Author: Reporter

President Joe Biden told a crowd of Democratic donors about a decades-old photo he took with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an aside that seemed intended to illustrate his long support of Israel and track record of speaking bluntly with the conservative Israeli leader. Biden said he had written on the photo of himself as a young senator and Netanyahu as an embassy hand, “Bibi, I love you. I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.'” He told donors at a fundraiser on October 20, that Netanyahu still keeps the photo on his desk and had brought it up...

President Joe Biden is trying to sweeten his pitch to allocate more money for Ukraine by mixing in billions of dollars for securing the Mexico-U.S. border, in the hope that it will bring more Republicans on board. The idea came up in September, after Ukraine assistance was stripped out of a stopgap measure to keep the government running due to growing Republican resistance to financing the war effort. A lot has changed since September 30: The House has lost its speaker and Republicans are in disarray over selecting a new one, and the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel...

When the sun rose on October 20 and the autumn heat baked the rotten debris on Gaza’s streets, Mohammed Elian emerged from the zipper hole of his new canvas home. Elian, and hundreds of other Palestinians displaced by the latest war between Israel and Hamas, have crowded into a squalid tent camp in southern Gaza. It is an image that has brought back memories of their greatest trauma. After the Israeli military ordered Elian’s family, along with more than 1 million other Palestinians, to evacuate the north, the smartly dressed 35-year-old graphic designer from Gaza City ended up homeless...

Fifty years after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the current crisis in the Middle East has the potential to disrupt global oil supplies and push prices higher. But experts say do not expect a repeat of the catastrophic price hikes and long lines at the gasoline pump. The Israel-Hamas war is “definitely not good news” for oil markets already stretched by cutbacks in oil production from Saudi Arabia and Russia and expected stronger demand from China, the head of the International Energy Agency said. Markets will remain volatile, and the conflict could push oil prices higher, “which is definitely...

With tensions spiking in the Middle East, U.S. forces in the region are facing increasing threats as a Navy warship shot down missiles appearing to head toward Israel on October 19 and American bases in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by drone attacks. Later, a U.S. official said there had been a rocket attack on October 20 involving U.S. and coalition forces at a diplomatic support center near the Baghdad International Airport. Initial assessments indicated two rockets were fired, the official said, noting that one was intercepted by a counter-rocket system and the other struck an empty storage...

Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the country’s conservative Islamic theocracy, was awarded the European Union’s top human rights prize on October 19. The EU award, named for Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1989. Other finalists this year included Vilma Núñez de Escorcia and Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez — two emblematic figures in the fight for the defense of human rights in...