposed to cutting off munitions or leveraging them to influence the fighting.“You can’t have a policy of giving aid and giving Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks at the same time,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said in an interview the day after the speech. “There is inherent contradiction in that. And I think the administration needs to match the genuine empathy and moral concern that came out last night for Palestinian civilian lives with real accountability for Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing government there.”The newly initiated American-led air-and-sea humanitarian campaign follows the failure to get enough supplies into Gaza by land and represents a sharp turnaround by the administration. Until now, American officials had eschewed such methods as impractical, concluding that they would not provide supplies on the same scale as a functional land route and would be complicated in many ways.Airdrops are actually dangerous, as was made clear on Friday when at least five Palestinians were killed by falling aid packages, and they can create chaotic, hazardous situations without a stable distribution system on the ground. The construction of a temporary floating pier will take 30 to 60 days, if not longer, according to officials, and could entail risk for those involved, although Mr. Biden has stipulated that it be constructed offshore with no Americans on the ground.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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      Address Showed Biden Seeking Tricky Balance on Immigration

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      The president used his State of the Union speech to try to demonstrate that he could be tough on the border without demonizing immigrants.Confronting the fraught politics of immigration, President Biden wants to focus attention on the decision by Republicans in Congress, egged on by former President Donald J. Trump, to block a bipartisan deal that would provide an infusion of money for border security and allow the president to close off the border to asylum seekers.On the defensive, Republicans have escalated their longstanding effort to tie migrants to heinous crimes.Both strategies were on full display on Thursday night as Mr. Biden delivered his State of the Union address. He made his case that it is Republicans who are now responsible for the problems at the border, while Republicans portrayed his policies as responsible for the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed in February, allegedly by a Venezuelan migrant.The dynamic has Mr. Biden, who heading into the general election campaign has signaled a harder line on immigration, walking a careful path, as his clash with Republicans on Thursday night demonstrated. He at once promised to bring back “order” at the border while also vowing not to assail migrants in the manner of Mr. Trump and his allies.“I will not demonize immigrants saying they are poison in the blood of our country,” Mr. Biden said in his address before a joint session of Congress, referring to statements by Mr. Trump that have echoes of white supremacy.“Unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans, and we’re the only nation in the world with the heart and soul that draws from old and new,” Mr. Biden said. “Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years, home to people from every place on Earth.”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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      Senate Clears $460 Billion Bill to Avert Partial Government Shutdown

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      President Biden is expected to sign the legislation, the product of a bipartisan deal, ahead of the midnight shutdown deadline — but the spending fight isn’t over yet.The Senate gave final approval on Friday to a $460 billion spending bill to fund about half the federal government through the fall, sending the legislation to President Biden’s desk with just hours to spare to avert a partial shutdown.The lopsided 75-to-22 vote cemented a resolution to at least part of a spending stalemate that consumed Congress for months and has repeatedly pushed the government to the edge of shutdown. Mr. Biden was expected to sign it ahead of a midnight deadline to keep federal funding flowing.But top lawmakers were still negotiating spending bills for the other half of the government over the same period, including for the Pentagon, which Congress must pass by March 22 to avert a shutdown. Several thorny issues, including funding for the Department of Homeland Security, have yet to be resolved.The legislation passed on Friday packages together six spending bills, extending funding through Sept. 30 for dozens of federal programs covering agriculture, energy and the environment, transportation, housing, the Justice Department and veterans.“To folks who worry that divided government means nothing ever gets done, this bipartisan package says otherwise,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “It helps parents and veterans and firefighters and farmers and school cafeterias and more.”The package adheres to the funding levels negotiated last year by Mr. Biden and the House speaker at the time, Kevin McCarthy, keeping spending on domestic programs essentially flat — even as funding for veterans’ programs continues to grow — while allowing military spending to increase slightly.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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      Prosecutors Charge Man With Firing Shots Outside the Capitol on Jan. 6

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      The charges once again laid bare one of the most persistent myths about the attack promoted by pro-Trump politicians and media figures: that none of the rioters were armed.A Trump supporter who prosecutors say fired a pistol into the air on the grounds of the Capitol as a mob stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021, was charged on Friday with firearm offenses, trespassing and interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder.The man, John Banuelos, fired at least two shots into the air while standing above the crowd on scaffolding on the west side of the Capitol, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. It does not appear that Mr. Banuelos entered the Capitol. But before the shots were fired, prosecutors say, he posed for a photo wearing a “Trump 2020” cowboy hat and showing off a pistol tucked into his waistband.One of the most persistent lies about the Capitol attack — often made by Republican politicians and right-wing media figures — is that none of the hundreds of rioters who stormed the building had guns. On Thursday night, former President Donald J. Trump repeated the false claim on social media while responding to remarks about Jan. 6 that President Biden had made during his State of the Union address.“The so-called ‘Insurrectionists’ that he talks about had no guns,” Mr. Trump wrote. “They only had a Rigged Election.”But the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of Jan. 6 has revealed that several people at the Capitol were carrying firearms that day. Altogether, more than 1,300 rioters have been charged in connection with the attack and arrests continue almost daily.A photo used in a Justice Department criminal complaint, showing a Jan. 6 rioter prosecutors identified as John Banuelos with a gun in his waistband.Justice DepartmentGuy Wesley Reffitt, a militiaman from Texas, was wearing a pistol on his hip when he led a charge of rioters up a staircase on the west side of the Capitol, according to testimony at his trial — the first of dozens to have taken place in Washington connected to the events of Jan. 6. Mr. Reffitt was ultimately convicted of a gun charge and other felonies and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.Among the other rioters who were carrying firearms on Jan. 6 are Christopher Alberts, a former Virginia National Guard member who charged the police outside the Capitol with a loaded 9-millimeter pistol, prosecutors say. Mr. Alberts was convicted of multiple felony charges and sentenced to seven years in prison.A rioter named Mark Mazza brought two guns to the Capitol — a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a Taurus revolver loaded with shotgun shells and hollow-point bullets, prosecutors say. Mr. Mazza was sentenced to five years in prison.Prosecutors did not identify what type of pistol Mr. Banuelos was carrying on Jan. 6, but they said in their complaint that he was not licensed to have it. Among the charges he faces are carrying and discharging a firearm on the Capitol grounds.After firing the shots, prosecutors said, Mr. Banuelos slipped the weapon back into his waistband, climbed down from the scaffolding and rejoined the crowd. More

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      Biden the President Wants to Curb TikTok. Biden the Candidate Embraces Its Stars.

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      At a party for social media influencers at the White House this week, President Biden’s political concerns collided with his national security concerns.The White House is so concerned about the security risks of TikTok that federal workers are not allowed to use the app on their government phones. Top Biden administration officials have even helped craft legislation that could ban TikTok in the United States.But those concerns were pushed aside on Thursday, the night of President Biden’s State of the Union address, when dozens of social media influencers — many of them TikTok stars — were invited to the White House for a watch party.The crowd took selfies in the State Dining Room, drank bubbly with the first lady and waved to Mr. Biden from the White House balcony as he left to deliver his speech to Congress.“Don’t jump, I need you!” Mr. Biden shouted to the young influencers filming from above, in a scene that was captured — naturally — in a TikTok video, which was beamed out to hundreds of thousands of people.Thursday’s party at the White House was an example of Mr. Biden’s political concerns colliding head-on with his national security concerns. Despite growing fears that ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, could infringe on the personal data of Americans or manipulate what they see, the president’s campaign is relying on the app to energize a frustrated bloc of young voters ahead of the 2024 election.“From a national security perspective, the campaign joining TikTok was definitely not a good look — it was condoning the use of a platform that the administration and everyone in D.C. recognizes is a national problem,” said Lindsay Gorman, head of technology and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund and a former tech adviser for the Biden administration.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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      How Did Biden Do at the State of the Union? Readers Weigh In.

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      We asked 10 Times columnists and contributors to watch the State of the Union address on Thursday and rate President Biden’s performance. (A rating of one meant that the night was a disaster, 10 that it was a triumph.) Most were impressed. Some were a bit surprised. “Where has this Joe Biden been hiding these past three years?” Bret Stephens asked. Michelle Goldberg wrote, “What an unexpectedly rousing speech!”We also wanted to know what our readers thought, so we asked you to rate the speech and share what you thought were the best and worst moments. More than 1,000 of you wrote back. Here are a selection of your responses, edited for length and clarity:Rating Biden’s speech10: I found myself clapping alone in my living room and thinking, “Give ’em hell, Joe.” The Republicans needed a smack down. And his staring down the Supreme Court justices while quoting Samuel Alito? Women will show up and vote in record numbers. — Marguerite Dee, 72, Tampa, Fla.6: Was it feisty or angry? While I support most of President Biden’s positions, the delivery came across as an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. I wanted more calm and confidence to reinforce he is still up to the job. — Mike Wade, 67, Berlin, Md.10: Biden was spot on. With our reproductive and voting rights at stake, health care and the middle class being threatened with dissolution, what a comfort to see our president at his pugilistic best defending the very essence of America, and leaning forward to consolingly whisper, “I won’t let them.” — Brandi Lynn Ryder, 51, Sonora, Calif.2: He’s out of touch with younger voters like me. We don’t want the A.C.A., we want universal health care. He talks about walls of the past — what about walls he supports today? He kept repeating “history is watching.” He’s not wrong. — Daphna Thier, 36, BrooklynWe 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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      America’s Reaganesque Mom: How to Praise Katie Britt, Even Before She Speaks

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      Talking points from the Alabama senator’s team, helpfully sent out before the State of the Union address, suggested how to extol her delivery of the Republican response.Senator Katie Britt’s team hopes viewers see her response to President Biden’s State of the Union as Reaganesque — but also, very maternal.Before President Biden even arrived at the Capitol on Thursday night, a close ally of the Alabama Republican sent a document of talking points to conservative influencers suggesting words of praise they could offer after Ms. Britt’s speech.“She came off like America’s mom — she gets it,” the document helpfully suggests. “She’s one of us. That’ll be families’ takeaway watching this.”But Ms. Britt also came across like Ronald Reagan, it declared. “The conclusion of her border section was a real ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ moment,” another talking point said, referring to Reagan’s historic speech in Berlin.Ms. Britt, who at 42 is the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the Senate, is on Donald J. Trump’s short list of potential running mates, according two people with direct knowledge of the list.The talking points compared her State of the Union response to some of the most famous oratory in American history, calling it “reminiscent of Reagan’s message of that Shining City on a Hill.”Comparing Ms. Britt to Mr. Biden, the document suggested saying that “it wasn’t just the massive age gap/contrast between the two” but that Ms. Britt “exposed a relatability gap — a truly generational schism.”Mr. Biden is 81. Mr. Trump is 77.A spokesman for Ms. Britt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“His speech was tone deaf,” the talking points declared, before either Mr. Biden or Ms. Britt had uttered a word. “Hers was the perfect pitch.” More

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      Ronny Jackson, Former White House Physician, Was Demoted by the Navy

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      Now a Republican member of the House and a Trump ally, his previously unpublicized demotion from rear admiral to captain came after a Pentagon investigation found misconduct on the job.In a report completed three years ago, the Pentagon found that Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson had mistreated subordinates while serving as the White House physician and drank and took sleeping pills on the job. The report recommended that he face discipline.Now it turns out that the Navy quietly punished him the next year. Though he had retired from the military in 2019, he was demoted to captain — a sanction that he has not publicly acknowledged.Mr. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas and an outspoken ally of former President Donald J. Trump, whose care he supervised in the White House, still refers to himself as a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral on his congressional website.According to a former defense official and a current military official, Mr. Jackson was demoted from rear admiral to captain in the summer of 2022. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Stanley Woodward, declined to comment.In a statement on Thursday, a Navy official said only that the findings led the Navy to take administrative actions against him. The official would not say what those actions were.The findings of the internal investigation into Mr. Jackson “are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders,” the Navy said in a statement on Thursday. “And, as such, the secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022.”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