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      Senate Democrats to investigate Trump’s reported big oil ‘deal’

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      Powerful Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into an alleged quid pro quo offer from Donald Trump to fossil fuel executives.At a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home and club last month, the former president reportedly told oil bosses he would immediately roll back dozens of environmental regulations if elected, and requested $1bn in contributions to his presidential campaign. It would be a “deal” for the executives because of the costs they would avoid under him, he reportedly said.On Thursday morning, the chairmen of two Senate committees each sent letters to eight oil companies and top fossil fuel trade group the American Petroleum Institute.The letters from Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senate budget committee chairman, and Ron Wyden, the Senate finance committee chair, accused the companies of engaging in a quid pro quo with Trump and requested additional details about the meeting.“As Mr Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer,” wrote the senators. “And now, emboldened by impunity, Mr Trump and Big Oil are flaunting their indifference to US citizens’ economic well-being for all to see.”Reached for comment, Andrea Woods, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, said the investigation is an “election-year stunt to distract from America’s need for more energy, including more oil and natural gas, to power our economy and combat persistent inflation”.She added: “API meets with candidates and policymakers to discuss the need for sound energy policies, and this meeting was no different.”Last week, Jamie Raskin, who chairs the House oversight committee, also launched a House oversight investigation into the companies about the reported offer. But unlike Whitehouse and Wyden, Raskin does not have the power to subpoena companies if they do not reply to his inquiry, because Republicans control the House of Representatives.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has continued to ask oil companies for campaign funding amid scrutiny of his relationship with the fossil fuel industry. On Wednesday he attended a fundraiser luncheon hosted by three oil bosses at a five-star hotel in Houston, including two from companies reportedly represented at the Mar-a-Lago meeting. More

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      Nikki Haley says she will vote for Donald Trump in 2024 election

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      Nikki Haley, who emerged as Donald Trump’s most enduring rival and trenchant critic during the Republican primary elections, has said she intends to vote for the former US president in November.Haley was speaking at the Hudson Institute thinktank in Washington on Wednesday, her first public appearance since dropping out of the race in March. She was asked whether Joe Biden or Trump would do a better job on national security issues.The former ambassador to the UN and South Carolina governor ran through a list of priorities when choosing a president, ranging from the need to back allies and hold enemies to account, to supporting capitalism and freedom while reducing the national debt.“Trump has not been perfect on these policies,” Haley said. “I have made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.”The 52-year-old added by way of caveat: “Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that.”Haley joins the US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, the former attorney general William Barr and Chris Sununu, the New Hampshire governor, in the ranks of one-time Trump foes who will nevertheless support him as the party nominee.During a bruising primary campaign, she said Trump had “lost any sort of political viability”, showed “moral weakness” and is “thin-skinned and easily distracted”. She argued that America needs to move on from his “chaos”. Trump fired back and recently dismissed reports that he might consider Haley as his running mate.Haley’s U-turn provoked a swift backlash. Sarah Longwell, a political strategist and publisher of the conservative Bulwark website, tweeted: “So when Nikki Haley said, ‘It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him.’ She really meant, he can treat me and my voters like garbage and I’ll still fall in line and support him.”Joe Walsh, an ex-Republican congressman, added: “This isn’t complicated: Nikki Haley believes Trump is unfit. And she believes he should never be back in the White House. But if she said that publicly, her career as a Republican would be over. So, as expected, she decided to not be truthful. To keep her career as a Republican.”Although she dropped out of the primaries in early March, Haley has continued to draw up to 20% in the contests, a clear warning sign for Trump’s campaign. The former president has dismissed the idea of trying to appeal to Haley’s voters, where Biden said in Atlanta this weekend: “Let me say, there’s always going to be a place for Haley voters in my campaign.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has also been endorsed by former Republican primary opponents including Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, and the South Carolina senator Tim Scott.Earlier in the event at the Hudson Institute, attended by several foreign ambassadors, Haley was fiercely critical of far right Republicans who favour “America first” isolationism, though she did not mention Trump by name. She praised the House speaker Mike Johnson for pushing aid for Israel and Ukraine through Congress.“A growing number of Democrats and Republicans have forgotten what makes America safe,” she said. “A loud part of each party wants us to abandon our allies, appease our enemies and focus only on the problems we have at home.“They believe if we leave the world alone, the world will leave us alone. They even say ignoring global chaos will somehow make our country more secure. It will not. This worldview has already put America in great danger and the threat is mounting by the day.” More

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      Another provocative flag flown at Samuel Alito residence, report says

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      Another type of provocative flag that was flown during the breach of the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January 2021 was reportedly flown outside a summer residence of US supreme court justice Samuel Alito – following a similar, prior incident outside his main residence.Last summer, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which originates from the Revolutionary war and has in recent years become a symbol of far-right Christian extremism, was flown outside Alito’s summer home in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.According to photographs obtained by the outlet and interviews with multiple neighbors and passersby, the flag was flown last July and September. The newspaper reported that the flag was visible in a Google Street View image from late August. It remains unclear whether the flag was flown consistently throughout last summer.The New York Times report comes just days after it reported that an upside-down American flag was flown outside Alito’s Virginia home just days after the January 6 Capitol riots.The Appeal to Heaven flag, also commonly known as the Pine Tree flag, was spotted among other controversial flags waved in Washington on 6 January 2021 when rioters and insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol, encouraged by Trump, then the president, over the false belief that the 2020 election had been won by him and not the actual victor, Joe Biden.The Capitol attack was aimed at stopping the official certification by Congress of Biden’s victory, which was delayed by the violence but finally happened in the early hours of the following morning.The Pine Tree flag was originally used on warships commanded by George Washington during the Revolutionary war. It has since been adopted by Christian nationalists who advocate for an American government based on Christian teachings.The first report of the Stars and Stripes being flown upside-down outside an Alito residence provoked outrage about the further politicization of the supreme court, but Alito simply said his wife had done it and it was displayed only briefly.The Guardian contacted the supreme court for comment on the latest report but did not receive an immediate response. More

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      Trump attends Houston lunch to ask oil bosses for more campaign cash

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      Donald Trump was continuing to ask fossil-fuel executives to fund his presidential campaign on Wednesday, despite scrutiny of his relationship with the industry.The former president attended a fundraising luncheon at Houston’s Post Oak hotel hosted by three big oil executives.The invitation-only meeting comes a day after the defense rested its case in Trump’s criminal hush-money trial, and a week after Houston was battered by deadly storms. The climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, has created the conditions for more frequent and severe rainfall and flooding, including in Texas.“Houstonians are staring at Trump in disbelief as he flies in to beg big oil for funds just days after the city’s climate disaster,” said Alex Glass, communications director at the climate advocacy organization Climate Power, and a former Houston resident.It also follows a fundraising dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last month, where the former president reportedly asked more than 20 oil executives for $1bn in campaign donations from their industry and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.“Donald Trump is telling us who he is, again,” said Pete Maysmith, a senior vice-president at the environmental nonprofit the League of Conservation Voters. “He has already asked oil executives for a billion dollars for his campaign, [and] we can only assume this week’s meeting is to haggle over exactly what they will get in return.”Executives from two of the companies reportedly represented at the Mar-a-Lago meeting were among the hosts of Trump’s Wednesday’s fundraiser.Harold Hamm, the executive chairman and founder of Continental Resources and one of the Wednesday luncheon organizers, is a longtime Trump supporter and was reportedly also at the April dinner.Hamm, a multibillionaire, was a major player in the rush to extract oil from the Bakken shale formation, which stretches across the US midwest and Canada.During Trump’s first presidential campaign, Hamm was also reportedly one of the seven top donors to receive special seats at Trump’s inauguration. The oil magnate was briefly under consideration to be energy secretary during the former president’s first term but reportedly turned down the position. He turned away from Trump after his 2020 loss, choosing to donate to his opponents, but then donated to Trump’s primary campaign in August.One of Hamm’s Wednesday co-hosts was Vicki Hollub, chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, which was also represented at the Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. Hollub has been criticized by climate activists for investing in carbon-capture technology in an effort to continue extracting oil and gas, despite warnings that fossil fuels must be phased out to avoid the worst effects of climate change.Congressional Democrats launched an investigation into Occidental Petroleum on Wednesday after the Federal Trade Commission last month accused the company and six others of illegal collusion with the oil production cartel Opec+ to keep fuel prices high.The third co-host of Wednesday’s meeting, Kelcy Warren, is the executive chairman of Energy Transfer Partners – a company with whom Trump has close financial ties.Throughout the 2024 campaign cycle, Warren has donated more than $800,000 to Trump’s campaign. In the 2020 election cycle, he held at least one fundraiser for the former president in 2020 and donated $10m to a pro-Trump Super Pac.During his first presidential run in 2016, Trump invested in the company while also receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Warren, the Guardian found.Warren appears to have benefited from Trump’s first term: within days of taking office in 2017, Trump approved construction of his company’s highly controversial Dakota Access pipeline, triggering outrage from climate advocates, conservationists and nearby Indigenous tribal organizations.Last year, the Texas Tribune found that Energy Transfer Partners profited to the tune of $2.4bn as gas demand soared during Texas’s deadly winter freeze and the ensuing collapse of the state’s energy grid.The fossil-fuel industry has funneled $7.3mto Trump’s 2024 campaign and associated groups, making it his fifth-largest industry donor this election cycle.The $1bn “deal” that Trump allegedly offered to oil executives last month could save the industry $110bn in tax breaks if he returns to the White House, an analysis last week found.Last week, Raskin launched a House oversight investigation into nine oil companies after Trump reportedly offered to dismantle Biden’s environmental rules for their benefit, and requested $1bn in contributions to his presidential campaign.Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has also expressed interest in formally investigating the Mar-a-Lago meeting. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, the powerful Washington watchdog, also told the Guardian it is investigating. More

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      At the US’s latest border hotspot, aid workers brace for volatility

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      Jacqueline Arellano is driving up and down the 15 freeway in southern San Diego county on a recent morning in mid-April, boxes of donated clothing and safety gloves in her trunk.She stops in a Home Depot parking lot and hands a man the spare stroller she grabbed from her house. He’d mentioned to her earlier that day how tiring it was to move around the city with his toddler in his arms.Arellano is director of US programs for Border Kindness, a non-profit migrant relief organization that runs weekly Day Laborer Outreach programs in San Diego and Imperial counties. Organizers hand out donations in spots where migrants congregate, and while doing so listen to people’s stories and answer their questions, as best as they can.The needs at the US-Mexico border here in California are larger than ever. In April, San Diego was the busiest sector for arrivals of the entire US-Mexico border. Meanwhile, immigration has risen to the top of voters’ concerns in the November presidential election, with Joe Biden facing bipartisan calls to stem the flow of people crossing the border and Donald Trump vowing an aggressive crackdown.The eight years she’s spent doing this work have given Arellano a window into the ever-shifting dynamics of immigration at the San Diego-Tijuana border. Back in 2016, when she first started to make these outreach runs, the people she met at the various Home Depot parking lots were primarily day laborers, waiting to be picked up by contractors working across the region. Many were undocumented, originally from Mexico, and had been based in the US for some time.After Trump moved into the White House the following year, the workers’ prevalent fear was being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and facing deportation, she said. So while handing out donations, volunteers would also pass on red printed cards that informed workers of their rights when faced with Ice.View image in fullscreenGradually, Arellano and other aid workers realized that the information they were sharing was no longer relevant to the day laborers they were meeting. “Within the last couple of years, we’ve seen global migration reflected in the community,” she said. First they saw an increase in people arriving from Haiti, then people from all over the world. The people arriving now speak languages other than Spanish, she said, and they have more recently arrived on US soil. Crucially, they are not trying to avoid immigration enforcement authorities. Rather, they have filed for asylum and want to see their cases work their way through the system.Of the 43 men who lined up to receive work gloves that day in mid-April, most are from Mexico and Haiti, but there are people from Venezuela, Bolivia, Guatemala, Brazil and Ecuador. After handing out supplies, Arellano spends an hour talking one-on-one with some of them. A few ask about basic necessities, like where to buy food.One man from Ecuador shows her paperwork saying he is expected at immigration court in Chicago. “So he’s over here in San Diego with a court date in Chicago – has no idea what to do. He doesn’t have an attorney. He doesn’t know how to get an attorney. He has no money. He was asking me literally: ‘How do I get a phone? What is a Western Union? Where do I go?’”Newly arrived migrants often don’t know how to navigate the immigration system even as they’re relying on it to secure legal status in the US, Arellano said. She connects them with partner organizations that can help provide legal services, shelter and other assistance, like Al Otro Lado, a non-profit providing legal and humanitarian aid to people.These connections with other aid workers on the ground have become increasingly essential as the needs of people at the border keep changing and expanding. “This is being held down by groups of ordinary people, by groups of friends, in large part,” she said about the support system for newly arrived groups. “It shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t be just groups of friends coming together to plug our fingers in a sinking ship.”Part of the breakdown in resources for asylum seekers, according to Dara Lind, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, a non-profit immigration advocacy group, is inaction at the federal level. “All the civil society help in the world isn’t sufficient to actually make sure that people know where they’re supposed to go,” Lind said.Because Congress hasn’t made meaningful updates to the immigration system in 34 years, Lind explained, the system is coming apart at the seams, affecting both border enforcement and legal immigration.In the California desert, migrants, including children, have been detained in open-air border camps before their asylum requests can be registered. Most receive a court date to appear for an immigration hearing more than a year away – that’s just how backlogged the immigration court system is.Still, Lind said, “it hasn’t created sufficient urgency for Congress to fix it. And instead, it’s become a way that presidents of both parties have justified taking aggressive, proactive executive action because someone needs to do something, and Congress isn’t doing its job.”Lind said despite years of border crises, no one is holding the federal government accountable for both the human suffering and the overall inefficiency that aid workers like Arellano see day-to-day at the border.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionErika Pinheiro is the executive director of Al Otro Lado. Among many services, her organization provides life-saving supplies at the open-air detention sites on the California-Mexico border. Providing supplies in the desert is becoming more perilous as border patrol moves these sites into more remote areas, Pinheiro said.“It’s a very hostile environment to work in,” she said, listing armed robbers, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, rising temperatures, concertina wire – and hostility from border patrol agents. “We’ve had our staff followed, pulled over multiple times, harassed, told to leave,” she said.Al Otro Lado is one of several organizations seeking to address immediate emergencies at the US-Mexico border. Volunteers with another arm of Border Kindness, for example, hike into the desert to place water bottles, tinned food and weather-appropriate clothing for people crossing the border in remote locations.View image in fullscreenFinancial support for humanitarian aid is waning, Pinheiro noted. “The philanthropic funding, I think due to a lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from both sides of the aisle, has really dried up,” she said. California has also cut state funding, particularly affecting the shelter system for individuals waiting for their day in immigration court, and Pinheiro said donations from individuals were also down.“The work has become so politicized, whereas really giving formula to a baby shouldn’t be a political issue.”In this election year, both Al Otro Lado and Border Kindness are bracing for further repercussions. “Regardless of outcome, elections are always destabilizing for the immigrant community,” Arellano said.Should Biden win re-election, she expects to see the situation at the border remain largely unchanged. The past years, Arellano said, “in many ways have been the worst it’s ever been at the border”, but there’s been less public outrage than Trump’s immigration policies elicited.If Trump wins a second term, however, she expects a “further decimation of legal protections and processes that can really impact people for years”.Pinheiro expects Democrats to push through changes in asylum law if Biden were elected. While adjudicating cases more quickly could help alleviate some of the pressure, she cautioned, expediting asylum requests could also result in fewer people receiving asylum who are qualified for it.“Forcing asylum seekers to go through these interviews while still detained in border patrol custody is not the answer,” she said, especially if they are not given access to information and legal representation.Should Trump be elected, Pinheiro expects humanitarian aid and legal workers at the border to face increased criminalization. During the last Trump presidency, she and other lawyers, human rights activists and journalists were put on a watchlist and interrogated at the border, she said. Targeting humanitarian and legal assistance could be a Republican administration’s way of stopping groups like Al Otro Lado and Border Kindness from documenting what’s happening at the border, she fears, and would curtail their ability to respond to people’s needs. More

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      Rudy Giuliani pleads not guilty to charges in Arizona fake electors case

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      Rudy Giuliani denied charges of illegally trying to keep Donald Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat as he was arraigned to appear before a court in Arizona along with 10 other defendants on Tuesday.Giuliani’s not guilty plea to nine felony charges came days after he was served an indictment as he left a party to celebrate his 80th birthday last Friday.Giuliani was the last of the 12 defendants to receive a summons to Tuesday’s hearing after the Arizona attorney general’s office said he had evaded efforts to serve him with a notice for several days.Reflecting the difficulties in tracking him down, the attorney general’s office requested a $10,000 cash bond for Giuliani, citing the problems it had serving him with an indictment and a general lack of cooperation, according to reports. No such request was made of other defendants.Others charged over their roles as false electors include two sitting lawmakers, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, have been charged, as has Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman, and Turning Point USA executive, and Jim Lamon, who ran for US Senate in 2022.The others charged in the fake electors scheme are Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.Further defendants are expected to be arraigned next month, including Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer for Trump, and Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff.Trump himself is listed as “un-indicted co-conspirator 1” in the case but has not been charged.Before receiving the indictment, Giuliani, the former New York mayor and the legal spearhead of Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, had taunted the Arizona officials by posting a picture of himself on X challenging them to drop the case.“If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning: 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes,” he captioned the post, which has since been deleted.After being served his indictment, Giuliani posted on Facebook that he did not know that Arizona officials were looking for him until “somebody told me there was a news article saying they were having a hard time finding me”.The indictment alleged that Giuliani “pressured” Arizona legislators and the Maricopa county board of supervisors to change the election result in the state, which Joe Biden won by more than 10,000 votes.He is also accused of urging Republican electors in Arizona to vote for Trump, in the face of the popular vote counts showing a victory for Biden.According to the testimony of Rusty Bowers, a former speaker of the Arizona house of representatives, Giuliani, in his efforts to persuade the state legislature to overturn the 2020 vote, told him and legislators that “we don’t have the evidence but we have lots of theories”.The case is the latest in a spate of legal woes to beset Giuliani – a former federal prosecutor once renowned for fighting mafia organised crime bosses – over his attempts to help Trump overturn the 2020 poll.He has filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148m in damages to two election workers in Georgia after they successfully sued for defamation. More

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      TV meteorologist attacks Ron DeSantis over Florida’s ‘don’t say climate change’ law

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      A TV meteorologist condemned the Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s so-called “don’t say climate change” law on air and urged viewers to vote.Steve MacLaughlin of WTVJ in Miami addressed viewers on Saturday amid rising heat records across the state, saying: “On Thursday, we reported … that the government of Florida was beginning to roll back really important climate-change legislation and really important climate-change language.”MacLaughin condemned DeSantis’s position on the matter, saying that it came “in spite of the fact that the state of Florida over the last couple of years has seen record heat, record flooding, record rain, record insurance rates, and the corals are dying all around the state”.He said: “The entire world is looking to Florida to lead in climate change, and our government is saying that climate change is no longer the priority it once was.“Please keep in mind the most powerful climate change solution is the one you already have in the palm of your hands – the right to vote. And we will never tell you who to vote for, but we will tell you this: we implore you to please do your research and know that there are candidates that believe in climate change and that there are solutions. And there are candidates that don’t.”McLaughlin delivered his comments after DeSantis recently signed several bills the governor claimed sought to “restore sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots”.“Radical green zealots want to impose their climate agenda on people through restrictions, regulations and taxes,” a notice posted by DeSantis said.In addition to prohibiting windfarms offshore and near coastlines, the bill prioritizes the expansion of natural gas and bolsters protections against gas appliance bans and repeals climate policies enacted during Barack Obama’s presidency.The gas industry has helped drive climate change and its resulting effects, including severe weather becoming more commonplace.Over the weekend, south Florida saw record temperatures, with Fort Lauderdale and Miami each reaching record highs of 95F (35C) on Sunday. Typical highs for this time of year are about 86F (30C), the Palm Beach Post reported.Since McLaughlin shared his segment on X on 18 May, it has been viewed nearly 407,000 times on the platform, with more than 3,300 likes and 1,400 reshares.Many were quick to praise McLaughlin for speaking out, with one user saying: “I know there’s often pressure on meteorologists not to speak. Thank you for speaking.”Another user wrote: “Thank you, Steve, for giving us the facts.”Someone else said: “So needed. Thank you for this.”Meteorologists across the US have faced harassment over their climate crisis reporting.Speaking to the Associated Press last year, Sean Sublette, a former TV meteorologist who now works at Virginia’s Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper, said: “More than once, I’ve had people call me names or tell me I’m stupid or these kinds of harassing type things simply for sharing information that they didn’t want to hear.”Meanwhile, last July, meteorologist Chris Gloninger announced he was stepping down from Des Moines’s CBS TV station affiliate KCCI due to post-traumatic stress disorder that he developed as a result of threats over his climate-crisis coverage. More

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      ‘What’s happening is not genocide’: Biden criticizes ICC for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli officials – as it happened

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      “I will always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas and all its enemies,” Biden said. “We want Hamas to be defeated.”But Biden also mentioned support for civilians in Gaza. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said, noting that his administration is working to bring the region together and a two-state solution.“Let me be clear,” he added, “we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants may imply, there’s no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”“What’s happening is not genocide.”Political leaders in the US sharply defended Israel today after international criminal court chief prosecutor Karim Khan has caused a political earthquake by requesting arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas officials. The warrants, which include prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, were denounced by US president Joe Biden who doubled down on his comments during a speech for the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration, held at the White House.It will now be up to the ICC’s judges to determine whether to issue the warrants.Here’s a rundown of what else has happened today so far:
      President Biden used his speech at the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration to highlight his administration’s work to crack down on antisemitism while reiterating his “ironclad” support for Israel.
      Senators Mitch McConnel and Bernie Sanders voiced strong opinions from opposite sides of the debate, with McConnell condemning the ICC and Sanders championing its cause.
      Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, has also come out against the ICC’s request for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas officials, calling them “baseless and illegitimate”.
      US State Department officials also added criticisms of the ICC over it’s approach to Israel but said they would continue working with them to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions taken against Ukrainian civilians.
      The UK Foreign Office also objected to Khan’s request, saying it would not help the process of negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza.
      US senator Lindsey Graham said he feels deceived by ICC staff, and accused Khan of rushing the decision to seek arrest warrants.
      Khan thanked international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who he said acted as a special adviser in his investigation.
      Biden concluded his speech by emphasizing his work to combat antisemitism in the US, calling it “absolutely despicable”. Pointing to a national strategy rolled out before last October, Biden said a new wave of financing amounting to $400 million has been made available for jewish nonprofits, schools, synagogues and other faith-based organizations to support their physical security.He added that his administration has “put colleges on notice”. “The department has to investigate discrimination aggressively,” he said.His remarks ended with a promise.“Let me assure you as your president – you are not alone,” he said. You belong. You always will belong.” He thanked everyone in attendance. “In moments like this the ancient story of Jewish resilience endures because of its people. That’s what today is all about.”“I will always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas and all its enemies,” Biden said. “We want Hamas to be defeated.”But Biden also mentioned support for civilians in Gaza. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said, noting that his administration is working to bring the region together and a two-state solution.“Let me be clear,” he added, “we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants may imply, there’s no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”“What’s happening is not genocide.”Emhoff has just introduced President Biden, who noted he was honored to be introduced by the first-ever Jewish spouse.The President talked about the important history of freedom of religion in the US and the important contributions of Jewish Americans, before adding that the reception comes during hard times. Noting the “fresh and ongoing” trauma inflicted on October 7 and in its aftermath, Biden promised that the work continued to free Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, noting his support for Israel is “ironclad”.“We are going to get ‘em home,” he said of the hostages. “We are going to get em home, come hell or high water.”The event kicked off with cheers as Second Gentlemen Emhoff, flanked by the president and vice president, heralded the administration’s support for the Jewish community. But, the celebratory tone shifted quickly.“This is also a challenging time for our community,” he said. “It has been a dark and difficult 7 months. There is an epidemic of hate including a crisis of antisemitism in our country and around the world. We see it on our streets, our college campuses, and our places of worship.”Adding that the work feels difficult, he encouraged the crowd. “We keep fighting because we have no choice but to fight.”Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will be speaking soon at the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration. At last year’s event, held at the White House, Biden focused on his support for Israel and his strategy to combat antisemitism.“My support for Israel’s security remains longstanding and unwavering, including the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks,” Biden said last year. “And I’m proud – I’m proud of our support – and my colleagues that are here today as well – for Israel’s Iron Dome, which has intercepted thousands of rockets and saved countless lives in Israel.”Stay tuned as we wait for this year’s event to begin.Even as US political figures continue to rail against the ICC over Israel and Hamas, Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, said the US is fully onboard with actions taken against Russia for crimes committed in the Ukrainian conflict.In a press conference on Monday, following a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson, said the US still supports the ICC and the “important work over the years to hold people accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity”.But National Security Council spokesman spokesman John Kirby claimed that there is a difference between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Gaza.“It is an actual war aim of Mr Putin to kill innocent Ukrainian people,” Kirby said, noting that targeting of civilians and infrastructure is evidence of that.In Gaza, however, Kirby claimed the high toll taken on civilian lives was inadvertent. Meanwhile, as CNN reports, roughly 40% of Gaza’s population – more than 900,000 people – have been displaced in the past two weeks due to Israeli bombardment.Calling the ICC a “a rogue kangaroo court”, and its prosecutor “self-aggrandizing”, Senator Mitch McConnell vehemently criticized the move for arrest warrants in remarks on the Senate floor.“Since the immediate aftermath of October 7, Israel, her allies, and Jewish people around the world have faced pernicious efforts to equate a sovereign nation’s self-defense with barbaric acts of terrorism,” McConnell said, linking the issue to the protests that erupted across university campuses against the violence that’s been inflicted on Palestinian civilians.McConnell continued, calling the warrants for both leaders of Hamas and Israel are “the most noxious attempt at moral equivalence”. Using the move to question the legitimacy of the international criminal court, the Republican leader pushed his colleagues to act:
      Support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist savages like Sinwar … reject the fiction that unaccountable bureaucrats in The Hague have any power over a sovereign nation that isn’t a signatory to its authority … commit to imposing significant costs on the court and its agents if it pursues shameful and baseless charges against Israel … and choose once and for all between actual justice and the rule of the loud campus mob.
      Senator Bernie Sanders supports the request for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying that the “ICC prosecutor is right to take these actions”, in a written statement released on Monday afternoon.Noting that the warrants may or may not be carried out, he said: “It is imperative that the global community uphold international law.”Here is Sanders’ statement in full:
      In the last several years, the international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for political leaders who violate international law and engage in war crimes and crimes against humanity. That includes Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose illegal invasion of Ukraine initiated the most destructive war in Europe since world war II; Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who started the horrific war in Gaza by launching a terrorist attack against Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent men, women, and children; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in response, has waged an unprecedented war of destruction against the entire Palestinian people, which has killed or injured over 5% of the population.The ICC prosecutor is right to take these actions. These arrest warrants may or may not be carried out, but it is imperative that the global community uphold international law. Without these standards of decency and morality, this planet may rapidly descend into anarchy, never-ending wars, and barbarism.
      The rights group Amnesty International is not pleased with the British Foreign Office’s criticism of the international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan and his application for arrest warrants against Israel and Hamas’s leaders.“To see the UK undermining the International Criminal Court like this is a real slap in the face for Israeli and Palestinian victims of war crimes and other grave human rights violations who sorely deserve justice,” Amnesty International UK’s head of government affairs Karla McLaren said in a statement. She continued:
      By failing to recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction – which the court itself has established – the UK is placing itself on the wrong side of history and continuing a pattern of soft-pedalling over Israel’s crimes. This is deeply damaging for international justice and for the protection of civilians everywhere.
      We need major change from the UK over the human rights crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including a realisation that justice and accountability processes are the best way out of this decades-long crisis.
      The UK should back the ICC chief prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants, get behind the ICJ genocide case, call for an immediate ceasefire and a massive scaling up of aid into Gaza, and it should order an immediate halt to further UK arms transfers to Israel.
      Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, echoed Joe Biden’s rejection of the international criminal court chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister Yoav Gallant.In a statement, the House minority leader said:
      The arrest warrant request by the International Criminal Court against democratically elected members of the Israeli government is shameful and unserious. America’s commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad. I join President Joe Biden in strongly condemning any equivalence between Israel and Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization.
      Biden has generally supported Israel since Hamas’s 7 October attack, though recently warned Benjamin Netanyahu against allowing its military to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and held up a weapons shipment.Despite Jeffries’s solidarity, rank-and-file Democrats are growing uneasy with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and its impact on civilians. Here’s more on that:Inside Iran, the Guardian’s Deepa Parent reports that Ebrahim Raisi was remembered by many for his crackdown on nationwide protests that began after a woman died in custody following her arrest under the country’s hijab laws. Here’s more on that:Activists in Iran have said there is little mood to mourn the death of the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan on Sunday.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, announced a five-day public mourning period after the deaths of Raisi, the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other passengers on the helicopter. However, Iranians who spoke to the Guardian have refused to lament the death of a man who they say was responsible for hundreds of deaths in his four-decade political career.It was during Raisi’s tenure that protests swept the country after the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested by police under Iran’s harsh hijab laws. More than 19,000 protesters were jailed, and at least 500 were killed – including 60 children – during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The police continue to violently arrest women for refusing hijab rules.Hours before Raisi’s death was confirmed by state media, videos circulated on Telegram showing celebratory fireworks, one of them from Amini’s hometown of Saqqez. Iranians from inside and outside the country shared posts reminding the world of Raisi’s brutal presidency and his repression of political dissidents.A spokesperson for the White House’s national security council offered condolences on the death of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, but noted he had channeled funds to armed groups in the Middle East, Reuters reported.“No question this was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands,” the spokesperson John Kirby said at the White House.Raisi perished in a helicopter crash alongside Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six other passengers and crew. Here’s more about his death:In an interview with CNN, the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, defended the investigation that led to his request for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas officials.Khan accused Hamas’s leaders, including the group’s head, Yahya Sinwar, of extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, sexual assault and torture. He also leveled allegations against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Yoav Gallant, of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.Here’s what Khan had to say about how he reached his conclusion: More