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    On US President Joe Biden’s Awkward Jugglery With Domestic Politics And Foreign Goals

    Peter Watson
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    On US President Joe Biden’s Awkward Jugglery With Domestic Politics And Foreign Goals

    The outcome of the November 2024 US Presidential elections remains mired in uncertainty. The two main candidates, incumbent President Joe Biden and his immediate predecessor and rival reincarnate Donald Trump, continue to be statistically tied, gauged from opinion polls. This, in itself, is a challenge to US self-projection as a “beacon” to the world, given the ongoing criminal and civil cases against Trump, his past and promised rejection of unfavourable election outcomes, encouragement to supporters on January 6, 2021, to storm the US Capitol where his loss in the 2020 elections was being legislatively certified, and erratic personal interest-driven behaviour while in office from 2017 to 2020.

    Student Protests And A Growing Discontent Over Gaza

    Biden is facing his own political challenges, stemming from both domestic and external factors. There is an erosion of the support and enthusiasm of the African-American community, which had been one of the critical factors in his 2020 win. Republicans have been making inroads into the Hispanic and Jewish vote base, negating the earlier trend of minority groups generally favouring the Democratic party. The recent wave of student protests on university campuses, followed by donor and politics-driven responses by the university administrations as well as the police, could generate resentment among younger voters. 

    Read | Explainer: What Is Behind Pro-Palestinian Protests At US Universities?

    Biden’s external challenges are playing a huge role in these elections. Student protests have been galvanised by perceptions that the US is not doing enough to curtail or bring to an end Israel’s continued action in Gaza, where even the American administration has repeatedly reminded Tel Aviv of the need to observe international humanitarian law and avoid civilian casualties. The US has reiterated its “ironclad” guarantee for Israel’s security and has not conditioned any of its continued military supplies. It has also fully backed Israel’s decision to act to ensure that the October 7 Hamas attack last year is not repeated, placed two aircraft carrier battle groups in the Eastern Mediterranean to discourage regional escalation, actively collaborated with Israel to shoot down incoming Iranian drones and missiles, and along with the UK, carried out attacks against Houthi sites targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

    Balancing Competing Interests

    It’s in this climate that Biden has to deal with competing domestic and external interests and pressures.

    The over 7 million-strong Jewish community in the US strongly identifies with Israel and its security, mindful of the historical discrimination against and the persecution of the Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere, continued or revived anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, and memories of the Holocaust during the Second World War. The community has a significant influence on the funding and outcome of many elections. Traditionally, around 70-80% of Jewish votes have been for Democrats. 

    Republicans have been making concerted efforts to dilute this, claiming that they are stronger backers of Israel’s security interests. As President, Trump moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and closed the consulate there dealing inter alia with the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, signalling an acceptance of Israel’s claims. Contrary to international positions, in 2019, he unilaterally recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which had come under its control from Syria in 1967. In April 2004, Republican US President George Bush, in a letter to then-Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, stated, “United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to defend itself…against any threat or possible combination of threats”. He also expressed support for Israel’s position that any Palestinian refugees be resettled only in a future Palestinian state and that realities on the ground, including the existence of some large settlements in the West Bank, be factored into any eventual agreement.

    Anger On The Arab Street

    While being mindful of the Jewish vote, Biden has to also contend with the views of many in the left wing of the Democratic party who are critical of Israel’s actions, as well the angst within the Arab and Muslim-American population, which has a significant presence in key swing states such as Michigan. In addition, in the face of growing anger and protests on the Arab street, the US needs to reassure its Arab allies and partners, such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that it is also mindful of their regime and security interests. Hence, aside from cautioning Israel on some of its actions, the US has also pushed for the enhanced supply of relief material to Gaza and publicly expressed opposition to any major Israeli action in Rafah until the security of the civilian population is ensured.

    During his recent visit to the region (April 29- May 1), the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, demonstrably visited sites in Jordan and Israel that were on the route of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Many Arab countries want to sustain closer ties with the US given Iran’s enhanced strengths derived from military capabilities and links with non-state actors such as the Houthis in Yemen, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and so on.

    Read | Joe Biden slams Donald Trump for “bowing down” to Putin

    The Russia-Ukraine conflict has also brought an internal-external dynamic into play. Aside from reports and claims that Russia had access to a few in Trump’s campaign in 2016, the latter also wanted to showcase that he was following a policy distinct from Obama’s. Trump was often perceived as not being critical enough of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, the CAATSA (Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) passed in 2017 was also seen as a way to tie Trump’s hands. 

    Support To Ukraine, And A Complicated China Dynamic

    In contrast to Trump, the Biden administration has sought to project that it has added to America’s strengths and security by focusing again on its alliances and partnerships. It has galvanised Europe and NATO to supply more than $100 billion of economic and security assistance. The US Congress recently authorised $90-billion of assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, because of strong opposition from a section of the Republican party to additional support for Ukraine, the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives had to rely on Democratic votes to have the measure passed. There is now an ongoing move among Republican representatives to oust the Speaker.

    There is a similar dynamic regarding the China relationship, although with a different coalition of actors. There is broad convergence among Republicans and Democrats, as well as the strategic community, on the need to push back against China’s increasingly assertive and unilateral actions in the East and South China seas, the Taiwan Straits, Beijing’s build-up of excess industrial capacity to the detriment of others, and its subsidy to various industries, including electric vehicles. China is recognised as the primary economic, technological and military challenge to the US and the only global actor with the intent and capability “to replace the US in the international system”. 

    However, there has been a pushback from the US industry and financial sectors that are heavily engaged in the Chinese economy. They are looking more at their short-term balance sheets rather than the longer-term strategic challenge. The Biden administration’s articulation has thus shifted from “decoupling” to “de-risking”, with a “small yard and high fence” focusing on technologies with national security implications. Here, too, a few US allies are not entirely in sync with its strategy. German Chancellor Scholz, who recently visited China with a large business delegation, was criticised for not raising issues like excess capacity, subsidies, or human rights violations in Xinjiang or Hong Kong. 

    During Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaign in 1992, it was famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid”, to draw attention to an often decisive factor in poll outcomes. In US foreign policy, it can similarly be said that “It’s (also) the domestic politics, stupid”.

    (The author is a former Indian Ambassador to the US, France and Israel)

    Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

    Trump Media’s newly hired auditing firm was just busted by the SEC for ‘massive fraud’

    Peter Watson
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    Trump Media’s newly hired auditing firm was just busted by the SEC for ‘massive fraud’

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged an auditing firm hired by Trump Media and Technology Group just 37 days ago with “massive fraud” — though not for any work it performed for former President Donald Trump’s media company.

    The SEC charged the accounting firm BF Borgers and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers, with “deliberate and systematic failures” in more than 1,500 audits. The charges include failing to abide by accounting rules, fabricating documentation to cover up its shortcomings, and falsely stating in audit reports that its work met audit standards.

    To settle the SEC charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million fine while its owner agreed to pay a fine of $2 million, according to the SEC. Benjamin Borgers did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

    BF Borgers and Benjamin Borgers also agreed to permanent suspensions, effective immediately, that will prevent them handling SEC-related matters as accountants.

    Trump Media named BF Borgers as its auditor on March 28, according to the company’s most recent annual report filing. The company disclosed at the time that BF Borgers had also handled its audits before the company went public by merging with a cash-rich shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp.

    The company had previously cycled through at least two other auditors — one that resigned the account in July 2023 and another that was terminated by the board in March, just as it was re-hiring BF Borgers.

    In a statement, Trump Media said it “looks forward to working with new auditing partners in accordance with today’s SEC order.”

    The SEC found that BF Borgers’ shortcuts included copying audit documentation from a previous year, changing relevant dates and then passing it off as current documentation. In addition to falsely documenting work that was never actually done, that fake documentation detailed planning meetings with clients that never occurred and “falsely represented” that both Benjamin Borgers and another reviewer had approved the audit work.

    “Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division. “Thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been permanently shut down.”

    Kristi Noem’s book rollout has put the governor in an unwanted spotlight. But she had already fallen off Trump’s VP shortlist

    Peter Watson
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    Kristi Noem’s book rollout has put the governor in an unwanted spotlight. But she had already fallen off Trump’s VP shortlist



    CNN
     — 

    For South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, much of the 2024 campaign cycle has turned out to be a case study in what not to do to rise into potential vice presidential contention.

    That includes the latest hiccup, with the second-term South Dakota governor – once considered a top potential running mate who has since fallen off former President Donald Trump’s shortlist, according to multiple Republicans with knowledge of that list – finding herself in an unwanted spotlight over questions about actions she describes in her upcoming book: “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.”

    Noem’s crisis hasn’t affected her standing on Trump’s vice presidential candidate shortlist – sources said she had fallen off that list long before that – but it has confirmed to skeptics in Trump’s orbit that she shouldn’t be in consideration and won’t be anytime soon.

    Noem’s book launch has become a problem for her for multiple reasons. First, there was Noem’s description of her decision to kill a 14-month-old wirehair pointer, named Cricket, who was not displaying the signs of an ideal hunting dog. The governor wrote that the dog was “untrainable,” according to excerpts first reported by The Guardian. She also described shooting a goat in the book.

    Noem has argued that those anecdotes were meant to show how capable she is of doing some of the more gruesome jobs in life when necessary.

    But the Cricket episode in particular instead resulted in days of Noem having to publicly defend the decision to put the dog down. A bipartisan group of members of Congress set up a Congressional Dog Lovers Caucus in a not so subtle dig to the South Dakota governor.

    Some Republicans came to her defense, like South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, who acknowledged, “Life is a little different in rural America.”

    But South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds struck a different tone: “I don’t see how it helps,” he said Tuesday.

    Noem has repeatedly defended her actions this week. Appearing on Fox News Wednesday, Noem explained it was a “very aggressive dog” that “massacred” a local family’s chickens and attacked her, which ultimately led her to shoot the dog in a gravel pit. She argued it was the responsible decision to protect her children and those around her business.

    “Dogs that have this kind of a problem, that have been to training for months and still kill for fun, they are extremely dangerous and a responsible owner does what they need to do and what the law will allow,” Noem said.

    As many questioned why she volunteered this story in her book, Noem said it demonstrates how she doesn’t run from the truth.

    “What the point of the story is, is that most politicians, they will run from the truth,” Noem said. “They will shy away and hide from making tough decisions. I don’t do either of those.”

    Trump himself has privately criticized Noem about the story, a person with direct knowledge of the comments told CNN. The former president, however, appeared more dismayed that she chose to disclose the anecdote and at her faltering attempts to do damage control, than the story itself, they said.

    Stephen Colbert berates Kristi Noem over story about killing her dog

    On Thursday, the situation got worse for Noem when The Dakota Scout, an independent newspaper, reported that Noem suggested in her book that, as a member of the US House Armed Services Committee, she had met North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un. Noem, according to that excerpt, also said that she was set to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron as governor before cancelling. In both cases, the Scout reported, records indicated that Noem did not meet with Kim or have a meeting scheduled with Macron.

    In another excerpt obtained by Politico, Noem described a 2021 phone call she says occurred with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley that she took as Haley trying to intimidate Noem from the national spotlight. That excerpt was first reported by Politico on Friday. A Haley spokeswoman though said that Haley called Noem in 2020, not 2021.

    In response, Ian Fury, Noem’s spokesperson, released a statement that these were small errors and would be changed.

    “It was brought to our attention that the upcoming book ‘No Going Back’ has two small errors. This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor. Kim Jong Un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been,” Fury said in a statement to CNN on Friday. “The Governor spoke with Nikki Haley in 2020 and met with her in 2021. The book has not been released yet, and all future editions will be corrected.”

    Republicans have been befuddled how the book was published with these errors.

    “You would hope that these sort of anecdotes would be vetted prior to the release of a book, that would typically happen in most high profile book launches, and obviously there’s some orchestrated events going on here. She has several interviews set up,” Jesse Hunt, a Republican strategist and former communications director for the Republican Governors Association, said. “Clearly this was thought out. The advisers that she had involved didn’t see it as having any problematic narratives.”

    Noem’s standing

    While at one point considered a top contender for vice president, advisers to Trump have said for weeks that Noem no longer held that standing, even before she revealed she shot her dog and before she posted a bizarre infomercial for a Texas dental practice. However, she was included on the short list that the campaign compiled for vetting, with her advisers noting that no one should be entirely ruled out given Trump’s often spontaneous decision making. Despite this caveat, at least two advisers said she was currently not in the running.

    For Noem, the increasing scrutiny about her book is the latest bump in an ongoing list of her attempts to raise her profile on the national stage.

    On paper, Noem had all the markings of a strong contender to be Trump’s running mate. For the operatives that fixate on simplistic criteria in picking a running mate, the argument behind Noem is she’s an anti-abortion Republican who started out in humble means and rose to the governor’s mansion. Noem has also displayed comfort in front of large crowds or a camera.

    As governor of South Dakota during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, she resisted lockdowns. While speaking at a National Rifle Association event, she said that her two-year-old grandchild has multiple guns.

    Noem also has been deferential to Trump and the Trump movement going back to before she was elected to her current job in 2018. She was one of the earliest governors to endorse the former president in the 2024 cycle.

    But her term as governor has been rocky. She’s received national criticism for her opposition to any Covid-19 lockdown measures – but not by hardcore Trump loyalists. Her office has seen significant staff turnover, with seasoned operatives leaving and Noem bringing in more controversial ones – like former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Noem has faced ethics complaints in South Dakota for inappropriately using her office to help her daughter with a real estate appraiser’s license. And more recently, she was banned from some tribal lands in her home state over comments the governor made about tribal leaders focusing more on benefiting from drug cartels than their children.

    Throughout it all, Noem has sought to boost her national profile. Early in the 2024 cycle, she set up a federal political action committee – a time honored move that future candidates for high office make. Noem has also had her political operation air ads on national television to highlight her state’s economy. In March, Noem opted to star in a near five-minute informercial for a dental practice based in Texas.

    At one point, some of these moves seemed to be working. But that was long before the public learned about Cricket or the unnamed goat.

    “He soured on her long before this,” a person close to Trump, who has spoken with the former president about his potential vice presidential contenders, told CNN.

    “He has questioned some of her choices. But where they may have been lingering questions over whether she could find herself back on the list, this story has killed that. It is totally disqualifying,” they added, referencing the story about how she killed her 14-month-old dog.

    Trump has often mentioned Noem in both private and public as a loyal supporter. The former president was particularly pleased after her August 2023 television appearance affirming her decision that she would not be running for president in 2024.

    Noem is still set to appear at a big fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, alongside other potential vice presidential picks for Trump. She’s also slated to headline a fundraiser in Jefferson County in Colorado on Saturday, according to The Denver Post. That’s a schedule a top tier Republican would have if they were in strong contention to be Trump’s running mate. But the last few weeks and months have cast strong doubt among Republicans about Noem’s viability.

    “You need to be skilled at defending Trump and the campaign but she’s having trouble defending herself in her own book,” said Matt Gorman, a veteran Republican strategist.

    Still, Gorman stressed that it’s important for Noem to attend the Mar-a-Lago spring retreat.

    “I think it’s important to go because one thing that’s important to remember is if you don’t like the current headline, make a new one. So going to Mar-a-Lago, if I were giving her team advice, it’d be be very visible. The worst thing you can do is hideout and let the headlines overtake you. You want to create headlines as much as you can, create your own news, your own content.”

    Google, Justice Department make final arguments about whether search engine is a monopoly

    Peter Watson
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    Google, Justice Department make final arguments about whether search engine is a monopoly

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Google’s preeminence as an internet search engine is an illegal monopoly propped up by more than $20 billion spent each year by the tech giant to lock out competition, Justice Department lawyers argued at the closings of a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit.

    Google, on the other hand, maintains that its ubiquity flows from its excellence, and its ability to deliver results customers are looking for.

    “It would be an unprecedented decision to punish a company for winning on the merits,” Google’s lawyer, John Schmidtlein, said late Friday afternoon in summation of the company’s closing arguments.

    Justice Department lawyer Ken Dintzer told the judge that “today must be the day” for him to step in and stop Google’s monopolistic behavior, which he likened to the tactics used by Microsoft two decades ago that prompted a similar antitrust battle.

    The U.S. government, a coalition of states and Google all made their closing arguments Friday in the 10-week lawsuit to U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who must now decide whether Google broke the law in maintaining a monopoly status as a search engine.

    Much of the case, the biggest antitrust trial in more than two decades, has revolved around how much Google derives its strength from contracts it has in place with companies like Apple to make Google the default search engine preloaded on cellphones and computers.

    At trial, evidence showed that Google spends more than $20 billion a year on such contracts. Justice Department lawyers have said the huge sum is indicative of how important it is for Google to make itself the default search engine and block competitors from getting a foothold.

    Google responds that customers could easily click away to other search engines if they wanted, but that consumers invariably prefer Google. Companies like Apple testified at trial that they partner with Google because they consider its search engine to be superior.

    Google also argues that the government defines the search engine market too narrowly. While it does hold a dominant position over other general search engines like Bing and Yahoo, Google says it faces much more intense competition when consumers make targeted searches. For instance, the tech giant says shoppers may be more likely to search for products on Amazon than Google, vacation planners may run their searches on AirBnB, and hungry diners may be more likely to search for a restaurant on Yelp.

    And Google has said that social media companies like Facebook and TikTok also present fierce competition.

    During Friday’s arguments, Mehta questioned whether some of those other companies are really in the same market. He said social media companies can generate ad revenue by trying to present ads that seem to match a consumer’s interest. But he said Google can place ads in front of consumers in direct response to queries they submit.

    “It’s only Google where we can see that directly declared intent,” Mehta said.

    Schmidtlein responded that social media companies “have lots and lots of information about your interests that I would say is just as powerful.”

    The company has also argued that its market strength is tenuous as the internet continually remakes itself. Earlier in the trial, it noted that many experts once considered it irrefutable that Yahoo would always be dominant in search. Today, it said that younger tech consumers sometimes think of Google as “Grandpa Google.”

    Government lawyers also argued the tech company should be sanctioned for the “systemic destruction of documents” that they argue was done to purposefully hide evidence of monopolistic intent and practices.

    Trial evidence showed that Google lawyers recommended employees ensure that their work chats were not saved because of their potential legal implications.

    The government asked Mehta to impose a sanction that allows the judge to infer that all the deleted chats were unfavorable to Google regarding their anticompetitive intent.

    Mehta said he was unsure whether he would grant the government’s request but he was sharply critical of their document-retention practices and speculated that there ought to be some kind of sanction.

    “Google’s document retention policy leaves a lot to be desired,” he said. “It’s shocking to me, or surprising to me, that a company would leave it to its employees to decide when to preserve documents.”

    Google lawyer Colette Connor defended the company’s practice of generally failing to preserve internal company chats. “Given the typical use of chats, it was reasonable,” she said.

    While Google’s search services are free to consumers, the company generates revenue from searches by selling ads that accompany a user’s search results.

    Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist said during Friday’s arguments that Google was able to increase its ad revenue through growth in the number of queries submitted until about 2015 when query growth slowed and they needed to make more money on each search.

    The government argues that Google’s search engine monopoly allows it to charge artificially higher prices to advertisers, which eventually carry over to consumers.

    “Price increases should be bounded by competition,” Dahlquist said. “It should be the market deciding what the price increases are.”

    Dahlquist said internal Google documents show that the company, unencumbered by any real competition, began tweaking its ad algorithms to sometimes provide worse search ad results to users if it would increase revenue.

    Google’s lawyer, Schmidtlein, said the record shows that its search ads have become more effective and more helpful to consumers over time, increasing from a 10% click rate to 30%.

    Mehta has not yet said when he will rule, though there is an expectation that it may take several months.

    If he finds that Google violated the law, he would then schedule a “remedies” phase of the trial to determine what should be done to bolster competition in the search-engine market. The government has not yet said what kind of remedy it would seek.

    Israel-Hamas War and Gaza News: Live Updates

    Peter Watson
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    Israel-Hamas War and Gaza News: Live Updates

    Turkey’s decision to suspend trade with Israel underscores the rising global pressure to wind down the war in Gaza, even as Israel’s leaders insist that they will not end the campaign until Hamas’s rule in the enclave has been eradicated.

    Israel’s international isolation has mounted as its devastating military offensive in Gaza continues, with little end in sight. Some countries have downgraded or cut ties with Israel. Close partners like the United States, Britain and Germany, while remaining strongly supportive of Israel, have become more openly critical of its conduct and of restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza.

    Colombia this week became the second South American nation to break off ties with Israel, after Bolivia. On the day that Bolivia made its announcement, Colombia and Chile both said that they were recalling their ambassadors to Israel, and Honduras followed suit within days. Belize also cut diplomatic ties with Israel that month.

    Arab states like Jordan and Bahrain, with whom Israel cooperates closely on security, have also recalled their ambassadors amid public outcry over the rising death toll in Gaza. The Israeli offensive has also hampered U.S.-led efforts to forge an agreement to normalize diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel hoped would be a major part of his legacy.

    The Biden administration, Israel’s most important ally, has shown no sign of pulling back military support, even as it warns against an Israeli invasion of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than a million people are sheltering. And Israel won a reprieve this week when a United Nations court declined to order Germany, Israel’s second-biggest supplier of weapons, after the United States, to suspend those arms sales.

    Still, the moves by Turkey and others highlight how the war in Gaza, now nearly seven months old, is exacting a growing toll on Israel’s global standing.

    Israel and Turkey had enjoyed a rapprochement in recent years. In 2022, the two countries announced that they would restore full diplomatic ties. They already were close trading partners, with Turkey sending roughly $4.6 billion in exports to Israel in 2023, according to Israeli government statistics.

    Just a few weeks before Hamas’s attack against Israel on Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met for the first time, in New York during the United Nations General Assembly meeting. The two leaders agreed to visit each other’s countries, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said at the time.

    Now, however, hopes for warmer relations appear to have been dashed. After the Hamas-led assault on Israel, Mr. Erdogan quickly took a strong rhetorical tack in favor of the Palestinian armed group, which he called “an organization of liberation”; he met with Hamas leaders in late April, drawing further Israeli ire.

    On Friday, Mr. Erdogan said the decision to suspend trade was an attempt to pressure Israel into reaching a cease-fire with Hamas. Both Israel and mediators like Qatar, Egypt and the United States are still awaiting Hamas’s response to a truce proposal presented this week. U.S. officials, including William J. Burns, the C.I.A. chief, who was in Cairo on Friday for talks, have blamed Hamas for the failure to reach a deal.

    “We have one single goal, to force the Netanyahu administration which got out of control with the West’s unconditional military and diplomatic support, to a cease-fire,” Mr. Erdogan said in an address in Ankara on Friday. “Once the cease-fire is announced and adequate humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza, that goal would be reached.”

    The decision to shut down imports and exports with Israel is highly unusual for Mr. Erdogan, who has generally allowed close economic ties to flourish in the shadow of high political tension, said Gallia Lindenstrauss, an expert on Turkey’s foreign policy at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank in Tel Aviv.

    Mr. Erdogan likely hoped to leverage the issue to stave off growing domestic frustration with his two-decade-long rule, as opposition leaders won a string of municipalities during local elections earlier this year, Ms. Lindenstrauss said. But there was also an attempt “to exploit Israel’s weakness, and specifically Netanyahu’s weakness, to continue to weaken Israel and gain regional influence,” she added.

    Many of Israel’s closer allies are now calling for a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. In March, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

    The war has also prompted renewed calls by some countries to recognize a Palestinian state, a move that is largely symbolic but strongly opposed by Mr. Netanyahu. Spain and Ireland, among other European nations, have said that they are working toward recognizing a state of Palestine.

    Washington has long said that while it backs the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state, any recognition should come after negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

    The shifting tone reflects the war’s tremendous cost for Palestinians. Over the past seven months, the war has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to local health officials. Israel’s offensive followed the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 dead and another 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

    — Aaron Boxerman and Gulsin Harman

    What ‘Starfield’ Needs To Launch Alongside Its ‘Shattered Space’ Expansion

    Peter Watson
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    What ‘Starfield’ Needs To Launch Alongside Its ‘Shattered Space’ Expansion

    Starfield has just launched a new patch into its beta that adds some legitimately useful quality of life elements, difficulty toggling, ship decoration, inventory tabs, actual city and surface maps. Later, it will add vehicles. But I’m most excited about this new update, which they’re calling Starfield: Visions:

    • Discover a more varied, more diverse universe in the Visions update. Introducing new planetary biomes, more colorful worlds, new fauna and flora, archaeology, salvaging, and much more…
    • New anomalous planet biomes create a weirder, more diverse universe to explore.
    • Bizarre creatures have evolved on anomalous planets, bringing new life and movement to these eerie landscapes.
    • The universe has become more alien, vibrant and exciting to explore. New shades of sky and grass enable more unique worlds and a more diverse set of science fiction aesthetics.
    • New types of water create stranger worlds to be discovered both above and below the surface.
    • Atmospherics and skies have been improved and stormy weather conditions can now produce rainbows in planetary atmospheres.
    • Exotic planets can be searched to discover mysterious artifacts which can be claimed as trophies. These otherworldly objects can be rehoused in habitable bases to create a showcase of your voyages across the universe.
    • With more varied planets come more reasons to explore. Unleash your inner archeologist and search the galaxy for planets containing the ancient bones of alien lifeforms. Complete, intact skeletons are particularly rare and especially valuable.

    Oh I’m sorry, that was a typo. I mean to say that was the No Man’s Sky Visions update, back from November 2018. But the point I’m trying to make is well, yeah, other than new missions and an expansion storyline, I think something like this is what Starfield needs the most.

    No Man’s Sky has done update after update building out the game, but this is one that was attempting to get it back to the original missions of exploring cool planets that at launch, were pretty barren and often not very cool at all.

    Starfield is at least ahead of where No Man’s Sky was at launch in this department as I think it often does have beautiful landscapes, but I think it would benefit from significant overhauls to its procedural generation systems to make these planets more interesting to explore, and give players a reason to go places they wouldn’t otherwise to find things they can’t predict, rather than landing anywhere and finding the same eight types of civilian or pirate bases spaced 500 meters apart.

    The ultimate goal of Starfield, both conceptually from Bethesda and in-game when you join Constellation, is exploring the universe. But in doing so, you will find that probably 950 of Starfield’s promised 1,000 planets contain nothing of note, or at least nothing you haven’t seen before a dozen times already by the endgame. Every so often I’d find one thing maybe I didn’t see previously, but those instances became few and far between over time.

    Starfield needs more interesting planets, both in terms of the visuals and biomes, but weather, flora, fauna and of course, POIs that need to be well beyond what it has now rather than as repetitive as they can be. I also like the NMS idea of rare trophies or relics to find as you explore, as the game doesn’t have anything crazily “rare” like that, and it would fit with base/ship decoration well.

    I think at least in this specific area following No Man’s Sky, with a budget 10x higher at least, is a good plan. I mean hell, they’re already doing the No Man’s Sky land vehicle update, right?

    Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

    Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

    New Sexual Assault Allegations in Doc ‘Spacey Unmasked’

    Peter Watson
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    New Sexual Assault Allegations in Doc ‘Spacey Unmasked’
    Kevin Spacey in July 2023 after being cleared of all sexual assault charges brought by men during his time as artistic director of The Old Vic Theatre in London.

    Kevin Spacey


    Courtesy of Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

    “I felt like I was staring at a soulless monster,” Daniel, an actor, says of his alleged sexual assault by Kevin Spacey in a new Channel 4 documentary promising a “forensic look” at the Oscar winner’s rise to stardom and his alleged sexual misconduct.

    Spacey Unmasked features 10 men, Daniel among them, to tell their stories of alleged abuse at the hands of Spacey. None of them were involved in the London trial that saw the actor acquitted of nine charges in July 2023, and all but one have never spoken out before. The charges stemmed from alleged acts that occurred from 2001 to 2013; Spacey was artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre from 2004 until 2015.

    In between clips of prolific award wins and talk-show wisecracks, Spacey Unmasked features the testimonies of a group of men — identified by their first names only — that span five decades, ranging from a teenage Spacey at high school to the height of his House of Cards fame, as well as his time at the Old Vic.

    Many of the victims claim to have been starstruck by Spacey, bowled over by his promise to aid them in their careers, only to soon realize it was at the cost of exchanging alleged “sexual favors,” often while on set as they claim he “kidnapped” crewmembers to “run lines.”

    The two-part doc, directed and produced by Katherine Haywood and executive produced by Dorothy Byrne and Mike Lerner, is set to premiere in the U.K. on May 6 and 7. Its U.S. air dates on Max and Investigation Discovery will be announced next week. Roast Beef Productions produced in association with All3Media International, which is handling international sales of the documentary.

    On Thursday, the actor pushed back against the doc, taking to X, formerly Twitter, to deny the allegations put forward in the documentary and on the British broadcaster’s program. “I will not sit back and be attacked by a dying network’s one-sided ‘documentary’ about me in their desperate attempt for ratings,” he wrote in a long thread. “There’s a proper channel to handle allegations against me and it’s not Channel 4. Each time I have been given the time and a proper forum to defend myself, the allegations have failed under scrutiny and I have been exonerated.”

    The Oscar winner accused the channel of giving him too short a window to respond to the statements made in the program.

    “Over the last week, I have repeatedly requested that @Channel4 afford me more than 7 days to respond to allegations made against me dating back 48 years and provide me with sufficient details to investigate these matters. Channel 4 has refused on the basis that they feel that asking for a response in 7 days to new, anonymized and non-specific allegations is a ‘fair opportunity’ for me to refute any allegations made against me,” he continued, before promising a fuller response to the documentary from his X account this weekend. “Channel 4 and @RoastBeef TV may find themselves ‘speechless,’ but I no longer will be.”

    A Channel 4 statement given to The Hollywood Reporter in response to Spacey’s post reads: “Kevin Spacey has been given sufficient opportunity to respond.”

    In Spacey Unmasked, one actor, Scott, tells viewers: “If you don’t pay the toll in sexual favors, you’ll have a decent career, but you won’t see your name in lights.”

    Spacey’s brother, Randy, is also interviewed. He says in the doc that he was sexually abused by their father, who held “Nazi meetings” at their family home as a teenager. His brother Kevin was not abused to his knowledge — though that doesn’t mean there wasn’t “psychological trauma,” Randy adds.

    The allegations in Spacey Unmasked also include that the star pushed his groin into the face of an Old Vic worker while serving as the venue’s director and that he masturbated in front of an aspiring actor as they watched Saving Private Ryan in a public theater, before trying to move the victim’s hand to join in.

    “I felt his whole groin in my face… I could smell him,” Danny, an Old Vic staff member from 2007 until 2008, says. “I could feel him getting pleasure (from) it… It was all about, ‘I can do this, I can do this to you. I’m Kevin Spacey.’”

    An ex-marine said that Spacey forced himself onto him while at a party of Bruce Willis’, while many of those interviewed suggested that the star allegedly enjoyed preying on straight men, “enjoying the chase” of trying to “flip” them. “Everybody knows: if you don’t want to go home with Kevin, don’t be the last guy in the bar with him,” Jesse, an ex-colleague of Spacey’s, says in the doc.

    The documentary attempts to highlight the push-and-pull of the victims’ testimonies and their guilt for not uncovering Spacey’s alleged behavior sooner. Many of them say they felt as though reporting Spacey, who notably declined to talk about his sexuality in the press before the accusations against him surfaced, would be tantamount to outing him. (Upon a 2017 allegation made by fellow actor Anthony Rapp in 2017 that Spacey molested Rapp after a party in 1986, Spacey came out as gay.)

    The documentary contributors voice concern over the impact it would have on their own careers as Spacey continually pledged to help budding actors and crew members with making it big. “He just rips out his d*** and shoves his tongue in my mouth,” Jesse, a crew member on the 1999 film The Big Kahuna, recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘Okay, so that’s how Hollywood is?’”

    The men in the doc also comment on Spacey’s tenacity and boldness. Ruiari, an actor at the Old Vic in 2013, says that he was assaulted by the actor who turned him away from photographers at an afterparty in the British capital. Spacey, like a “shark”, then “moved into press mode” for the cameras, he claims.

    Spacey Unmasked airs on Channel 4 May 6 and 7 at 9 p.m. local time.

    Missouri Breaks homestead monument to harsh lifestyle

    Peter Watson
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    Missouri Breaks homestead monument to harsh lifestyle

    With seven children in tow, Pearl and Josie Gilmore filed for a 624-acre homestead in a remote section of the Missouri Breaks, south of Havre, in 1934.

    Testaments to their tenacity to settle on the dry sagebrush uplands can still be found in the remains of an old corral, simple log home, reservoir that filled a cistern and an old root cellar that served as their home until the log structure was built.

    The Gilmore cabin, also called Gilmore cow camp, will be more easily accessible to the public because the Bureau of Land Management has decided to open a half-mile route into the Bullwhacker region in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

    “The Bullwhacker area of the monument contains some of the wildest country of all the Great Plains, as well as important wildlife habitat,” according to the 2001 presidential proclamation that established the area. “During the stress-inducing winter months, mule deer and elk move up the area from the river, and antelope and sage grouse move down to the area from the benchlands. The heads of coulees and breaks also contain archeological and historical sites, from teepee rings and remnants of historic trails to abandoned homesteads and lookout sites used by Meriwether Lewis.”

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    The cabin is located about 4.5 miles north of the Missouri River and 2 miles west of Cow Creek.

    “The Missouri Breaks is a zone of steeply dissected canyons, coulees, ridges and ridge spurs between the river and upland plains,” the BLM noted.

    “The site lies on the main road to Gist Bottom, on the Missouri. You will need a good map to find it.”







    The Gilmore cabin was finished in the 1940s, just after the end of the homesteading era in Montana. It is located in the Missouri Breaks, north of the river and west of Cow Creek.




    Family history

    Pearl Sanford Gilmore was born in Missouri, moving to Helena with his family at age 17. His wife, Josie May Good, was born in 1896 in Rosalia, Washington. That same year her family moved to central Montana. The couple were married in Lewistown in 1907.

    The Gilmores sought land in the Missouri Breaks under the 1916 Stock-Raising Homestead Act. The act granted settlers a full section of nonirrigable land, or its equivalent, for ranching on lands deemed of no value except for livestock grazing.

    The Gilmores ran about 20 head of cattle and raised a garden while the older sons worked at surrounding homesteads, according to a history compiled by the BLM. It took until 1941 for the cabin, which still stands, to be finished. It was built with hand tools.

    “Surprisingly, few nails were used to construct the buildings and structures,” the BLM noted, although some were built “slapdash,” others were carefully crafted with tenon and tongue-in-grove joints.

    The lifestyle on such parcels was sparse. According to the BLM, “The only running water that the house has ever had was when it rained.” Between the reservoir that fed the cistern there were “several screens in the trough to catch the mice and other critters that would float down from the reservoir.”

    Locals referred to the area as the Bad Lands. Details of the settlers can be unearthed in articles from The Chinook Opinion, under the heading Bad Land Briefs. In a Dec. 17, 1942, column, the writer of the briefs talked about decorating the log Gist school with “fur (sic) boughs” and food from the Welfare Office arriving to provide “added vitamins” to increase the schoolchildren’s pep.

    It also noted that Pearl had visited Chinook to pay his taxes and “make Christmas purchases.” It took his neighbor three days to make the trip back from Chinook, due to the deep snow drifts that made the route nearly impassable.

    Growing up on a homestead in Saskatchewan, Canada, author Wallace Stegner wrote about the sparse lifestyle of these late-arriving pioneers, the often bleak environment and weather conditions that would have applied to northern Montana as well.

    “You don’t get out of the wind, but learn to lean and squint against it,” he wrote in the book “Wolf Willow.” “You don’t escape sky and sun, but wear them in your eyeballs and on your back. You become acutely aware of yourself. The world is very large, the sky even larger, and you are very small.”







    Zane Fulbright

    Zane Fulbright, manager of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, gives BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning a tour of the visitor center in Fort Benton in 2023.



    Brett French



    Exchanging hands

    In 1941, the Gilmore’s daughter, Thelma, was granted the patent to the land. Five years earlier, in 1936, she had married Arthur Campbell whose family had homesteaded in the nearby Bears Paw Mountains.

    Campbell enlisted in the Army during World War II, serving in the Pacific. His marriage to Thelma didn’t survive the war and she sold the property to her brother, Kenneth Gilmore, in 1946 for $500. Two years later, Kenneth sold out to his neighbor, Leo Gist. The Gist family lived in the log house for two years. Afterward, it was used seasonally as a cow camp and to house hunters.

    In an account provided to the BLM by Jack Gist, he said, “People in this area lived the frontier life much later than the rest of the country,” surviving with no running water or electricity.

    After passing through a few more hands, the land was deeded to the BLM in 1983 as part of a land exchange.

    Historic relevance

    The Gilmores moved to Chinook in 1947 where Pearl bought an apartment building. He died in 1977 at the age of 92. Josie May oversaw the apartments until 1979. She died in 1986 at the age of 94. By then, her obituary listed 22 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and 12 great-great-grandchildren.

    In 2012, the BLM did some restoration work to the cabin with an eye to possibly renting it out. That never came to fruition, but the cabin continues to be used by campers and hunters who should marvel at the tough people who attempted to carve out a life on the harsh landscape.

    “The homesteads tell the story of isolation — it often could take three days or more to get to a community (with a post office or store) — and weather could trap people in their homes,” said Zane Fulbright, in a 2012 “The River Press” article.

    “Having the homesteads on the ground tells what life was like back then,” added Fulbright, who now manages the monument and signed off on the decision to allow public motorized access into the region.

    The BLM has classified the Gilmore cabin as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places due to its association with the settlement of Montana during the homestead era – 1900 to 1937.

    The building is “sufficiently intact to clearly convey the notion that this is a hardscrabble Missouri Breaks homestead associated with raising livestock,” the agency noted.

    Lakers fire coach Darvin Ham after 2 seasons, early playoff exit: Sources

    Peter Watson
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    Lakers fire coach Darvin Ham after 2 seasons, early playoff exit: Sources

    By Shams Charania, Jovan Buha and Jenna West

    The Los Angeles Lakers fired coach Darvin Ham after his second season with the team, which ended Monday in a first-round playoff exit with a loss to the Denver Nuggets, the organization announced on Friday. Sources briefed on the matter say that an extensive search will commence soon, with candidates such as Mike Budenholzer, Kenny Atkinson, JJ Redick and, if he becomes available, Ty Lue among others.

    Rumors over Ham’s potential firing intensified deep into the Lakers’ season and seemed inevitable when they only won one game in their best-of-seven playoff series against the Nuggets. The lowest moment came for the Lakers when they blew a 20-point second-half lead in Game 2 of the series.

    After a successful first year as coach in which he showed signs as a leader, the tide turned for Ham this season. There was tremendous respect for Ham as a person, and players appreciated his pro career and time as an assistant coach in Atlanta and Milwaukee. But, players struggled with a perceived absence of effective direction from the coaching staff.

    After Game 2 against the Nuggets, Lakers forward Anthony Davis said, “We have stretches where we don’t know what we’re doing on both ends of the floor.”

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    Ham responded at practice two days later and defended his coaching decisions and staff.

    “I don’t think this was (about) not being organized,” Ham said. “I think I have incredible knowledge and focus all along my staff. We pride ourselves — whether it’s practice, shootarounds, film sessions, games, everything — we pride ourselves on being highly efficient and organized.

    “I just chalk that up to being frustrated. It’s an emotional game, with the way it ended and all of that. But I would agree to disagree on that one.”

    During Ham’s two-year tenure, the Lakers went 90-74 in the regular season and 9-12 in the postseason. The Nuggets also ended the Lakers’ 2022-23 season with a four-game sweep in the Western Conference finals.

    The Lakers hired Ham in May 2022 after he started his NBA coaching career with the franchise as an assistant from 2011 to 2013. Ham signed a four-year deal in the range of $5 million per season, so the team will assume the remainder of his contract after firing him.

    Ham also worked as an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks (2013-18) and Milwaukee Bucks (2018-22) after playing in the NBA from 1996 to 2005. He won an NBA championship coming off the bench for the Detroit Pistons in 2004 and as an assistant coach with the Bucks in 2021.

    This story will be updated.

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    (Photo: Ron Chenoy / USA Today)

    Did the James Webb Space Telescope really find life beyond Earth? Scientists aren’t so sure

    Peter Watson
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    Did the James Webb Space Telescope really find life beyond Earth? Scientists aren’t so sure

    Recent reports of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) detecting signs of life of a distant planet outside the solar system are, unfortunately, somewhat premature. That’s the conclusion of research conducted by scientists from the University of California Riverside (UCR). 

    While likely to disappoint all of us eager for the confirmation of extraterrestrial life, however, it doesn’t mean the JWST won’t find traces of life in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, or “exoplanet,” in the future.

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