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What Is the 14th Amendment, and What Does It Say?

Cases in Colorado and other states argue that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prevents Donald J. Trump from being president again because, they argue, he incited the supporters who stormed the Capitol almost three years ago. The central questions are whether Section 3 applies to the presidency; whether Mr. Trump’s behavior before and on Jan. 6, 2021, constituted “engaging in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution; and whether election officials or the courts can deem a person ineligible without specific action by Congress identifying that person. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the answer to all of these questions was yes, but other courts have disagreed. The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to have the final say. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Constitutional experts have emphasized in interviews with The New York Times that the answers are not simple or self-evident.

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Congress Approves Sweeping New Protections for J.R.O.T.C. Cadets

Background: J.R.O.T.C. programs have operated with little oversight. The program has grown over the past century and now serves a half-million students each year, teaching teenagers military history, leadership, life skills and marksmanship. The programs are offered in public high schools, with retired officers or noncommissioned officers vetted by the military acting as instructors. The New York Times reported in 2022 that at least 33 J.R.O.T.C. instructors had been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students over a five-year period, and uncovered other cases that had not resulted in charges or discipline. The investigation showed that instructors had exploited their role as mentors to manipulate and abuse students. The instructors often operated with little oversight, working on the fringes of school campuses and without direct supervision by military overseers. Some high schools were automatically enrolling students in J.R.O.T.C., keeping them there even when they objected to the classes. At some high schools, in places like Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and Mobile, Ala., more than 75 percent of students in a single grade were enrolled. Military leaders have viewed J.R.O.T.C. as a valuable recruiting tool, as students who encounter the program are more likely to enlist. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee’s panel on personnel, has pushed for changes in the J.R.O.T.C. program. She said that Pentagon officials during questioning had acknowledged a lack of oversight in the program. “J.R.O.T.C. can be a terrific opportunity for a young person to get a taste of military service, but that only works if our military has an ironclad commitment to make certain that every young person who participates is safe and secure and treated respectfully,” Ms. Warren said on Friday. What Happens Next: The legislation requires more Pentagon oversight. The legislation, part of a military spending bill that is expected to be signed by President Biden, requires schools to notify the military within 48 hours of any allegations of misconduct, and to inform students of how to report sexual misconduct. The Department of Defense will be required to produce an annual report on any such allegations and on what was done to investigate them. The Pentagon must also conduct regular inspections of J.R.O.T.C. units. The legislation requires participating schools to have a process to ensure that students who enroll are doing so voluntarily. Ms. Warren said she also expected a report from the Government Accountability Office, which has been reviewing J.R.O.T.C. programs.

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How a Russian Barrage Evaded Ukraines Defenses to Wreak Deadly Chaos

For months, Ukraine’s use of powerful Western-supplied air-defense systems to repel Russian missile attacks has provided its citizens with some reassurance that a protective shield was effectively in place over big cities such as the capital, Kyiv. On Friday, that shield partly cracked. In one of the biggest air assaults of the war, Russia launched so many missiles that the Ukrainian defenses seem to have been overloaded. Faced with a complex barrage of different airborne weapons, the Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down only 87 of the 122 missiles fired by Moscow, about 70 percent of the total, with all hypersonic missiles and many ballistic missiles evading interception. Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the research group Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, was blunt. “It overwhelmed Ukrainian air defenses,” he said. To be sure, air defenses are imperfect and the magnitude of the barrage played an important part in the number of missiles to slip through. But the bombardment also showed how Russia has learned the best ways to evade Ukraine’s air defenses and hit the country hard, military experts and Ukrainian officials said.

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Canadas Foreign Student Surge Prompts Changes, and Anxiety

By announcing this record-breaking target in November 2022, as part of a strategy to plug national labor shortages, Canada signaled that it was headed in the opposite direction from many Western governments that are curtailing migration, as I reported at the time. (As of this week, most foreign students in Britain will no longer be allowed to bring their families, a move that the country’s Home Office said delivered on its commitment to “a decisive cut in migration.”) In Canada, the surge of overseas students has fanned concerns about the readiness of university and college communities to adequately host them, and about efforts to ensure that their labor and their finances are not exploited. The immigration minister, Marc Miller, recently announced a handful of measures taking effect this month for foreign students. For the first time since the early 2000s, the government has increased the savings threshold that foreign students must have to qualify for a study permit to about 20,600 Canadian dollars, up from 10,000 dollars. And it will continue, until at least April, to allow international students to work more than 20 hours per week, a policy it had previously walked back. Without providing details, Mr. Miller’s ministry said it was also looking into ways that it could ensure colleges and universities, which are provincially regulated, accept only as many students as they can assist in finding housing. “Ahead of September 2024, we are prepared to take necessary measures, including significantly limiting visas, to ensure that designated learning institutions provide adequate and sufficient student supports,” Mr. Miller said last month at a news conference in which he announced the changes. He accused some institutions of operating the “diploma equivalent of puppy mills,” depriving those foreign students of a positive academic experience in the face of outsize hardships and a lack of intervention by provincial governments.

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Hunter Biden given date for initial court appearance in California on tax charges

Hunter Biden will make his initial appearance in a California federal court on nine tax-related charges on Jan. 11, 2024. Biden will appear before Magistrate Judge Alka Sagar at 1 p.m., according to the Central District of California's court calendar. The court is located in Los Angeles. During an initial court hearing, defendants learn more about their rights and charges against them, according to the Justice Department's website. A judge then decides whether the defendant will be released or not if they meet the requirements for bail. "Before the judge makes the decision on whether to grant bail, they must hold a hearing to learn facts about the defendant including how long the defendant has lived in the area, if they have family nearby, prior criminal record, and if they have threatened any witnesses in the case. The judge also considers the defendant’s potential danger to the community," the DOJ states. FROM SEX CLUBS TO STRIPPERS: HERE ARE THE 5 MOST SALACIOUS DETAILS FROM THE HUNTER BIDEN INDICTMENT Biden faces federal charges in connection with a "four-year scheme" in which he didn't pay his federal income taxes from January 2017 to October 2020 while also filing false tax reports. The charges break down to three felonies and six misdemeanors centered around $1.4 million in owed taxes that were since paid. Special Counsel David Weiss alleged Hunter "engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020." HUNTER BIDEN FACES NEW INDICTMENT IN CALIFORNIA Weiss said Biden spent millions to fund an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills. "[W]hen he did finally file his 2018 returns, included false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced as of February 2020," Weiss alleged. Hunter pleaded not guilty in October to federal gun charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware after being charged out of Weiss' yearslong investigation. Earlier this month, Biden's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, attacked Weiss over the charges. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought," he said on Dec. 7. "First, U.S. Attorney Weiss bowed to Republican pressure to file unprecedented and unconstitutional gun charges to renege on a non-prosecution resolution. Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence -- and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full – the U.S. Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors." Biden still faces the possibility of being held in contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before House lawmakers to testify about his financial dealings. Fox News Digital's Houston Keene contributed to this report.

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Minnesota Unveils New State Flag Design

Minnesota on Tuesday announced the winning design for its new state flag after a competition that was prompted by criticism that its current flag was offensive to Native Americans. The new design consists of a light blue right panel, representing the state’s many lakes, and navy blue left panel, resembling the shape of Minnesota, with an eight-pointed northern star. It is a vast departure from the current flag: a busy design with the state seal at its center depicting a pioneer beside a rifle and a Native American with a spear on horseback, which one lawmaker described as “a cluttered genocidal mess.” The winning flag proposal, submitted by Andrew Prekker of Luverne, was chosen from more than 2,600 submissions by a commission created by state legislation to redesign both the flag and the state seal. “It is my greatest hope that this new flag can finally represent our state and all its people properly,” Mr. Prekker, a 24-year-old artist and writer, said in a statement. “That every Minnesotan of every background — including the Indigenous communities and tribal nations who’ve been historically excluded — can look up at our flag with pride and honor, and see themselves within it.”

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Israeli media say Hamas has released 13 Israeli hostages

Israeli media say the Hamas militant group has released the first batch of hostages under a cease-fire deal Friday, including 13 Israelis who have been held in the Gaza Strip for nearly seven weeks. The media cited Israeli security officials. Twelve Thai nationals were also released, according to Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. In all, 50 captives are set to be freed during a four-day truce. Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters. Israel is set to free 150 Palestinians over the next four days, as part of the deal. Thirty-nine prisoners are to be freed Friday. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. A four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began Friday, allowing sorely needed aid to start flowing into Gaza and setting the stage for the release of dozens of hostages held by militants and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. There were no reports of fighting in the hours after the truce began. The deal offered some relief for Gaza's 2.3 million people, who have endured weeks of Israeli bombardment and dwindling supplies of basic necessities, as well as for families in Israel worried about loved ones taken captive during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the war. The first exchange Friday afternoon would involve swapping 39 Palestinian prisoners — 24 women, including some convicted of attempted murder for attacks on Israeli forces, and 15 teenagers jailed for offenses like throwing stones — for 13 Israeli hostages, Palestinian authorities said. Just before that exchange was set to happen, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin later said in a tweet that 12 Thai nationals were also released. An Israeli official confirmed that the Thai captives left Gaza and were en route to a hospital in Israel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the releases with the media. The truce raised hopes of eventually winding down the conflict, which has flattened vast swaths of Gaza, fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East. Israel, however, has said it is determined to resume its massive offensive once the cease-fire ends. On Friday, it brought quiet after weeks in which Gaza saw heavy bombardment and artillery fire daily as well as street fighting as ground troops advanced through neighborhoods in the north. The last report of air raid sirens in Israeli towns near the territory came shortly after the truce took effect. Not long after, four tankers with fuel and four with cooking gas entered the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Israel said. Israel has agreed to allow the delivery of 130,000 liters (34,340 gallons) of fuel per day during the truce — still only a small portion of Gaza’s estimated daily needs of more than 1 million liters. For most of the past seven weeks of war, Israel had barred the entry of fuel to Gaza, claiming it could be used by Hamas for military purposes — though it has occasionally allowed small amounts in. U.N. aid agencies pushed back against the claim, saying fuel deliveries were closely supervised and urgently needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe since fuel is required to run generators that power water treatment facilities, hospitals and other critical infrastructure. The Israeli military dropped leaflets over southern Gaza, warning hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who sought refuge there not to return to their homes in the territory's north, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. Even though Israel warned that it would block such attempts, hundreds of Palestinians could be seen walking north Friday. Two were shot and killed by Israeli troops and another 11 were wounded. An Associated Press journalist saw the two bodies and the wounded as they arrived at a hospital. Sofian Abu Amer, who had fled Gaza City, said he decided to risk heading north to check on his home. “We don’t have enough clothes, food and drinks,” he said. ”The situation is disastrous. It’s better for a person to die." During the cease-fire, Gaza’s ruling Hamas group pledged to free at least 50 of the about 240 hostages it and other militants took on Oct. 7. Hamas said Israel would free 150 Palestinian prisoners. Both sides agreed to release women and children first, in stages starting Friday. Israel said the deal calls for the truce to be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed. Early in the day, ambulances were seen arriving at the Hatzerim air base in southern Israel, preparing for the release. Those freed will then be taken to hospitals for assessment and treatment, Israeli officials said. Among the Israeli citizens to be freed some have a second nationality, according to a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details with the media. Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 prisoners eligible for release, mainly teenagers detained over the past year for rock-throwing and other minor offenses. Three Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released for every hostage freed. The hope is that “momentum” from the deal will lead to an “end to this violence,” said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which served as a mediator along with the United States and Egypt. But hours before it came into effect, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was quoted telling troops that their respite would be short and that the war would resume with intensity for at least two more months. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also vowed to continue the war to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, end its 16-year rule in Gaza and return all the hostages. Israel's northern border with Lebanon was also quiet on Friday, a day after the militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas, carried out the highest number of attacks in one day since fighting there began Oct. 8. Hezbollah is not a party to the cease-fire agreement, but was widely expected to halt its attacks. The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers. The soldiers will only be released in exchange for all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, according to the Islamic Jihad militant group, which is reportedly holding about 40 hostages. It is not clear how many of the hostages are currently serving in the military or whether the militants also consider reserve soldiers to be “military hostages.” Photos: Israel-Hamas War According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians on security charges or convictions, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which resumed its detailed count of casualties in Gaza after stopping for weeks because of the health system’s collapse in the north. The ministry says some 6,000 people have been reported missing, feared buried under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its death tolls. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the new number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence for its count. ___ Mroue reported from Beirut and Rising reported from Bangkok. Julia Frankel contributed from Jerusalem.

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Springfield Police Officer Gregg Bigda off payroll after POST upholds decertification

SPRINGFIELD — City Police Officer Gregg Bigda is once again off the city’s payroll after the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission upheld his decertification in a decision released late Monday. The commission — most commonly known as POST — was created by the state as a watchdog to decide whether law enforcement officers can remain on their respective forces in the face of allegations of wrongdoing.

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Southwick awarded grants of over $287k over last several years for cybersecurity

SOUTHWICK – It’s a nightmare scenario for any municipality, large or small: employees arrive at work, power up their computers and when they try log in to the network server, they are denied access. In attempt to protect that situation from occurring, since 2015, the state has been awarding grants through the Community Compact IT program to provide funds to harden the network security of cities and towns, including Southwick, to minimize the risk. “It’s very important,” said Town Accountant Laura Fletcher about the $288,102 the town has received since the program was started by the Baker-Polito Administration.

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Lowry: Jack Smith takes aim at 2024 election

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The Supreme Court says no, for now, to plea to rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted

National News The Supreme Court says no, for now, to plea to rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted Special counsel Jack Smith had cautioned that even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break. Former President Donald Trump listens as he speaks with reporters while in flight on his plane after a campaign rally at Waco Regional Airport, in Waco, Texas, March 25, 2023, while en route to West Palm Beach, Fla. AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Friday that it will not immediately take up a plea by special counsel Jack Smith to rule on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted for his actions to overturn the 2020 election results. The issue will now be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has signaled it will act quickly to decide the case. Special counsel Jack Smith had cautioned that even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break. Advertisement: Smith had pressed the Supreme Court to intervene over concerns that the legal fight over the issue could delay the start of Trump’s trial, now scheduled for March 4, beyond next year’s presidential election. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has put the case on hold while Trump pursues his claim in higher courts that he is immune from prosecution. Chutkan raised the possibility of keeping the March date if the case promptly returns to her court. She already has rejected the Trump team’s arguments that an ex-president could not be prosecuted over acts that fall within the official duties of the job. “Former presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability,” Chutkan wrote in her Dec. 1 ruling. “Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.” The Supreme Court separately has agreed to hear a case over the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding that has been brought against Trump as well as more than 300 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In the immunity case, Smith had tried to persuade the justices to take up the matter directly, bypassing the appeals court. Advertisement: “This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin,” prosecutors wrote. Underscoring the urgency for prosecutors in securing a quick resolution that can push the case forward, Smith and his team wrote: “It is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court and that respondent’s trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected.” Justice Department policy prohibits the indictment of a sitting president. Though there’s no such bar against prosecution for a former commander in chief, lawyers for Trump say that he cannot be charged for actions that fell within his official duties as president — a claim that prosecutors have vigorously rejected. Trump faces charges accusing him of working to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden before the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol. He has denied any wrongdoing. The high court still could act quickly once the appeals court issues its decision. A Supreme Court case usually lasts several months, but on rare occasions, the justices shift into high gear. Advertisement: Nearly 50 years ago, the justices acted within two months of being asked to force President Richard Nixon to turn over Oval Office recordings in the Watergate scandal. The tapes were then used later in 1974 in the corruption prosecutions of Nixon’s former aides. It took the high court just a few days to effectively decide the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.

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Pressure Builds on Pentagon to Explain Timeline of Austins Hospitalization

“Several questions remain unanswered,” they added, “including what the medical procedure and resulting complications were, what the secretary’s current health status is, how and when the delegation of the secretary’s responsibilities were made and the reason for the delay in notification to the president and Congress.” Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, told “Fox News Sunday” that the lack of disclosure was “shocking.” Mr. Austin has yet to disclose why he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., for the past week. He was still there on Sunday but was making calls, receiving operational updates and “recovering well and in good spirits,” Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. In response to questions from The New York Times, General Ryder said that Mr. Austin underwent an elective medical procedure at Walter Reed on Dec. 22, two days after returning from a five-day trip to the Middle East, and returned home on Dec. 23. After experiencing “severe pain” on Jan. 1, Mr. Austin was taken to Walter Reed and put in the hospital’s intensive care unit, General Ryder said. Pentagon officials were scrambling over the weekend to put together an explanation about who knew what when. A senior military official said that Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s most senior officer, was informed by his own staff on Tuesday of Mr. Austin’s hospitalization.

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One holiday season party not to miss: the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party

Linda Laban Special to the Telegram & Gazette Sam Adams does not look happy. He starts yelling at a rather nicely attired gentlemen, who it appears the red-faced Adams really does not like. A great debate ensues as various people stand and orate, and some plain just stand and yell. The annual reenactment of the meeting on Dec. 16, 1773, at the Old South Meeting House in Boston’s Downtown Crossing is a heated affair, indeed. This was the meeting that preceded the humorously named but infamous act known as the Boston Tea Party, often cited as the event that kicked the Revolutionary War into action. Well, at least nudged it. It would be another 15 months before the first battle ensued in earnest. Shutdown by the pandemic, 2022 saw the first such reenactment since 2019, and it returned somewhat changed. In this day and age, it is acknowledged before many such performances play out that we stand on another’s land, “Occupied lands belonging to the Massachusetts, the Nipmuc, and the Wampanoag,” it is solemnly noted at the Old South Meeting House before the “performance” begins. 'Here ye sons of liberty, speak tonight' It is the Crown’s latest tax, on tea no less, that currently stirs up the colonists' growing rancor — the ire against the Crown’s list of taxes is long by now, and many duties had been successfully repealed. But not the tea tax, which would bail out the once-mighty but now failing London-based East India Company. For weeks the fate of three East India Company schooners — the Beaver, the Eleanor and the Dartmouth, all moored and guarded on Griffin Wharf — has been discussed, the Crown and the governor of Massachusetts demanding they be unloaded, the merchants of Boston refusing to allow such a thing. You can imagine it was a cold, frosty night that Dec. 16 in 1773. Not many people would be out and about in Boston. Apart from those gathering for that meeting at the Old South Meeting House, whose wooden pews are packed with impassioned or worried faces. Much mumbling and grumbling ensues until the meeting is called to order by some bewigged fellow seated high up in a galleried perch, for all to see and heed. “Here ye sons of liberty, speak tonight,” commands the moderator. 'Petty tyrants are in this town' Besides Sam Adams, also present and equally incensed is Henry Knox, a member of the Boston Grenadier Corps militia; Judge Samuel P. Savage of Weston, a merchant who would go on to become a member of the Massachusetts Board of War; and James Otis Jr., a loyalist by birth but now a revered figure of dissent following his speeches on constitutional rights. (Otis, his quick mind eventually dissolved into mental illness, does not live to see much of the republic he is shaping.) Ebenezer Macintosh, a shoemaker who fought in the British army at Fort Ticonderoga in 1758 is here, protesting taxes once again. Josiah Quincy is here and seems to have a cool head among many who do not. James Lovell, a Boston Latin schoolteacher, who had spoken publicly and at length against the Boston Massacre two years earlier, is here, as is his close friend Dr. Joseph Warren. In less than two years, within days of the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, Lovell is arrested and imprisoned by the Crown; Warren is dead on the battlefield. Phillis Wheatley is here and speaks. Although well known at the time for her poetry both in the colonies and in England, it is doubtful a woman, let alone a Black person, emancipated just a few months earlier, had a voice. Susannah Copley, whose father, Richard Clarke, worked for the despised East India Company, speaks. Even Susannah, a white woman from a wealthy family and the wife of noted painter John Singleton Copley, would not have had a voice in 1773. The addition of women and also an enslaved man, and even having audience members speak in opposite gender roles — one man is Abigail Adams, a girl is James Otis. Jr. — plays with historical fact for inclusivity. One thing that has changed little: the political divide: When a Tory suggests the Patriots are criminals, he is soon shot down, but only by big boos. “Remove the Dartmouth,” someone is suggesting. Though who knows to where, and what of the other two ships? “Petty tyrants are in this town,” yells someone who probably means the Crown’s men — very probably. “Taxes should to go to the colonies, not the Crown,” bellows someone. “Treason!” yells a loyalist in disgust. “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” shouts a colonist, most eloquently. It may or not have been James Otis Jr., who is credited widely as saying the pertinent sentence, simply because he wrote so many such rousing epithets. Cries of “Huzzah!” are matched by much stamping of feet — oh, it’s an impassioned lot here tonight. There can be no agreement in this room on this fateful night. As tempers rise, several men — first and foremost among them is Sam Adams — suddenly storm out and leave in a huff. Soon there will be shouts outside — something is going on. Men are heading to Griffin Wharf! A night to remember In 1773, Griffin Wharf would have been nearer to the Old South Meeting House. This once-bustling center of commerce was lost to landfill during the city’s expansion through the 19th century. In the 1920s, a plaque was erected at Congress and Purchase streets noting its significance as the place where the Boston Tea Party took place. Back in 1773, with the meeting adjourned, the actions of that historic night then shifted to the harbor. For the reenactment, the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, located on the Congress Street Bridge, not far from where Griffin’s Wharf once stood, is a good stand-in. Replicas of the Beaver, Dartmouth and Eleanor are moored at the museum. Some have tea chests in their cargo holds. Now, tea was not the mass-produced cheap commodity as it is today. It was expensive and three ships laden with tea amounted to quite a treasure chest. Dumping that lot in the harbor was an unthinkable act then — now, what they did seems rather humorous and hardly treasonous. But it was an attack on personal property — the property of a Crown ally, too. Though dumping anything in the precious harbor waters is not to be encouraged, the Tea Party Museum joins the reenactment with a ceremonious tea dumping into the water each year. On Sept. 27, the very day the ships laden with tea set sail from England for Boston in 1773, the East India Company — which still exists — held a press conference in London marking the 250th anniversary with a new cargo of tea, which was sent to Boston and will be dumped this Dec. 16. This year, the drum and fife parade from the Old South Meeting House to the museum resumes. But the actual act in 1773 would have been quite different. For one thing, due to the seriousness of the crime against private property— the East India Company’s tea cargo — there would have been no such fanfare. Even Sam Adams and his motley crew sought to hide their identity and dressed up as Mohawk Indians. But where on a minute’s notice did Adams find such costumes? The local open-all-night Halloween costume store? Perhaps Adams planned this well in advance and the protagonists had their disguises stashed, ready for their antics. It is indeed a night to remember and what a thrill to be sitting in the very places where the debate took place, watching Sam Adams and his angry supporters storm off — we know where they are going: off to the harbor to make mischief with some tea! For more information on all events and for tickets, go to revolutionaryspaces.org. Tea Time! As if to give those Brits a bit of a last laugh, the holiday season in Boston is afternoon tea season. At these hotels, it’s an occasion to dress up and tip a pinky while sipping exquisite teas and nibbling darling little bits and bobs. A cozy overnight stay is a delicious option, too. At Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street, which is tucked in a quiet corner of Back Bay near Symphony Hall, afternoon tea is served every weekend in the chic Trifecta lounge. The cake stand brims with colorful cakes and pretty savories, and a choice of fine teas is served in bright floral designed fine china tea pots — cunning devices these: the cup is underneath the pot! Afternoon tea includes a glass of Mumm Champagne to begin with and a liqueur paired to the tea flavors, say Earl Grey with Grand Marnier (rooms from $850 per night. fourseasons.com/onedalton). Overlooking the harbor, afternoon tea at the Rowes Wharf Sea Grille, inside the Boston Harbor Hotel, pairs a variety of tea sandwiches and pastries with a selection of teas, including herbal South African rooibos, Japanese jasmine, or Chinese oolong. The hotel’s signature tea cocktails may be added to afternoon tea service: Tropical Garden shakes up oolong tea with vodka and Grand Marnier; the Green Tea Sparkler tops off green tea, peach liqueur and peach puree with Prosecco (rooms from $533 per night; bostonharborhotel.com). The Newbury serves seasonal tea in its second-floor salon underneath Murano glass chandeliers, made for the original Ritz-Carlton that opened the building in 1927. Tea includes a glass of bubbly for those who desire it, and hot cocoa for children. The super-cute fine china tea set is especially designed for the hotel and coopts the Make Way for the Ducklings story into its design. Along with small savories and sweets, excellent scones are served with jams and thick cream. Year-round, guests at the beguiling boutique hotel may take tea in their rooms. Call the fireplace butler to lay a fire in the original wood-burning hearth (rooms from $600 per night; thenewburyboston.com). Could anything be cozier?

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Atlanta D.A. Defends Qualifications of Outside Lawyer She Hired for Trump Case

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., pushed back on Sunday against the criticism and questions about her judgment that have followed a court filing accusing her of being romantically involved with an outside lawyer she hired to lead the racketeering case against former President Donald J. Trump. Ms. Willis emerged from almost a week of silence to address the congregation at one of the oldest Black churches in Atlanta, which had invited her to be the keynote speaker for a service dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not address the allegation that she was in a relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired in 2021, who has earned more than $650,000 in the job to date. Instead, what Ms. Willis detailed were the frustrations and struggles that she said she has faced not only as a prosecutor, but also as a Black woman taking on the most powerful figure in the Republican Party.

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Healey outlines ongoing priorities to address housing costs, MBTA in 1st State of the Commonwealth speech

Politics Healey outlines ongoing priorities to address housing costs, MBTA in 1st State of the Commonwealth speech “Today, Massachusetts is more affordable, more competitive, and more equitable than it was a year ago.” Gov. Maura Healey at her inauguration last year. Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday delivered her first State of the Commonwealth address since taking office last year, highlighting steps taken by her administration during her first year as governor and outlining her agenda to address a range of ongoing challenges in her second year, including the MBTA, housing costs, and climate change. “We set high goals for our first year in office,” Healey said. “I stood here one year ago and made promises. And because we came together, and we acted with urgency, we delivered results. We met every one of our goals. Today, Massachusetts is more affordable, more competitive, and more equitable than it was a year ago. And the state of our Commonwealth, like the spirit of our people, is stronger than ever.” Advertisement: Healey said the budget proposal she will file next week will reflect her administration’s ongoing priorities of lowering the cost of housing and child care, “strengthening schools,” addressing congestion on the state’s roadways and the failings of the railways, helping businesses, and meeting the climate crisis. “This is the work ahead of us, and there’s no time to wait,” Healey said. The governor said all the work starts with housing, calling it “the biggest challenge we face.” She said in the year ahead her administration will focus on passing her Affordable Homes Act, which, if passed by the Legislature, would be the largest housing investment in state history and create tens of thousands of new homes. “This isn’t just a few unlucky people,” Healey said. “It’s the heart of our workforce. It’s the soul of our communities. It’s the future of our state. We have to act and we have to act now, to make it easier for everyone to find affordable places to live.” During her speech, the governor also announced several new initiatives for 2024, including launching a new early literacy strategy, reauthorizing the Life Sciences Initiative, initiating a new climate tech initiative, and increasing funding for roads, bridges, and the MBTA in the state budget. Advertisement: Acknowledging the frustrations MBTA riders have faced in recent years with unsafe conditions, shutdowns, and slowdowns, Healey said there is “still a long way to go” in fixing the system. “I want to thank T riders for your patience as the work continues,” Healey said. “We are committed to making your commutes better. And I can share with you tonight: our budget proposal next week will offer transformative investments to improve all the ways we get around in Massachusetts. We’ll increase funding for local roads and bridges to record levels, with special investments dedicated to rural communities. We’ll double our support for MBTA operations, and tackle deferred maintenance, to build a system worthy of our economy. And we will establish a permanent, reduced fare for low-income T riders; and continue affordable options at regional transit authorities.” Watch the governor’s full speech below:

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Key Hamas Plotters of Oct. 7 Elude Israels Grip on Gaza

Fluttering down from the skies over Gaza on a recent day were clouds of fliers dropped by the Israeli military asking for tips on the whereabouts of top Hamas leaders. “The end of Hamas is near,” the fliers proclaimed in Arabic, promising hefty bounties to anyone who helped bring about the arrest of those who had “brought destruction and ruin to the Gaza Strip.” The Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, headed the list in exchange for a reward of $400,000 — more than 1,500 times Gaza’s average monthly wage. Israel’s stated goal in the war is to destroy Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that rules Gaza and set off the war there by attacking Israel on Oct. 7. But despite a military campaign that has caused nearly 20,000 deaths in Gaza and reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, Israel has yet to locate Mr. Sinwar and other senior Hamas figures considered key plotters of the attack 10 weeks ago.

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Who is Ruthzee Louijeune? Meet Boston City Councils newest president

Ruthzee Louijeune became the Boston City Council’s newest president on Monday after she was unanimously elected by her fellow councilors. Louijeune was first elected in November 2021. A councilor-at-large and resident of Hyde Park, she succeeds former council President Ed Flynn, who served as council president since January 2022. As the new council president, Louijeune said she aims to focus on issues such as lack of homeownership, school inequality and improving waste-management systems, CBS News reported. “I am excited for what’s to come for our city, and believe that our collective work can transform our beloved city into one where every person feels honored, safe, housed, and healthy,” Louijuene said in a statement. “I am hopeful, and I am grateful, because the only way we get through, the only way we thrive, the only way we push forward, is together.” Here are three things to know about Boston’s newest city councilor. What is her background? Louijeune is now the third Black woman to lead the Boston city council – after Attorney General Andrea Campbell and former Acting Mayor Kim Janey. Born and raised in Mattapan and Hyde Park, Louijeune is the daughter of Haitian immigrants, State House News Service reported. She attended Boston public schools and later went on to attend Columbia University and Harvard Law School. As an attorney, Louijeune served as the senior counsel for the US. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s, D-Mass., 2020 presidential campaign. As a first-term councilor, Louijeune has helped the council pass a district map that met federal standards, according to a press release from her office. As chair of the Committee on Civil Rights and Immigrant Advancement, she pushed for equitable measures such as securing funds for fair housing testers, a municipal wage study and increased housing support for vulnerable populations. “One thing to know about me is that I unequivocally reject any zero-sum mentality that suggests that for one group to succeed, another must lose,” Louijeune said in a press release. What is her stance on housing issues? In a political forum hosted by Abundant Housing Massachusetts, Louijeune said she supported Boston’s Inclusionary Development Policy, a plan that helps create more affordable housing units, MassLive reported. Over the summer, Boston greenlighted a measure that required 17% of new units of residential developments with at least 10 units that require zoning relief to be affordable. The measure also calls for 3% of units to be dedicated toward Section 8 voucher holders, MassLive reported. But, the city councilor also said that she was worried that increasing the percentage of new units of residential developments could stymie housing development. “Twenty-five percent of zero is zero,” Louijeune said in October. “If you raise it to an [Inclusionary Development Policy] level where developers are not able to build and you get no housing production, not only do you not get any market housing production, you get no affordable housing production.” She also expressed her support for eliminating minimum parking requirements for residential developments where at least 60% of units are affordable, MassLive reported. Louijeune said that if Boston wants to eliminate parking minimums, it must first start by looking at the public transit system. “We’re not yet there to a place where we’re able to say car or Orange Line, you choose. I think that there’s families or people who aren’t able to make that decision because of a lack of reliability,” she said in October. “I want to get us to a place where we can remove all parking minimums. I don’t believe that we’re there.”

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Springfield leaders want better results from gang-fighting grant after record year of gun violence

SPRINGFIELD — The City Council recently accepted an annual crime-fighting grant, but with a record number of homicides occurring this past year, members said they are hoping for some changes in how the money is spent. This year, the city has received $1.24 million in a state Shannon Community Safety Initiative grant, which allows the Police Department to continue to work in partnership with the same 11 organizations it has for a number of years, as well as adding two more, said police Lt. Matthew Benoit, who administers the grant. The long-term grant provided by the state is designed to fight and prevent gang violence and can be used in five different ways, including providing opportunities for at-risk youth, social intervention and gang suppression. “I’m wondering if there is something we can change, so we have different outcomes,” City Councilor Zaida Govan said. The recipients vary from those who use the money directly on gang suppression, such as the police C3 units, to those who run youth programs, such as sports or job training to keep kids on the straight and narrow, Benoit said. This year, the two new recipients are COGIC Family Services, which provides things like after-school educational programs and summer camps, and ReGreen Springfield, which will provide enrichment programs to 60 at-risk youths that will connect them with nature, Benoit said. The only other new applicant this year was the Center for Human Development, which was rejected because it did not meet the parameters of gang prevention or suppression, Benoit said. Some of the other repeat partners include agencies such as the Salvation Army, New North Citizens’ Council, the YMCA, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services and the Boys and Girls Club, he said. City Councilor Tracye Whitfield called for more oversight of the programs and more transparency about the application process, saying the same people at City Hall should not be making the decisions on who should receive funding. “It is great we have programs, but in 2023 I would not call it a successful year,” she said. She called for the city to “take a deeper dive” to examine the programs to ensure they are effective in battling gun violence in the city. Benoit agreed that at least half the 31 homicides in the city this year were gang-related and agreed collaboration with city organizations is vital in preventing them. Partner agencies do have to submit reports twice a year, explaining how they are using evidence-based practices to try to prevent gang violence, but measuring results is difficult, he said. “It is a difficult matrix to track. How do you measure a negative?” Benoit asked, saying it is hard to determine whether a program saved a young person from joining a gang. City Councilor Victor Davila said he would like to see the practice of how partners are selected be clearer, more transparent and refined, if needed. He said he knows the police are doing their best to fight gun violence, but 31 homicides is eye-opening, especially since it tops the previous record of 22 set in two different years. “I don’t feel there is any groundbreaking change that is happening,” he said. “It takes the entire city, and we appear to be doing the same thing, and we are not getting anything back. We are not getting a safer city.”

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God Is Under the Rubble in Gaza: Bethlehems Subdued Christmas

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is finally taking the fight to the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump. After months of being pressed by voters to go harder, Mr. DeSantis accused Mr. Trump of not being “pro-life” during a nationally broadcast CNN town hall in Des Moines Thursday night. He pointed out that Mr. Trump had deported fewer undocumented immigrants than Barack Obama did in his presidency. And Mr. DeSantis suggested that Iowans, who will conduct the first voting in the Republican Party’s presidential nominating contest on Jan. 15, would do well to contrast his behavior with that of Mr. Trump. “You’re not going to have to worry about my conduct,” Mr. DeSantis told the audience. “I’ll conduct myself in a way you can be proud of. I’ll conduct myself in a way you can tell your kids: ‘That’s somebody you should emulate.’” Immediately after Mr. DeSantis’s hourlong town hall finished, another began for former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, also broadcast on CNN. For her, the evening seemed to go less smoothly. She was consistently placed on her back foot, defending herself over a string of recent gaffes and even receiving boos because of a joke she made a day earlier about the Iowa caucuses. At one point, she used an oft-derided cliché when talking about race, saying that she had “Black friends growing up.”

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War Brings Tensions, and Assault Rifles, Into an Israeli College

I read with great interest Michael Camerota’s letter to the editor dated Nov. 25 (“Trump Isn’t Bothering to Hide His Fascist Plans”). I couldn’t agree with him more. Being of German lineage (about seven or eight generations since coming to the USA), I have read “Mein Kampf.” I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Camerota on his thoughts and reasoning. My relatives fought against the Germans that foolishly followed the leaders of Germany during World War I (“the war to end all wars,” which proved to be false) and Hitler during World War II. I believe that Mr. Trump will take this country down a path that we may never come back from. I spent over 22 years in the military and it was drilled into me to salute the rank, not the person. I can say that I could never salute Mr. Trump, even if he was commander-in-chief. Also, I wish to comment on Dan Oleksak’s guest commentary of Nov. 30 (“It’s True: Westfield Is the ‘Best Field’”). I have written a few times to the editor, usually not agreeing with Mr. Oleksak. But I have to say that the commentary was right on and well written. Since it was not of political format, it was a great write-up about the greatness of Westfield.

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Tell us: Should Boston have a guaranteed basic income program?

Tell Us Tell us: Should Boston have a guaranteed basic income program? Boston officials proposed a program that would provide a temporary guaranteed income program for low-income residents. Mabell Acevedo participated in Cambridge’s RISE program, that gave her a monthly cash stipend, with no strings attached. (Photo by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff) Last week, Boston city councilors and officials from Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration held a hearing to discuss a guaranteed basic income pilot program for low-income Bostonians. Guaranteed income involves “routine cash payments that are often unconditional or with very limited conditions,” according to Elijah Miller, the director of policy for the city’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, who spoke at the hearing. “The goal is to get people the cash they need on a regular basis where it’s predictable, it’s reliable and allows people to improve their situations,” he said. The proposal is still in the early stages of consideration, but it would help the nearly one in five Boston residents who are living below the poverty line. Advertisement: Just under 19% of Boston residents are living in poverty, and the child poverty rate is 27.7%, according to Boston City Councilor Kendra Lara, who sponsored the hearing. Women between the ages of 18 and 24 are the largest demographic living in poverty in the city, and most of those living in poverty are people of color. “We know that poverty is a policy failure, as we have seen so many times, that requires a policy solution,” Lara said Wednesday. “I think that, as a council, and as a city, we have a responsibility to ensure that we’re taking care of our most vulnerable residents.” Similar programs have been piloted in two Greater Boston cities, and have shown promising results. In 2020, more than 2,200 households facing food insecurity in Chelsea were selected by lottery to receive $400 a month for nine months. Sixty-five percent of the funds were spent on food and the program “largely achieved its goals,” a 2022 report from the Harvard Kennedy School found. The city continued the program from January through March 2023. And in Cambridge, a pilot program sent direct payments of $500 to 130 single-parent, low-income families. The program, which started in 2021, continued in 2023 and is set to cover roughly 2,000 low-income families. Advertisement: “The program has been really successful so far. We’ve been hearing from other cities around Massachusetts asking for advice for starting their own program,” Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said at the hearing. However, the proposal has faced skepticism from local officials like City Council President Ed Flynn. Flynn said Boston needs “to ensure that we provide basic city services and public safety for our constituents,” and that the “city needs to prioritize paying better salaries for our city employees in order for us to find and maintain talent” before putting funding toward a guaranteed income program. “We would need significant funds for a universal basic income program. At this time, I don’t think we should experiment with the program,” he said. Meanwhile, Mayor Wu has expressed concern that the proposed pilot doesn’t go far enough. In appearances on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” and B87FM’s “Notorious in the Morning,” Wu questioned the need to run a pilot program at all, given the proven success of the Chelsea and Cambridge programs. “Of course, people use money on things that they need in their daily lives. We know that. We don’t need to test it anymore, we don’t need to pilot this or that,” Wu said on B87FM. Advertisement: “How do we get something that we can actually sustain and scale and touch everyone? For me, I want to make sure that’s actually infrastructure building rather than dropping in some resources which will be very, very helpful for those small groups of families who can access it but then evaporate because the pilot ends,” Wu said on WBUR’s “Radio Boston.” Proponents of the program said funding could come from philanthropic partners, nonprofits, and contributions from universities and medical facilities in Boston, though there are questions about how sustainable long-term funding would be. Should Boston have a guaranteed basic income program? Tell us by filling out the form or e-mailing us at [email protected], and your response may appear in a future Boston.com article.

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A snowstorm in Iowa is hindering Republicans campaign plans.

A storm that is forecast to dump close to a foot of snow in parts of Iowa on Monday and Tuesday is upending the campaigning plans of some candidates as they try to make the most of the last week before the Republican caucuses. Nikki Haley, who has been rising in the polls and is trying to establish herself over Ron DeSantis as the definitive alternative to former President Donald J. Trump, had to cancel an event in Sioux City on Monday because of “travel difficulties.” Mr. Trump’s campaign “indefinitely postponed” an event in Ottumwa for the same reason. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and his daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the state’s current governor and former White House press secretary, had been scheduled to appear on the former president’s behalf but couldn’t make it to Iowa because of the storm. The actress Roseanne Barr withdrew from a Trump campaign event scheduled for Tuesday, too. That event — in Boone, Iowa, about 40 miles north of Des Moines — will still be held, but with a far less prominent headliner, the former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker.

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A Timeline of Plots Against Sikh Activists, According to Canada and the U.S.

Federal prosecutors in the United States announced this week that they had charged an Indian national in a murder-for-hire scheme that targeted a Sikh activist in New York. The plot was foiled, they said, but it further complicated the delicate diplomatic relations between the United States, Canada and India. President Biden has sought to strengthen ties with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, amid rising tensions with China and a standoff with Russia. But prosecutors said the plan to kill the activist in New York was organized by an Indian government official — potentially disrupting the Biden administration’s outreach to India. The U.S. prosecutors also linked the plot to a murder in Canada last June. Relations between India and Canada had soured this fall after Canadian officials accused Indian government agents of the killing. Here is a timeline of the events as American and Canadian officials have laid them out. In or around May 2023 American prosecutors said that, around this time, an unnamed Indian government employee recruited Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, to orchestrate the assassination of a U.S. citizen, according to the indictment. The target of the plot described in court documents was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a vocal critic of the Indian government and the general counsel for Sikhs for Justice, which advocates the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India.

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Special Counsel Jack Smith calls on SCOTUS to rule on Trump immunity claim

Special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith's Monday filing seeks to go around an appeals court that had initially been expected to handle the case. A federal judge had earlier ruled that the prosecution could move forward, though Trump's legal team vowed to appeal the ruling. "This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin," prosecutors wrote in Monday's filing. Trump's trial in the election interference case is set to begin in March. TRUMP CALLS CLAIMS HE'S A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY A 'HOAX,' SAYS BIDEN IS THE REAL THREAT: 'I WILL SAVE DEMOCRACY' KEY ASPECTS OF TRUMP GAG ORDER UPHELD BY FEDERAL APPEALS COURT The Washington election interference case is one of four indictments to hit Trump over the past year. He also faces charges of mishandling classified documents arising from Florida, business fraud charges in New York, and more election interference charges in Georgia. Trump is already engaged in a civil fraud trial in New York City. He had been expected to testify personally in the trial, but he announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday, that he no longer plans to testify. "As everyone knows, I have very successfully & conclusively testified in the corrupt, Biden directed, New York state attorney general’s rigged trial against me. World renowned experts, highly respected bank & insurance executives, real estate professionals, as well as others, both honest & credible, have stated, clearly & unequivocally, that I, and my very successful company, did nothing wrong! My financial statements were conservative, liquid, & ‘extraordinary,’" Trump posted. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in damages and to bar Trump from conducting business in the state. The attorney general’s complaint accuses Trump, his sons and his company of fraudulently inflating the values of his properties to obtain more favorable loan and insurance rates. "Donald Trump already testified in our financial fraud case against him. Whether or not Trump testifies again tomorrow, we have already proven that he committed years of financial fraud and unjustly enriched himself and his family. No matter how much he tries to distract from reality, the facts don’t lie," James told Fox News on Sunday. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Court officials said proceedings will resume Tuesday as scheduled, and Eli Bartov, an accounting expert who Trump came to see testify last week, will resume the final part of his testimony. This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jacques Delors, Passionate Architect of European Unity, Dies at 98

Jacques Delors, a hard-driving French politician who as the European Union’s executive for a decade became the chief architect of a more unified Europe and the father of Europe’s common currency, the euro, died on Wednesday at his home in Paris. He was 98. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for his daughter, the French politician Martine Aubry. As president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, from 1985 through 1994, Mr. Delors maintained a nearly religious faith in the principle of a federal and communal Europe, even as the eurozone debt crisis, a contentious debate over migration and the essential question of whether rich northern countries would keep providing funds to their near bankrupt neighbors in southern Europe threatened to rip this vision apart. Despite such conflicts, Britain has been the only country to leave, which it did in 2020, and the union has grown to 27 countries, compared with 10 when Mr. Delors took the helm in 1985. Twenty of those countries use the euro, legal tender for about 350 million people. The philosophical heir to Jean Monnet, another steely French technocrat who laid the original groundwork for a federal Europe, Mr. Delors laid out a timeline for the euro in the so-called Delors report in 1989. The euro was formally adopted in 10 years later.

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Robert Card is dead': Maine governor announces manhunt for mass shooting suspect is over

"Robert Card is dead," Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Friday night, bringing to an end a tense 48-hour period for residents of the state. The governor confirmed what had been confirmed about an hour earlier -- that the man believed to be responsible for the deaths of 18 people had been found. He was reportedly found at 7:45 p.m. along the Androscoggin River at an undisclosed location in Lisbon Falls, about 10 miles from where Wednesday's shootings occurred. "Police have located the body of Robert Card in Lisbon," Mills said at a 10 p.m. press conference at Lewiston City Hall, in the city where she and her family once lived. "I've called President Biden to inform him," she said, along with members of the state's legislative delegation. She praised the hundreds of law enforcement officers who assisted in the tense, two-day search, expressing her "profound gratitude for their unwavering bravey and determination and fortitude." Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. "Like many people, I'm breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone. I know there are many people who share that sentiment, but I also know that his death may not bring solace to many. Now is a time to heal. And with this search concluded, I know that law enforcement continues to fully investigate all the facts so we can bring what closure we can to the victims and their families." Mills asked all Mainers to keep all of the families and others impacted by the shootings in their thoughts and prayers. "Lewiston is a special place. Lewiston is a great place. It's a close-knit community, people with a long history, a history of hard work, of persistence, of faith, of opening its big heart to everyone," she said. "Tonight, the city of Lewiston and the state of Maine begin to move forward on what will be a long and difficult road to healing. But we will heal together. Robert Card is dead." Few details about the discovery of the shooter's body were released at Friday night's press conference. Officials said they will have much more to say at a press conference at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning.

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The Senate Dress Code Gets a Casual Overhaul

In the tradition-bound halls of the Senate, customs die hard and rules can be next to impossible to change. But on Monday, with a potential government shutdown days away, a newly begun impeachment inquiry and lawmakers preparing for a visit this week from the president of Ukraine, a major change had the Capitol abuzz. For the first time in centuries, lawmakers are no longer expected to suit up to conduct business on the Senate floor. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, has established a new dress code — or rather, done away with the old one — allowing members to take a more business-casual approach to their workwear. The change, reported earlier by Axios, involved directing the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms — whose job, aside from directing security in the chamber, also entails enforcing outfit standards for all who enter it — that the previous policy that all senators must be clad in business attire when on the floor is no longer to be enforced.

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Remains of 5 U.S. crew members killed in Air Force crash off Japanese coast found

U.S. and Japanese divers have discovered wreckage and remains of five crew members from a U.S. Air Force Osprey aircraft that crashed last week off southwestern Japan, the Air Force announced Monday. The CV-22 Osprey carrying eight American personnel crashed last Wednesday off Yakushima island during a training mission. The body of one victim was recovered and identified earlier. The Air Force Special Operations Command said two of the five newly located remains have been recovered but their identities have yet to be determined. The joint U.S.-Japanese search operation is still working to recover the remains of three other crew members from the wreckage, it said. The search is continuing for the two people who are still missing, it said. “The main priority is bringing the Airmen home and taking care of their family members. Support to, and the privacy of, the families and loved ones impacted by this incident remains AFSOC’s top priority,” it said in a statement. The U.S. military identified the one confirmed victim as Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob Galliher, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday. Galliher, who was stationed in Japan, was a 2017 graduate of Taconic High School in Pittsfield, the city police department said in a statement Friday morning. He left behind his wife, 2-year-old and 7-week-old sons, and a loving family in Western Massachusetts. In a statement, Galliher’s family called him “an amazing father, son and brother dedicated to his family and friends.” “During this period of immense grief, we kindly ask for privacy and understanding as we navigate this unimaginable loss,” the family said. “Our thoughts and support are with the families of Jake’s fellow crew members who are dealing with this tragedy as well.” On Monday, divers from the Japanese navy and U.S. military spotted what appeared to be the front section of the Osprey, along with possibly five of the missing crew members, Japan’s NHK public television and other media reported. Japanese navy officials declined to confirm the reports, saying they could not release details without consent from the U.S. The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight. Ospreys have had a number of crashes, including in Japan, where they are used at U.S. and Japanese military bases, and the latest accident rekindled safety concerns. Japan has suspended all flights of its own fleet of 14 Ospreys. Japanese officials say they have asked the U.S. military to resume Osprey flights only after ensuring their safety. The Pentagon said no such formal request has been made and that the U.S. military is continuing to fly 24 MV-22s, the Marine version of Ospreys, deployed on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. On Sunday, pieces of wreckage that Japan’s coast guard and local fishing boats have collected were handed over to the U.S. military for examination, coast guard officials said. Japan’s military said debris it has collected would also be handed over to the U.S. Coast guard officials said the recovered pieces of wreckage include parts of the aircraft and an inflatable life raft but nothing related to the cause of the crash, such as an engine. Local witnesses reported seeing fire coming from one of the engines. Under the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, Japanese authorities are not given the right to seize or investigate U.S. military property unless the U.S. decides otherwise. That means it will be practically impossible for Japan to independently investigate the cause of the accident. The agreement has often made Japanese investigations difficult in criminal cases involving American service members on Okinawa and elsewhere. It has been criticized as unequal by rights activists and others, including Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, who has called for a revision.

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Israeli-American Thought to Be a Hostage Was Killed on Oct. 7, Her Family Says

Judih Weinstein Haggai, a 70-year-old who was believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas, was actually killed during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, her family and Kibbutz Nir Oz said in statements on Thursday. Ms. Haggai’s husband, Gadi Haggai, had also been listed as a hostage but the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum announced last week that he, too, was killed in the attacks. The forum said the couple were shot while on their morning walk through the fields of the kibbutz, and that Ms. Haggai had managed to inform friends that they had been injured, her husband critically so. Ms. Haggai was, in fact, fatally wounded, and her death has now been confirmed, Kibbutz Nir Oz said on Thursday. Its statement did not specify how it learned that she had died in the attack. The couple’s bodies are being held by Hamas, according to the kibbutz, their family and the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. The groups said the couple were citizens of both Israel and the United States, and that Ms. Haggai also had Canadian citizenship. President Biden said he and Jill Biden, the first lady, were holding the couple’s “four children, seven grandchildren and other loved ones close to our hearts.” “I will never forget what their daughter, and the family members of other Americans held hostage in Gaza, have shared with me,” he said in a statement. “They have been living through hell for weeks.” Ms. Haggai would be remembered “for the creative life she built with her husband,” her family said, adding that “their murders are a reminder for leaders everywhere to bring the hostages home now before it is too late.”

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California Faces $68 Billion Deficit Amid Steep Revenue Decline

California is facing a $68 billion budget deficit, the state’s nonpartisan fiscal analyst announced on Thursday, signaling a “serious” financial challenge for the Democratic-led government heading into an election year. The Legislative Analyst’s Office said a revenue decline this year “similar to those seen during the Great Recession and dot‑com bust” was largely responsible for the sobering projection. Absent a sudden turnaround, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature would face the state’s biggest budget challenge since the early 1990s, undercutting national messaging by the governor, who has depicted California’s emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic largely as an economic success. California has been in a downturn since 2022, and state finance officials had been warning of a darkening fiscal outlook, the report noted. But the state was late to recognize the full extent of the plummeting revenues because of a decision to delay its tax filing deadline until mid-November of this year to give residents leeway as they recovered from a series of catastrophic storms last winter. The state’s tax system is prone to wide swings because of a heavy reliance on the taxation of capital gains and the personal income of high earners. For those residents, a steep 2022 decline in the stock markets resulted in heavy losses, which translated into lower tax revenues in returns filed through last month.

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Opinion | America Must Face Up to Israels Extremism

Two far-right members of Israel’s cabinet — the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich — caused an international uproar this week with their calls to depopulate Gaza. “If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not two million the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different,” said Smotrich, who called for most Gazan civilians to be resettled in other countries. The war, said Ben-Gvir, presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” facilitating Israeli settlement in the region. The Biden administration has joined countries all over the world in condemning these naked endorsements of ethnic cleansing. But in doing so, it acted as if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s provocations are fundamentally at odds with the worldview of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom America continues to give unconditional backing. In a statement denouncing the ministers’ words as “inflammatory and irresponsible,” the State Department said, “We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the government of Israel, including by the prime minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government.” Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat who has called for a cease-fire, thanked the State Department in a social media post, saying, “It must be clear that America will not write a blank check for mass displacement.” But it’s not clear, because we’re writing a blank check to a government whose leader is only a bit more coy than Ben-Gvir and Smotrich about his intentions for Gaza. As Israeli news outlets have reported, Netanyahu said this week that the government is considering a “scenario of surrender and deportation” of residents of the Gaza Strip. (Some outlets reported that Netanyahu was referring only to Hamas leaders.) According to a Times of Israel article, “The ‘voluntary’ resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming a key official policy of the government, with a senior official saying that Israel has held talks with several countries for their potential absorption.”

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DeSantis PAC Makes Donations to Iowa Lawmakers Who Endorsed Him

A political action committee controlled by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida donated tens of thousands of dollars to Iowa legislators who have endorsed his candidacy for president, according to state campaign finance records. The group, called Great American Comeback, gave a total of $92,500 to 14 legislators between October and December — all of whom had earlier endorsed Mr. DeSantis, the records show. That figure includes $15,000 each to two of Mr. DeSantis’s most prominent legislative endorsers, Amy Sinclair, the Iowa State Senate president, and Matt Windschitl, the Iowa House majority leader. Groups like Great American Comeback — known as leadership committees — are frequently used by candidates to support their allies. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis, has also hosted fund-raisers for Iowa legislators who endorsed him.

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A Sweeping Climate Deal, and a U.N. Gaza Cease-Fire Vote

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about five minutes.

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R.I. plans to place small shelters for homeless individuals behind Foxy Lady strip club in Providence

The Department of Housing will construct a “village” of 45 small, one-room structures on a vacant plot of state-owned land on Victor Street behind the strip club. The one-room structures were ordered from Pallet , a public benefit corporation working to end unsheltered homelessness. PROVIDENCE — The R.I. Department of Housing will place temporary shelters for homeless individuals and couples on a state-owned plot of land behind the Foxy Lady strip club in Providence, the department announced Thursday. “We’re pleased that the development of this pallet community is moving forward. ECHO Village will offer both shelter and supports to individuals who are currently experiencing homelessness,” said Secretary of Housing Stefan Pryor. “This initiative reflects our dedication to fostering well-being, dignity, and opportunity for vulnerable Rhode Islanders.” Advertisement The pallet shelters are single-occupancy units, but couples will be allowed to stay in them if they are in separate beds. Pets will also be allowed. Sources said House of Hope, a nonprofit organization, will provide around-the-clock services on-site. Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up The state has ordered the pallet shelters, and they are expected to arrive by the end of the month. Some site work will be necessary, such as utility hookups. The pallet village will take up less than one acre of open field the four-acre property, which is owned by the Department of Transportation. Each unit will be 70 square feet, with screened windows, fire extinguishers, smoke and CO2 detectors, electrical outlets, and heating and cooling units. The idea to use of temporary, rapidly deployable pallet shelters to provide emergency winter housing has been in the works for the last several winters, but the state has been unable to identify a suitable location until now. In October, Pryor confirmed to the Globe that he was in “active discussions” with more than one city in Rhode Island, but that negotiations were at a “high level.” Advertisement As the pandemic began in 2020, House of Hope executive director Laura Jaworski suggested using pallet shelters in a plan she called “Echo Village.” While pallet shelters are new to Rhode Island, they have been used in other parts of New England, including like Boston and Burlington, Vt. In October 2022, advocates called on Rhode Island to place 30 of these tiny homes at the Pastore Complex in Cranston, but the idea faced opposition from the city’s council members. Crews from Pallet move new pods into a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Craig Mitchelldyer/Associated Press As the housing crisis gets worse, homeless encampments have been popping up across the state in highly visible and public places — underneath highway bridges, in downtown parking lots, and even in front of the State House in the last year alone. Community frustration tends to fester over homeless encampments, even as Rhode Island’s housing crisis continues, with a shortage of affordable units and people getting priced out of the housing market. In most cases, encampments that are visible to the public have been dismantled, forcing service providers to quickly identify shelters that could take individuals in, or figure out a makeshift housing solution. Shelters in Rhode Island are consistently at maximum capacity, and unlike neighboring Massachusetts, Rhode Island has no “right-to-shelter” law requiring the state to provide housing for people who qualify. Many who are forced to leave an encampment have no choice but to set up tents somewhere else — or sleep in their cars or in other places not meant for human habitation. Advertisement The state’s approach to clearing encampments of homeless people has been previously challenged in court. Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.

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Harvards Governing Board Nears Resolution on Presidents Future

Harvard’s governing board on Monday was nearing a resolution that would allow its president, Claudine Gay, to remain in her job, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. But those discussions were ongoing as of late Monday night. An announcement was expected on Tuesday. Harvard’s board has said nothing about Dr. Gay’s future or the festering controversy which began nearly a week ago over the way she equivocated when answering questions about antisemitism on campus in a congressional hearing. Dr. Gay’s testimony plunged the Harvard community deeper into one of its biggest crises in years. The dilemma over the future of Dr. Gay — the university’s first Black president — is fraught, forcing the school to reckon with difficult questions of race, religion and tolerance. On and off campus, the debate over whether Dr. Gay was fit to continue leading the university raged. Groups of donors, alumni and students ratcheted up a pressure campaign to oust Dr. Gay as her supporters banded together to try to save her job. About 700 members of Harvard’s faculty, in addition to hundreds more alumni, came to her defense in several open letters.

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Husband of Israeli-American woman with CT ties who was released by Hamas was killed in October attack: official

A day after a woman who has family in Connecticut was released by Hamas in an exchange of prisoners, officials said her husband was killed during the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. Liat Beinin was released on Wednesday after being kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in October. She is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen with family in Waterford, Connecticut, according to the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut. On Thursday, Congressman Joe Courtney released a statement saying that Beinin’s husband, Aviv Atzili, was killed in the attack. “Today’s news that Liat Beinin’s husband, Aviv Atzili, was killed by Hamas attackers at the Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 is heartbreaking and infuriating. The willful inability of Hamas to account for its despicable assault left Aviv’s family totally in the dark about his whereabouts over the last seven weeks. The relief Liat and her family in Israel and Connecticut experienced upon her release is now buried in grief. As Liat’s father powerfully stated, ‘Revenge, anger – certainly not religious fanaticism—are not parts of a viable agenda to end this nonsense in the Middle East. This can’t go on like this,’” Courtney said in a statement. Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters. Courtney said Beinin's family members are active in the eastern Connecticut Jewish community. The Associated Press reports that Liat is an Israeli-American teacher who volunteered to give tours at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center, certain that she could reach visitors with her positive attitude and flawless English. Aviv was an artist and mechanic who kept the farm machinery at Kibbutz Nir Oz in tip-top shape and used old equipment as a canvas for his paintings, the AP reports. Liat and Aviv, both 49, met as youth counselors. After completing their military service, they traveled for three years, visiting India and Australia, where they married. Returning to Israel, they settled at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where they raised three children.

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Springfield leaders want better results from gang-fighting grant after record year of gun violence

SPRINGFIELD — The City Council recently accepted an annual crime-fighting grant, but with a record number of homicides occurring this past year, members said they are hoping for some changes in how the money is spent. This year, the city has received $1.24 million in a state Shannon Community Safety Initiative grant, which allows the Police Department to continue to work in partnership with the same 11 organizations it has for a number of years, as well as adding two more, said police Lt. Matthew Benoit, who administers the grant. The long-term grant provided by the state is designed to fight and prevent gang violence and can be used in five different ways, including providing opportunities for at-risk youth, social intervention and gang suppression. “I’m wondering if there is something we can change, so we have different outcomes,” City Councilor Zaida Govan said. The recipients vary from those who use the money directly on gang suppression, such as the police C3 units, to those who run youth programs, such as sports or job training to keep kids on the straight and narrow, Benoit said. This year, the two new recipients are COGIC Family Services, which provides things like after-school educational programs and summer camps, and ReGreen Springfield, which will provide enrichment programs to 60 at-risk youths that will connect them with nature, Benoit said. The only other new applicant this year was the Center for Human Development, which was rejected because it did not meet the parameters of gang prevention or suppression, Benoit said. Some of the other repeat partners include agencies such as the Salvation Army, New North Citizens’ Council, the YMCA, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services and the Boys and Girls Club, he said. City Councilor Tracye Whitfield called for more oversight of the programs and more transparency about the application process, saying the same people at City Hall should not be making the decisions on who should receive funding. “It is great we have programs, but in 2023 I would not call it a successful year,” she said. She called for the city to “take a deeper dive” to examine the programs to ensure they are effective in battling gun violence in the city. Benoit agreed that at least half the 31 homicides in the city this year were gang-related and agreed collaboration with city organizations is vital in preventing them. Partner agencies do have to submit reports twice a year, explaining how they are using evidence-based practices to try to prevent gang violence, but measuring results is difficult, he said. “It is a difficult matrix to track. How do you measure a negative?” Benoit asked, saying it is hard to determine whether a program saved a young person from joining a gang. City Councilor Victor Davila said he would like to see the practice of how partners are selected be clearer, more transparent and refined, if needed. He said he knows the police are doing their best to fight gun violence, but 31 homicides is eye-opening, especially since it tops the previous record of 22 set in two different years. “I don’t feel there is any groundbreaking change that is happening,” he said. “It takes the entire city, and we appear to be doing the same thing, and we are not getting anything back. We are not getting a safer city.”

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Boston Mayor Condemns Shooting at Parade

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is condemning a shooting that injured seven people during a parade Saturday morning. The mayor said it had absolutely nothing to do with what she called a treasured community event. The shooting happened around 7:45 a.m. during the Jouvert [[ zhu-vair ]] Parade, which is part of the city’s Caribbean-American Carnival. Police say the victims were taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries and two people are under arrest.

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Israelis Worry a Blow Against Hamas May Bring Blowback

A day after a blast killed a senior Hamas leader outside Beirut, Lebanon, many Israelis welcomed the assassination as an important step in the campaign to destroy the militant group, but worried it might carry costs. Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition in Israel, in particular, cheered the attack. “All those involved in the October massacre should know we’ll get to them, and we’ll settle the score,” declared Danny Danon, a member of Parliament from the Likud party. But some analysts said the killing of the Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri, was likely to disrupt any negotiations over freeing more hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 — which would be another setback for Israeli families waiting desperately for their relatives to come home. The assassination also prompted fears of a wider war in the Middle East and of retaliatory attacks in Israel.

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Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future.

Politics Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being thrust into the middle of two cases carrying enormous political implications just weeks before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses. Former President Donald Trump speaks during a commit to caucus rally, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023, in Waterloo, Iowa. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump touts his transformation of the U.S. Supreme Court as one of his presidency’s greatest accomplishments. Now his legal and political future may lie in the hands of the court he pushed to the right. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being thrust into the middle of two cases carrying enormous political implications just weeks before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses. The outcomes of the legal fights could dictate whether the Republican presidential primary front-runner stands trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and whether he has a shot to retake to the White House next November. Advertisement: “The Supreme Court now is really in a sticky wicket, of historical proportions, of constitutional dimensions, to a degree that I don’t think we’ve ever really seen before,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Trump’s lawyers plan to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a decision Tuesday barring him from Colorado’s ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from holding office. The Colorado Supreme Court ruling is the first time in history the provision has been used to try to prohibit someone from running for the presidency. “It’s a political mess the Supreme Court may have a hard time avoiding,” said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor. It comes as the justices are separately weighing a request from special counsel Jack Smith to take up and rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Prosecutors are hoping the justices will act swiftly to answer whether Trump is immune from prosecution in order to prevent delays that could push the trial — currently scheduled to begin on March 4 — until after next year’s presidential election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case. Advertisement: The three justices appointed by Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were among more than 230 federal judges installed under Trump as part of a GOP push to transform the ideological leanings of the bench. His impact on the high court has been seen in rulings rescinding the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, setting new standards for evaluating guns laws and striking down affirmative action in college admissions. “This is a court that is already a lightning rod in our contemporary political discourse. A court that is viewed quite skeptically by a large swath of the American electorate,” Vladeck said. But he added, “It’s also a court that has not bent over backwards for Trump.” For example, in January 2022, the high court rebuffed Trump’s attempt to withhold presidential documents sought by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The justices also allowed Trump’s tax returns to be handed over to a congressional committee after his refusal to release them touched off a yearslong legal fight. The Supreme Court was also thrust into the middle of a presidential election more than 20 years ago, in the razor-thin contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush. In 2000, the justices ruled 5-4 to stop a state court-ordered recount of the vote in Florida, a ruling that effectively settled the election in favor of Bush since neither candidate could muster an Electoral College majority without Florida. Advertisement: But that case came after the votes were cast. And in 2023, “the general political instability in the United States makes the situation now much more precarious,” wrote Rick Hasen, an election-law expert and professor at the UCLA School of Law, on the Election Law Blog. It’s far from certain that the Supreme Court will decide now to take up Trump’s immunity claims in the election interference case, which were rejected by the trial court judge in a ruling that declared the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.” Smith is asking the Supreme Court to bypass the federal appeals court in Washington, which has expedited its own review of the decision. So the Supreme Court may wait to get involved until after the appeals court judges hear the case. Trump’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday not to intervene before the appeals court rules, writing that the case “presents momentous, historic questions” that require careful consideration. The Colorado Supreme Court put its decision on hold until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots. Mario Nicolais, one of the Colorado attorneys on the case, said the “Supreme Court can move just as fast as it wants, and if they want to hear this before Jan. 5 they can.” It’s possible the high court will try to dodge the issue and not decide the merits of the Colorado case. Gerhardt said the justices may say that the matter is left to the states or Congress. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says: “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House” undo the disqualification of someone found to have “engaged in insurrection.” Advertisement: “It would be like kicking the hornet’s nest for the court to get into the merits of this,” Gerhardt said. “It’s a political hot potato. And the court generally tries to avoid taking on sort of hot-button issues that are political by nature … And the easier route for the court is to just say ‘somebody else has got the responsibility, not us.’” But the Supreme Court may feel compelled to answer the issues at the heart of the case now. “There’ll be a lot of political instability if we go through a whole election season not knowing if one of two major candidates is disqualified from serving,” Hasen said. “It’s hard to fathom the kind of world we’re living in, where not only a serious candidate, but a leading candidate, of one of the political parties is in so much legal jeopardy.” Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporters Nicholas Riccardi and Brittany Peterson in Denver contributed.

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Antihero Worship

The Emmy Awards are on Monday, after being postponed four months because of Hollywood’s labor disputes. I’m tuning in to see the actors and creators of “The White Lotus” and “Succession” walk the red carpet in fancy dress, after which they will, with any luck, make some witty or inspiring speeches when they win their awards. These are two shows that I loved obsessively while they were on, and mourned ridiculously when they were over. One of the most common criticisms I’ve heard from those who can’t stomach these shows is that they’re devoid of likable characters. The navel-gazing vacationers of “The White Lotus,” the scheming Roy family — these people are self-centered, they’re cruel, they’re hardly the type of people you’d choose to spend time with in real life, the complaint goes. Yet if you’re looking for friends, the other nominated shows offer few options. In fact, unless you’re looking to befriend complicated, dangerous men, you’re out of luck. We’ve got “Barry,” (a hit man trying to exit his sordid metier); “Dahmer,” (a biopic on the serial killer); “The Old Man,” (a former C.I.A. operative with a dirty past); “Better Call Saul” (a crooked lawyer connected to a drug cartel); “Shrinking” (an ethically diminished therapist); and “Ted Lasso” (a criminally nice soccer coach). OK, maybe the last one isn’t so bad, but you get the idea. Ethically compromised, if not psychopathic, company abounds.

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Polish Truckers Lift Border Blockade With Ukraine

Polish truckers have lifted their blockade of checkpoints on the border with Ukraine after reaching an agreement with their government, putting an end for now to a two-month protest that has delayed tons of goods from reaching Europe and strained the Ukrainian economy. Under the agreement, reached on Tuesday afternoon, the truckers will suspend the blockade while they hold further talks with the Polish government to reach a final deal by March 1. A few hours later, Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service announced that traffic had resumed at the three border crossings that remained blocked. A free flow of goods “is vital in times of war, especially for the supply of the military and humanitarian goods, for exports and for the functioning of our economy,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said in a statement welcoming the agreement. Since the war began in 2022, Ukraine has mainly used overland routes for its exports because of Russia’s attempt to blockade the Black Sea. But Polish truckers have complained about what they see as unfair and cheap competition from their Ukrainian counterparts, threatening their own profits. Starting in early November, they blocked several checkpoints, forcing thousands of Ukrainian trucks to wait for days at the border.

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African Migration to the U.S. Soars as Europe Cracks Down

The young men from Guinea had decided it was time to leave their impoverished homeland in West Africa. But instead of seeking a new life in Europe, where so many African migrants have settled, they set out for what has become a far safer bet of late: the United States. “Getting into the United States is certain compared to European countries, and so I came,” said Sekuba Keita, 30, who was at a migrant center in San Diego on a recent afternoon after an odyssey that took him by plane to Turkey, Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua, then by land to the Mexico-U.S. border. Mr. Keita, who spoke in French, was at a cellphone charging station at the center among dozens more Africans, from Angola, Mauritania, Senegal and elsewhere, who had made the same calculus. While migrants from African nations still represent a small share of the people crossing the southern border, their numbers have been surging, as smuggling networks in the Americas open new markets and capitalize on intensifying anti-immigrant sentiment in some corners of Europe.

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The Biden Economy Is Doing Fine - The New York Times

Ten finance guys are drinking in a bar. Nine of them are Masters of the Universe — wheeler-dealers who make many millions of dollars every year. The tenth is what Gordon Gekko, in the movie “Wall Street,” called a “$400,000-a-year working Wall Street stiff.” Then the stiff leaves for a while, maybe to answer a call of nature. When he leaves, the average income of the guys still in the bar shoots up, because he’s no longer dragging that average down; when he comes back, the average drops again. But these fluctuations in the average don’t reflect changes in anyone’s income. Why am I telling you this story? Because it’s most of the story of wages in the U.S. economy since Covid-19 struck. In 2020 the average wage of workers who still had a job shot up, because those who were laid off were disproportionately low-wage service workers. Then, as people resumed in-person shopping, started going to restaurants and so on, growth in average wages was held down because those low-wage workers were being rehired. You need to look through these “compositional effects” to figure out what was really happening to earnings as that played out.

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Opinion | The Persecution of Harvards Claudine Gay

Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard who announced her resignation on Tuesday after her problematic congressional testimony about antisemitism and mounting questions about missing citations and quotation marks in her published work, was, in part, pushed out by political forces beyond academia and hostile to it. But the campaign against her was never truly about her testimony or accusations of plagiarism. It was a political attack on a symbol. It was a campaign of abrogation. It was and is a project of displacement and defilement meant to reverse progress and shame the proponents of that progress. As Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., posted online, “The project isn’t to thwart hate but to foment it thru vicious takedowns.” When Gay and the presidents of M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania botched their responses before Congress, some on the political right sensed a weakness, and it quickened them. This was their chance not only to burn a witch but to torch a coven.

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New Boston Police Contract Will Let Civilians Direct Traffic at Some Construction Sites

StreetsblogMASS relies on the generous support of readers like you. Help us meet our year-end fundraising goals – give today! Last week, the labor union that represents most Boston police officers ratified a new contract that will introduce a number of reforms – including one that will start allowing civilians to take unwanted traffic detail shifts at construction sites. Under the former contract, Boston Police officers were the only people allowed to direct traffic for events and at construction sites. And they got paid extremely handsomely to do so: Boston police working as flaggers take home $60 an hour. In spite of that lucrative pay, Boston has a lot of construction sites, and fewer and fewer people who want to wear a police uniform. Boston City Councilor Kendra Lara told StreetsblogMASS earlier this year that over 40 percent of requests for police details at construction sites were going unfilled. The new labor contract removes a key barrier to reforming this system. But there is still a city ordinance on the books that requires at least one Boston Police officer at every city construction site "to protect the safety and general welfare of the public and to preserve the free circulation of traffic." A press spokesperson for Mayor Michelle Wu told StreetsblogMASS last week that their office is aware of the ordinance and has "identified multiple legal paths to implementing the new collective bargaining agreement." Old rules created absurd delays for street projects Councilor Lara also told StreetsblogMASS that many privately-run construction sites will simply ignore the law and do their work without a flagger if nobody responds to their requests for a detail. But construction firms who are sticklers for the rules can end up waiting months before a cop shows up to let them get their work done. That's what happened earlier this year in Oak Square, where the MBTA waited a full year for a police detail to show up so that they could paint some new crosswalks on Washington Street in Oak Square. Neighbors report that those crosswalks finally got painted in August – after a year-long wait. New contract hikes pay, allows civilian flaggers For all these reasons, allowing civilian flaggers at construction sites had been one of the city's key points of negotiation for a new collective bargaining agreement with its police union. Police details will still be required at "high-priority" events and construction sites, which involve major streets, busy intersections, or major events that anticipate over 5,000 attendees. The new contract would also pay cops who work those high-priority details "the highest overtime rate of the most senior officer." At other worksites, such as those along quiet neighborhood streets, Boston Police would still get the right of first refusal to fill traffic details. But if no Boston Police are interested, the work can be offered to other non-BPD certified officers, including campus police and retired Boston cops. If people with those qualifications still aren't interested, construction contractors can then offer the job to civilian workers. The agreement further specifies that anyone directing traffic in those lower-priority sites will earn $60 per hour. The new agreement will also ban cops from double-booking their shifts, which allowed some to get paid twice for the same period of time when one detail ended early. Incredibly, the police department is still using a labor-intensive paper-based system to assign details in each police district. The new agreement will allow for a citywide electronic scheduling system.

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This Years Iowa Caucuses are Ice-Cold

It’s the Friday before Caucus Day, and in any other year, Iowa would be humming: candidates racing across the state, answering questions in living rooms, coffee shops and high school gyms. Last-minute get-out-the-vote speeches. Volunteers knocking on doors and handing out leaflets on street corners and in shopping malls. Not this year. Iowa was shut down today, under the threat of a worst-in-a-decade forecast of blinding blizzards and bitter cold. The high temperatures of zero predicted earlier this week now seem positively toasty, compared with what is promised for the days and nights ahead. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, soldiered out for one event Friday morning before throwing in the shovel, so to speak. Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, scratched her in-person schedule, moving the campaign from living rooms to Zoom. Donald Trump is due here on Saturday; stay tuned. “This is about the worst weather I remember for the Iowa caucuses,” said Gordon Fischer, a former Democratic Party state leader, who has lived in Iowa for 40 years.

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DHS and Mass. to host work authorization clinics for migrants in emergency shelters - Boston News, Weather, Sports

BOSTON (WHDH) - State officials next month plan to host a clinic to help migrants living in emergency shelters obtain work authorizations, and the White House said the federal-state joint effort is a sign that it is responding to the calls from Bay State Democrats for help from D.C. In a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration plans to host the work authorization clinic for migrants during the week of Nov. 13. Federal officials will be onsite to collect and process work authorization paperwork. The administration announced Monday morning that the state plans to organize appointments and provide transportation from shelter sites to the clinic, which will take place somewhere in Middlesex County. “We are glad that the Biden-Harris Administration is hosting this clinic with us, which will help process work authorizations as efficiently as possible. Many shelter residents want to work but face significant barriers to getting their work authorizations,” Gov. Healey said in a statement. “This clinic will be critical for building on the work that our administration has already been leading to connect more migrants with work opportunities, which will help them support their families and move out of emergency shelter into more stable housing options.” Paul Belham, owner of Bell’s Powder Coating in North Attleborough, recently told North TV that he is trying to hire as many of the migrants living in town as he can because finding labor is incredibly difficult. “I want to put 10 more on, but we’re waiting for the government to get the working papers. And that is the slowest process I’ve ever seen,” he said earlier in October. “And not only that, with Washington not having a speaker, they can’t vote on a bill to expedite these things. So they’re going to be sitting in hotels forever until Congress or whatever you want to call it in D.C. gets off their ass and fixes it, you know? I can’t blame the state because the state really has nothing to do with it.” The work authorization clinic is part of a multi-pronged initiative to move more families out of state shelters as the emergency assistance system nears the 7,500-family limit that Healey has set. After that point, which the governor said she expects to come around Nov. 1, unhoused families may not be guaranteed shelter in Massachusetts. On Friday, Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of three families the organization said are “on the brink of homelessness.” The suit seeks an emergency court hearing and a temporary restraining order to stop the state from “undermining” its right-to-shelter law, the group said. Healey declared a state of emergency around the emergency assistance shelter system situation in August and announced Oct. 16 that the state’s system was reaching capacity. Since August, the governor has been calling on the Biden administration to expedite the work authorization process for new arrivals to the country and to help states like Massachusetts pay for the additional costs of sheltering the influx of people fleeing other countries. The Department of Homeland Security sent a team of experts to Massachusetts earlier in October to assess the migrant situation, but state officials including Healey have said they don’t expect the federal government will actually come to the rescue of Massachusetts. “I know the cavalry isn’t on the other side of the hill,” House Speaker Ron Mariano said this month. In a statement Monday morning, a White House official said the work authorization clinic in Massachusetts is a mark of “continued support” of Massachusetts. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting local jurisdictions hosting recently arrived migrants and we will continue working with our partners in Massachusetts in the coming weeks and months,” Biden spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said. “Just this month, President Biden submitted supplemental funding requests to Congress which address a series of national priorities, including grant funding for jurisdictions hosting migrants and funding for accelerating the processing of work permits for eligible migrants.” The White House said that United States Citizenship and Immigration Services will put additional personnel to work and make process improvements as part of an effort to decrease the median processing time for work authorization paperwork from 90 days to 30 days for applicants who made an appointment on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile app and are, unlike asylum seekers, eligible for to work immediately. The feds said they will also strive to cut processing times for applications associated with Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan applicants to 30 days. The White House added that it will stay in close contact with Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and their teams to coordinate on best practices and potentially more federal support in the coming weeks and months. (Copyright (c) 2023 State House News Service.

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Defying Unrest, Israel Adopts Law Weakening Supreme Court

On a day of turbulence in the streets and in the halls of power alike, Israeli lawmakers on Monday enacted a major change in law to weaken the judiciary, capping a monthslong campaign by the right-wing governing coalition that is pitting Israelis against one another with rare ferocity. Throngs of protesters outside the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, and opposition lawmakers inside shouted that the change was a grievous blow to the rule of law, to the rights of citizens and to democracy itself. Coalition members countered that it was the judiciary that posed a threat to democracy, and said that they planned to take further steps to curb it. The fight over the law, which has prompted the most widespread demonstrations in the country’s history, reflects a deeper split between those who want a more explicitly Jewish and religious Israel, and those who want to preserve a more secular, pluralist society. The measure strips Israel’s Supreme Court of the power to overturn government actions and appointments it deems “unreasonable,” a practice that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition says has effectively given the court veto power over the will of the majority. Still on the coalition’s agenda are plans to give the government more power over the selection of Supreme Court justices, among other changes.

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Bondis Island workers say theyre doing public works construction, deserve more money under prevailing wage law

SPRINGFIELD — Workers who replace and maintain equipment for the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission — including bridges over the wastewater tanks at Bondi’s Island in Agawam — say they are doing construction on a public works project and deserve more money under the state’s prevailing wage law. Their employer — Veolia Water Contract Operations USA Inc., which has a deal with the commission lasting until 2040 — argues that the prevailing wage law does not apply because its contract was awarded for expertise, not as lowest bidder; Veolia maintains that the law was meant for the latter, to combat wage shaving. The employer cites a Supreme Judicial Court ruling from 2023. This is according to sets of motions for summary judgment filed by both parties in late December, as the 2021 case winds its way through U.S. District Court in Springfield.

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Biden Administration Announces Rule to Cut Millions of Tons of Methane Emissions

House Republicans said Wednesday they were investigating whether President Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s decision to defy a congressional subpoena in their latest attempt to link the White House to accusations against the president’s son. The chairmen of the Oversight and Judiciary Committees wrote a letter to Ed Siskel, the White House counsel, demanding all documents and communications between the president’s office and Hunter Biden, his legal team and Kevin Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer who is friends with the president’s son. At issue are the events of Dec. 13 when Hunter Biden appeared on Capitol Hill, but not to sit for a closed-door deposition as Republicans demanded. Instead, he held a news conference to denounce the Republicans’ investigation into him and his father, and insisted on testifying only in public, suggesting Republicans would twist his words with selective leaks. The younger Mr. Biden is under federal indictment and facing accusations of tax crimes related to his overseas business interests, including with companies and partners in Ukraine and China. At the news conference, he acknowledged his personal failings, described in scandalous detail in the indictment, but said they had nothing to do with his father.

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Commentary on false flags missed recent trickery from right wingers (Letter)

A Dec. 26 guest commentary in The Westfield News argues correctly that there have been many wars and events in American history whose justification or causes were not explained honestly by the media or political leaders of the time (“False Flags, Trickery Abound in Annals of American History”). Some of the commentary’s examples — Paul Revere’s propagandistic, anti-British engraving of the Boston Massacre, the anti-Spanish yellow journalism following the sinking of the USS Maine that led to the Spanish-American War, and the somewhat fabricated account of the Gulf of Tonkin torpedo attack that led to escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam — correctly illustrate the dishonesty and propaganda used to garner support for the war to follow. However, the writer’s examples from contemporary history are less convincing. Concerning the battle to confront climate change, he argues that supposedly big-mouthed climate crusaders such as John Kerry, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg are themselves the greatest profiteers from climate change initiatives. Well, in truth, it’s quite apparent that it is the oil, natural gas, and coal industries that have been the greatest profiteers from their near-monopoly on energy production for the past 200 years. They have a vested financial interest in trying to convince Americans that climate change is a hoax, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

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Mass. House, Senate say they have reached a deal on supplemental budget

The Massachusetts House and Senate say they have reached a deal on a supplemental budget that is expected to provide additional funding for the state's overtaxed shelter system, among other things. Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, and Sen. Michael J. Rodrigues, chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, announced the agreement in a joint statement Thursday morning. “On behalf of our fellow conferees, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve reached an agreement on the supplemental budget to close the books on Fiscal Year 2023," they said. "Our respective staffs are actively working to finalize remaining details and complete the work required to file a Conference Committee report. We anticipate a report being filed in the coming hours to ensure that the House and Senate can act on the report promptly and send it to the Governor.” More to come.

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Harvard Clears Its President of Research Misconduct After Plagiarism Charges

The battle over the fate of Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, took an unexpected turn this week, as accusations of plagiarism in her scholarly work surfaced, along with questions about how the university had handled them. On Tuesday, the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, announced that Dr. Gay would keep her job, despite the uproar over her statements on campus antisemitism at a congressional hearing. But the Corporation also revealed that it had conducted a review of her published work after receiving accusations in October about three of her articles. The Corporation said that while the review found that she had not violated the university’s standards for “research misconduct,” it did discover “a few instances of inadequate citation.” Dr. Gay would request “four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications,” the statement said. The accusations were first widely publicized on Sunday, in a newsletter by the conservative education activist Christopher Rufo. On Monday, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet, published its own investigation, identifying what it said were issues with four papers published between 1993 and 2017. The article said the papers had paraphrased or quoted nearly 20 authors without proper attribution.

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Israeli media say Hamas has released 13 Israeli hostages

Hamas released the first batch of hostages under a cease-fire deal that began Friday, including 13 Israelis who have been held in the Gaza Strip since the militant group staged a raid on Israel nearly seven weeks ago, according to officials and media reports. Twelve Thai nationals were also released, according to Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. An Israeli official confirmed that the Thai captives left Gaza and were en route to a hospital in Israel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the releases with the media. In all, 50 captives had been expected to be freed during a four-day truce. It was not clear if the Thai hostages were included in that. Israel is set to release 150 Palestinians under the deal. Thirty-nine — 24 women, including some convicted of attempted murder for attacks on Israeli forces, and 15 teenagers jailed for offenses like throwing stones — were expected to be freed Friday, Palestinian authorities said. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. Israeli media, citing security officials, said 13 Israelis had been freed. The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began Friday, allowing sorely needed aid to start flowing into Gaza and setting the stage for the exchange. There were no reports of fighting after the truce began. The deal offered some relief for Gaza's 2.3 million people, who have endured weeks of Israeli bombardment and dwindling supplies of basic necessities, as well as for families in Israel worried about loved ones taken captive during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the war. The truce raised hopes of eventually winding down the conflict, which has flattened vast swaths of Gaza, fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East. Israel, however, has said it is determined to resume its massive offensive once the cease-fire ends. On Friday, it brought quiet after weeks in which Gaza saw heavy bombardment and artillery fire daily as well as street fighting as ground troops advanced through neighborhoods in the north. The last report of air raid sirens in Israeli towns near the territory came shortly after the truce took effect. Not long after, four tankers with fuel and four with cooking gas entered the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Israel said. Israel has agreed to allow the delivery of 130,000 liters (34,340 gallons) of fuel per day during the truce — still only a small portion of Gaza’s estimated daily needs of more than 1 million liters. For most of the past seven weeks of war, Israel had barred the entry of fuel to Gaza, claiming it could be used by Hamas for military purposes — though it has occasionally allowed small amounts in. U.N. aid agencies pushed back against the claim, saying fuel deliveries were closely supervised and urgently needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe since fuel is required to run generators that power water treatment facilities, hospitals and other critical infrastructure. The Israeli military dropped leaflets over southern Gaza, warning hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who sought refuge there not to return to their homes in the territory's north, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. Even though Israel warned that it would block such attempts, hundreds of Palestinians could be seen walking north Friday. Two were shot and killed by Israeli troops and another 11 were wounded. An Associated Press journalist saw the two bodies and the wounded as they arrived at a hospital. Sofian Abu Amer, who had fled Gaza City, said he decided to risk heading north to check on his home. “We don’t have enough clothes, food and drinks,” he said. ”The situation is disastrous. It’s better for a person to die." During the cease-fire, Gaza’s ruling Hamas group pledged to free at least 50 of the about 240 hostages it and other militants took on Oct. 7. Hamas said Israel would free 150 Palestinian prisoners. Both sides agreed to release women and children first, in stages starting Friday. Israel said the deal calls for the truce to be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed. Early in the day, ambulances were seen arriving at the Hatzerim air base in southern Israel, preparing for the release. Those freed will then be taken to hospitals for assessment and treatment, Israeli officials said. Among the Israeli citizens freed some have a second nationality, according to a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details with the media. Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 prisoners eligible for release, mainly teenagers detained over the past year for rock-throwing and other minor offenses. Three Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released for every hostage freed. The hope is that “momentum” from the deal will lead to an “end to this violence,” said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which served as a mediator along with the United States and Egypt. But hours before it came into effect, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was quoted telling troops that their respite would be short and that the war would resume with intensity for at least two more months. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also vowed to continue the war to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, end its 16-year rule in Gaza and return all the hostages. Israel's northern border with Lebanon was also quiet on Friday, a day after the militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas, carried out the highest number of attacks in one day since fighting there began Oct. 8. Hezbollah is not a party to the cease-fire agreement, but was widely expected to halt its attacks. The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers. The soldiers will only be released in exchange for all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, according to the Islamic Jihad militant group, which is reportedly holding about 40 hostages. It is not clear how many of the hostages are currently serving in the military or whether the militants also consider reserve soldiers to be “military hostages.” Photos: Israel-Hamas War According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians on security charges or convictions, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which resumed its detailed count of casualties in Gaza after stopping for weeks because of the health system’s collapse in the north. The ministry says some 6,000 people have been reported missing, feared buried under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its death tolls. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the new number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence for its count. ___ Mroue reported from Beirut and Rising reported from Bangkok. Julia Frankel contributed from Jerusalem.

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How Columbias President Has Avoided Fallout Over Israel-Gaza Protests

She might also have benefited from a bit of luck. When Congress invited her to a congressional hearing on antisemitism on Dec. 5 with her peers from Harvard, Penn and M.I.T., Dr. Shafik said she could not go. She told representatives that she had already planned to attend the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, where she introduced a panel about women leaders. The Congressional hearing did not go well. The University of Pennsylvania president lost her job and the Harvard president became mired in weeks of controversy. But instead of fighting for her job, Dr. Shafik was announcing a new initiative, called Values in Action, in which she called for informed debate, not “taunts and cruelty.” Still, she is walking a precarious path. Her call for compassion and respect, some students said, does not reflect what they say has been a repressive effort to rein in pro-Palestinian protesters that has gone farther than at other Ivy League universities: In November, Columbia’s administration made the extraordinary decision to suspend temporarily two pro-Palestinian student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. “I just think the university is not identifying the proper threat,” said Deen Haleem, a third-year law student and a leader of Law Students for Palestine. “The current threat right now are the universities that are shutting down pro-Palestine speech.”

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Sheriffs Deputy Killed in Car Chase Involving U.S. Senators Son

The younger Mr. Cramer, his father said in the statement, suffers from “serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations.” “Kris was with Ian when he insisted on going to his brother Ike,” Kevin Cramer said in the statement on Wednesday. “Ike died in 2018.” Upon arrival at the hospital, Ian Cramer “jumped into the driver’s seat” and fled, the senator said. He drove it through the doors of the hospital’s ambulance bay, according to the Bismarck Police Department. The vehicle, a black 2017 Chevrolet S.U.V., was then reported stolen, the police said. The authorities were able to locate Ian Cramer in the city of Hazen, roughly 70 miles away in Mercer County, because his mother’s phone had been left in the car and its location was being tracked by his sister, the senator said. Ian Cramer then led the police on a pursuit on a highway. The chase went on for about five miles before Mr. Cramer crashed the S.U.V. into an unoccupied sheriff’s patrol car that was parked on the side of the highway, ending the pursuit a little over an hour after he had sped off from the hospital.

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Place beyond words: Herald views footage of merciless Oct.7 Hamas killings

“Why am I still alive?” A young boy helplessly cried that out after his father had just been killed in a kibbutz by marauding Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Death, at that point, was the only escape. It’s one of a series of heart-wrenching clips compiled by the Israel Defense Forces viewed by the Herald Monday in a downtown Boston office along with other journalists. In about 43 minutes of footage, you see “138 murders,” said Ambassador Meron Reuben, consulate general of Israel to New England. It’s not the social media snippets making the rounds. It’s graphic, unsettling, and turn-away carnage that shines a light on just how unforgiving the terrorists were. Many tried to hide, but they died. The Hamas killers were armed with what appeared to be newer assault rifles and plenty of hand grenades. Yes, babies were killed and burned. Women were tortured. A group of about a dozen teenage girls were cornered. A man had his head chopped off by a Hamas terrorist using a heavy-duty hoe. The terrorists were gleeful — with one using an Israeli woman’s cellphone to call home to Gaza to proclaim: “Your son is a hero!” His shocked father and crying mother on the other end of the line didn’t seem to grasp what was happening. The Israelis were trapped. They were shown no mercy and had no chance of escaping from the gunmen who showed no remorse. The IDF estimates that 1,400 civilians and troops were killed that day in the surprise attack — most were civilians. Another 240 were kidnapped, and roughly 6,900 were injured, according to the IDF. College presidents and deans confronting pro-Palestinian protests on campus from Harvard to UMass could soon be invited to watch the video, Reuben said when asked by the Herald what he would say to protesting students. “This is the first time I’ve seen it,” he said of the video. “Those who are doubting what happened should think again and understand this time it’s different.” That’s what comes across in the video. From the tranquil kibbutz scenes to a rave packed with young revelers, the victims had no idea what awaited them. Music was softly playing in homes and a friendly black Labrador Retriever, tail wagging, greeted the first terrorists only to be gunned down on the spot. The estimated 3,000 Hamas killers and others who joined in the border ambush that day were hellbent on inflicting as much pain as one man could do to another. The footage of this attack illustrates one overriding reality: fight or die. “This is the first time the state of Israel has shown pictures so the world understands what we are facing,” Reuben said, adding too many have become “desensitized” by violence in movies. “This is not a movie set.” He stressed he “would like” protesting college students to see what happened to their contemporaries to add balance to their thinking. The rave where so many young adults were killed and captured was a killing field. The Israeli soldiers rushing to that scene could be heard in the audio from their body-camera video praying, pleading for someone, anyone, to still be alive among all the dead bodies behind Coca-Cola pop-up stands. “Anyone alive?” a soldier says. “Anyone, please!” another added. The video was less than 10% of the killing that day. The Herald was asked to be careful not to describe any particular killing too closely — hostages are still alive — but with Hamas pledging to invade again this video is a chilling warning. The footage taken from dash cams, body cameras, closed circuit TV, cellphones and social media is disturbing in its brutality. A driver coming upon the invading Hamas fighters guns his engine in reverse only to be mowed down in a hail of bullets; terrorists pull into neighborhoods in pick-up trucks filled with fighters. An ambulance had its tires shot out, one more cruel calculation … box cutters were used to rip open screendoors … a kindergarten is targeted … a burned body of someone who couldn’t crawl away fast enough … and rivers of blood in every frame. “College students should see this,” Reuben repeated. “Israel is fighting for its very existence. There’s no question about it,” said Grand Rabbi Y.A. Korff, chaplain for the City of Boston. The Herald called seeking insight after seeing such a dark video. “There’s a place beyond words,” author Jerzy Kosinski wrote in his Holocaust tale “The Painted Bird.” That should be the title of this video.

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Live updates: Massachusetts reacts to Israel-Hamas war

Local News Live updates: Massachusetts reacts to Israel-Hamas war Many with Massachusetts ties are feeling the impacts of the war. A crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators react as pro-Palestine demonstrators drive past their rally on the front steps of Cambridge City Hall. Matthew J. Lee / The Boston Globe More than a week after fighters with the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip launched a brutal surprise attack on Israelis, thousands have died on both sides. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the country at war, calling up more than 300,000 reservists and pummeling Gaza with airstrikes in retaliation. Israeli troops have continued amassing at the border of the enclave early this week ahead of a widely expected ground invasion. Israel told those in northern Gaza to evacuate, sending more than half a million people streaming into the south. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing worse by the day, as fuel, food, and clean water run out. Talks that would open the southern border crossing between Gaza and Egypt have stalled, with people hoping to flee trapped on one side and trucks loaded with supplies stuck on the other. Advertisement: The war has sent reverberations around the globe, affecting many in Massachusetts. Follow here for live updates. From left, Wafaa Abuzayda, Yousef Okal, and Abood Okal. – Family photo A Massachusetts family trapped in southern Gaza is reportedly entering “survival mode” as they struggle to secure clean water and food until the border crossing with Egypt is opened. Abood Okal; his wife, Wafaa Abuzayda; and their 18-month-old son, Yousef, were visiting family in Gaza when Hamas militants attacked Israel earlier this month, leading to a punishing Israeli response and a worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave. The situation for the family and hundreds of thousands of others in Gaza has grown increasingly dire following the evacuation of civilians from the north. The family from Medway was staying in a rural area about 10 miles from the Rafah crossing, which links Gaza and Egypt, as of Sunday, The Boston Globe reported. Despite being “exhausted and sleep-deprived,” the family is trying to stay strong for their young son. “The hardest feeling is to hide your fear, and show the opposite, just to keep my son positive,” Abuzayda told NPR. “He doesn’t understand anything. He thinks this [is] fireworks.” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Sunday after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that the Rafah crossing would open, according to The New York Times. But the crossing remained closed Monday, despite a message from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to Americans trapped in Gaza that it could open at 9 a.m. local time. Advertisement: “We anticipate that the situation at the Rafah crossing will remain fluid and unpredictable and it is unclear whether, or for how long, travelers will be permitted to transit the crossing. If you assess it to be safe, you may wish to move closer to the Rafah border crossing – there may be very little notice if the crossing opens and it may only open for a limited time,” officials said. Egyptian security sources told Reuters that a ceasefire, needed to open the border, had been agreed to Monday. But representatives from both the Israeli government and Hamas denied that. The family was told that they could cross the border at 9 a.m. Monday by U.S. officials, the Globe reported. They arrived early Monday and waited for hours, but were eventually turned away around 3 p.m. local time. “My update is that there is no update, and that’s significant,” Sammy Nabulsi, a Boston lawyer and friend of the family, told the Globe Monday. “The U.S. has lost all ability to get its citizens back home.” Okal, Abuzayda, and their son also traveled to the crossing Saturday in hopes of making it through to Egypt. Before dawn, they received news that the crossing could open for a five-hour window later in the day. But a lack of communication between Palestinian and Egyptian officials stymied efforts to open the crossing, The Washington Post reported. Advertisement: The family spent several hours waiting at the crossing Saturday with several hundred people, the Post reported. Among them was another American family from New Jersey and people from Canada, Sweden, Spain, and Norway. Trucks loaded with supplies for those in Gaza have been waiting for days at the Egyptian side of the crossing, as Palestinian hospitals warn that they are on the verge of collapse and those sheltering in U.N. facilities resort to drinking less than 1 liter of water per day, The Associated Press reported. Israeli officials have cut off the flow of fuel or any other supplies into Gaza, and people there are “trying to be very strategic” about when they use their cars in case of emergency, Okal told the Globe. Many Massachusetts elected officials are calling for the need to evacuate people safely from the region and get residents back to the states. “It is gutting that families, including Abood and Wafaa’s family, arrived at the Rafah crossing at the time advised by [the State Department] on Saturday and have not yet been able to cross. They have a one-year-old in their arms. It must be an imperative for President Biden and for all nations involved to safely evacuate Americans and save civilian lives,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley said in a statement to the Globe. Harvard’s president responded once again to the backlash stoked after a letter from student groups blamed Israel for the week of violence that started with a surprise attack from Hamas. Advertisement: In a video posted to Harvard’s YouTube account, Claudine Gay condemned terrorist attacks and hate of anyone based on their religious views. But she also added that the university doesn’t tolerate the intimidation of students for expressing their beliefs, and said Harvard welcomes free expression — even “outrageous” views. “We can issue public pronouncements declaring the rightness of our own points of view and vilify those who disagree. Or we can choose to talk and to listen with care and humility, to seek deeper understanding, and to meet one another with compassion,” Gay said in the video. Those who criticized the letter, penned by the Palestine Solidarity Committee and co-signed by more than 30 student groups, went as far as doxxing the students, and a conservative group drove around trucks with LED screens that featured the students’ pictures and called them anti-Semetic. Some Harvard alumni and CEOs have said they want the students blacklisted, and philanthropist couple Idan and Batia Ofer quit the Harvard Kennedy School executive board over the university’s response to the letter. A group of 30 Salem parishioners who were visiting Israel last week scrambled to evacuate after Hamas attacked the country near the Gaza border. On the day of the attacks, members of the Immaculate Conception Church in Salem arrived in Israel to see landmarks of Jesus’s life, The Boston Globe reports. They heard bombs and gunshots in the distance, but were told by their tour guide that they were safe. Advertisement: That was until Monday, when the group was in Bethlehem, located in the West Bank. “We were advised by the tour group: ‘We’re going back to the hotel; you get 30 minutes to pack up and hop back on the bus,’” church member Bill Card told the Globe. “[That] was, I think, really when it hit home for me.” It took the group days to get out of the war-torn country, and by Wednesday they were crossing the border to Jordan, where they then boarded a plane to Turkey. The parishioners arrived in Boston on Saturday. Previous live updates can be found here.

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Larry Hogan Backs Nikki Haley for G.O.P. Presidential Nomination

Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a moderate Republican who decided not to enter the party’s presidential primary last year but has not ruled out a third-party run, backed Nikki Haley on Sunday as the anti-Trump minority of the G.O.P. coalesces around her. “I think it’s time for the party to get behind Nikki Haley,” Mr. Hogan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He explained his support entirely in terms of polling. “Ron DeSantis has put all the marbles on Iowa and spent all his time and money and seems to be going in the wrong direction,” said Mr. Hogan, who has been a prominent critic of Mr. Trump. “I think Nikki Haley’s got all the momentum. And what this race is really all about is to try to nominate the strongest possible nominee for November. I’m convinced that the momentum is with Nikki Haley.” When the host, Jake Tapper, asked if that was an endorsement, Mr. Hogan said, “I think we want to have the strongest possible nominee in November. Polls show that that is Nikki Haley.”

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WATCH LIVE: President Biden pushes for banning hidden junk fees to save Americans money

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Mass. Gov. Healey taps Plymouth Co. lawmaker for new workforce post

Looks like it might be time for another special election at the State House. On Friday, Gov. Maura Healey announced that she’d tapped state Rep. Josh S. Cutler, D-6th Plymouth, for a newly created post in the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. He’ll serve as the state’s new undersecretary of Apprenticeship, Work-Based Learning, and Policy, Healey’s office said in a statement. Cutler, of Duxbury, is the House chairperson of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. He’s in his sixth term representing a district that includes parts of Duxbury, Halifax, Hanson, Marshfield, and Pembroke. In a statement, Healey said she’s confident that Cutler, who has expertise in workforce development, vocational education, “will continue his leadership in our administration as we work to grow important programs like registered apprenticeship.” Rep. Josh Cutler, co-chair of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, speaks at a press conference April 11, 2022 at Ellis Early Learning in Boston's South End (State House News Service photo).State House News Service Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said Cutler will “be able to hit the ground running as we continue to advance workforce development programming, policy, and planning that will unlock more pathways and partnerships in regions across Massachusetts.” Cutler said Friday that he’s “excited to join the Healey-Driscoll administration and look forward to working with Secretary Jones as we implement policies and programs to help support our workers and enable our businesses to thrive.” Business and labor leaders welcomed the news of Cutler’s appointment. The lawmaker “is a recognized leader in workforce development who has worked with, and earned the respect of, the Building Trades and the larger labor movement,” Frank Callahan, the president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Unions, said in a statement. Chrissy Lynch, the president and CEO of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, praised Cutler for being a “a great leader, partner, and advocate for our workforce and has championed efforts to grow and expand opportunities for residents across the state.” JD Chesloff, the president & CEO of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, called Cutler “one of the most knowledgeable and well-respected workforce development experts in the Commonwealth,” adding that he has a “a keen understanding of the complexity of the workforce development system from both the employee and employer perspective, and the impact that it has both on the people it serves and the state’s economy.” Cutler’s appointment comes hard on the heels of last year’s election of state Sen. Peter J. Durant, R-Worcester/Hampshire, who won a special election to fill the seat formerly held by Democrat Anne M. Gobi, who also departed for a post in the administration. His predecessor in the Plymouth County-based seat was a Republican, and state House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, who’s charged with calling a special election, called it a “competitive district,” State House News Service reported. Cutler’s “hard working, consensus seeking approach to addressing challenging issues allowed him to play a critical role in a number of the significant legislative initiatives that took place during his time in the House. That same approach also helped him win in a competitive district and forge working relationships with folks from across the ideological spectrum,” Mariano, of Quincy, said in a statement.

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Tanya Chutkan, an Unflinching Judge in the Trump Jan. 6 Trial

On the day Judge Tanya S. Chutkan was randomly selected to preside over former President Donald J. Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, she called a childhood friend in Jamaica, Christine Stiebel. Judge Chutkan, who is not especially religious, said to her friend, as Ms. Stiebel recalled it: “Chris, please pray for me. I’ve got the case.” It was a rare display of unease, even in private, for a woman who has cultivated a seven-year reputation as a temperate but unflinching jurist. Judge Chutkan, 61, a former public defender and civil litigator, will be overseeing the first federal trial of Mr. Trump, set to begin on March 4. The spectacle conjures up the possibility of a likely Republican presidential nominee facing conviction and potential prison time for an assault on American democracy, all before voters go to the polls next November. Mr. Trump has already attacked Judge Chutkan as “VERY BIASED & UNFAIR” on social media. His attorneys have argued that the judge, an Obama appointee, should recuse herself because they believe her statements in other cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol show a bias against their client. Prosecutors have in turn asked Judge Chutkan to place a limited gag order on the former president, citing his “near-daily” social media attacks on people involved in the case. Judge Chutkan has refused to recuse herself, but a hearing on the gag order will be held on Monday. Judge Chutkan warned in a preliminary hearing that Mr. Trump, who is already under a gag order in a business fraud case in New York, does not have an absolute right to free speech and “must yield to the orderly administration of justice.”

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What to Know About the Chaos in Ecuador

Violence erupted across Ecuador this week after a well-known gang leader disappeared from prison. Explosions, looting, gunfire and burning vehicles were reported, and there were uprisings in several prisons. In the largest city, Guayaquil, gunmen stormed a TV studio during a live broadcast on Tuesday. President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency, imposing a nationwide curfew and authorizing the military to patrol the streets and take control of prisons. Mr. Noboa also deployed thousands of police officers and military personnel to search for the gang leader, Adolfo Macías. Here is what we know so far: What is the latest? By Wednesday, the violence had left at least 11 people dead across the country, the police said. Shops, schools and government offices were closed, and streets in Guayaquil and the capital, Quito, were jammed with traffic as workers tried to get home.

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Judge threatens to bar Trump from courtroom over interjections during E. Jean Carroll trial

Read this article for free! Plus get unlimited access to thousands of articles, videos and more with your free account! Please enter a valid email address. By entering your email, you are agreeing to Fox News Terms of Service and Privacy Policy , which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive . To access the content, check your email and follow the instructions provided. A judge threatened to bar former President Trump from his civil trial in New York City on Wednesday over his loud reactions to E. Jean Carroll's testimony claiming he ruined her reputation after she accused him of sexual abuse. Judge Lewis Kaplan admonished Trump for his audible reactions to Carroll’s testimony in front of the jury, threatening that the former president could be barred from the trial if he continues. Trump was heard saying "that’s not true," "it’s a witch hunt" and "it really is a con job" during Carroll’s testimony. After the jury was excused for lunch, Kaplan told Trump that his right to be present during the trial could be forfeited if he is disruptive. TRUMP CANNOT ASSERT PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY IN E JEAN CARROLL DEFAMATION LAWSUIT, APPEALS COURT RULES "Mr. Trump, I hope I don't have to consider excluding you from the trial," Kaplan said in an exchange after the jury was excused for lunch, adding: "I understand you're probably eager for me to do that." "I would love it," Trump responded from the defense table. "I know you would like it. You just can't control yourself in this circumstance, apparently," Kaplan said. "You can't either," Trump muttered before walking out. EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP TO APPEAL VERDICT IN E JEAN CARROLL CIVIL CASE, SAYS HE HAS 'ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA' WHO SHE IS The judge attempted to crack down on Trump speaking loudly while conferring with his lawyers after Carroll’s lawyer complained about the remarks for a second time. Carroll testified about the various threats she has received since she accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s, including death threats and threats of rape. When asked if she regretted her decision, Carroll said, "Only momentarily. I'm very glad I came forward." CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Amalija Knavs, Mother of Former First Lady Melania Trump, Dies at 78

Amalija Knavs, a former Slovenian factory worker who became a United States citizen with help from one of her daughters, Melania Trump, has died. She was 78. Her death was announced on Tuesday night by Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, on X. No cause was given. During a New Year’s Eve party at his residence and private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla., Mrs. Knavs’s son-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, said that Mrs. Knavs was “very ill” and that Mrs. Trump was with her mother in a hospital in Miami. “This is a very sad night for the entire Trump family!!!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “Melania’s great and beautiful mother, Amalija, has just gone to a beautiful place in the sky. She was an incredible woman, and will be missed far beyond words!”

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Judge Blocks Iowas Ban on School Library Books That Depict Sex Acts

A federal judge in Iowa temporarily blocked on Friday the enforcement of a law backed by Republicans that banned books describing sex acts from public school libraries. In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Stephen Locher said that the law “makes no attempt to target such books in any reasonable way.” “Instead, it requires the wholesale removal of every book containing a description or visual depiction of a ‘sex act,’ regardless of context,” the judge wrote. “The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel or other piece of serious literature. In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy’ over school libraries.” The publisher Penguin Random House and the best-selling authors John Green and Jodi Picoult were among the plaintiffs who challenged the measure on free-speech grounds.

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Nikki Haley Ramps Up Her Case Against Trump in New Hampshire

Nikki Haley might have come in third in the Iowa caucuses, but as she campaigns in New Hampshire for its first-in-the-nation primary next week, her attention is squarely focused on only one rival: Donald J. Trump. Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, has begun fine-tuning her argument against her former boss, trying out new jabs and unleashing a new attack ad right out of the gate. She has also stepped up her efforts to frame herself as Mr. Trump’s top rival, announcing that she would no longer participate in primary debates that don’t include him. In recent remarks and in a new television ad, Ms. Haley paints Mr. Trump and President Biden as two sides of the same coin: politicians past their prime who are unable to put forth a vision for the country’s future because they are “consumed by the past, by investigations, by grievances.” At a campaign rally on Wednesday in Rochester, N.H., she fended off Mr. Trump’s attacks on her immigration record, warned voters not to believe his ads against her and reminded them that it was Mr. Trump who had wanted to raise the age for Social Security eligibility and had once proposed increasing the gas tax.

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Authorities Investigate Threats to Democratic Lawmakers

The Capitol Police and the F.B.I. are investigating remarks reported to have been made by Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime Republican operative and informal adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, in which he expressed a desire for the deaths of two Democratic lawmakers in the weeks before the 2020 election, a government official familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The investigation into Mr. Stone was opened shortly after the website Mediaite released an audio recording in which someone sounding like him can be heard discussing Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York and Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who are among Mr. Trump’s most vocal congressional critics. “It’s time to do it,” the speaker can be heard saying. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Swalwell or Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message.” An article by Mediaite accompanying the recording claimed that Mr. Stone made the remarks to an associate, Salvatore Greco, a former New York City policeman, at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But the recording itself does not make clear whom the speaker was addressing.

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Austin Returns to Israel With a Tougher Message and Lessons Learned

After three years as President Biden’s quiet man at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III stepped off his plane at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Monday and into the limelight. It was his second visit to the region since Israel launched a war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7. During meetings and conversations with Israeli officials, Mr. Austin has stressed both the Biden administration’s support for Israel and concerns about the rising Palestinian death toll. But his message has become more blunt: Israel, Mr. Austin recently predicted, could face “strategic defeat” that would leave the country less secure if it does not do more to protect civilians. The warning is one that Mr. Austin is well equipped to deliver. The retired four-star general brings a wealth of military experience in combat, including urban warfare. Early U.S. efforts to target the Taliban and insurgents in Afghanistan in 2004. The troop “surge” in Iraq in 2007. The planning to pry Mosul, Iraq, from the hands of the Islamic State in 2016. Mr. Austin was involved in all of that.

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Bad record keeping may have led to bias in MBTA Transit Police dispatch contract

Chronic poor record-keeping may have led to an unfair selection process for the MBTA’s police dispatch vendor, Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro said in a report Wednesday. According to the report, MBTA Transit Police may have showed an unfair bias when selecting IXP Corporation to provide police dispatch services in 2017. “The need for clear, transparent and fair procedures for the selection of contractors by public entities is a bedrock principle,” Shapiro said in a statement. “It is essential that the public have confidence in government when it conducts public procurements and expends the public’s money.” In 2016, the T released a request for proposals for police dispatch services on its Business Center website, which provides notifications for new bid opportunities to companies looking to work with the agency. While more than 1,000 companies were notified, few provided the needed service, and the deadline was extended multiple times before three companies, including IXP, responded. However, the 2016 request for proposals did not result in a contract, and the MBTA released a second in 2017 on the public procurement website COMMBUYS, which is managed by the state. When the new request for proposals was posted, 33 companies, including IXP, were notified. But the other two companies that had responded the year before were not, according to the report. Only IXP submitted a proposal in 2017, and was eventually selected as a contractor. In 2022, the Inspector General’s Internal Special Audit Unit released an initial report investigating the contract, but the agency said in that report that it did not have enough information to evaluate the fairness and competitiveness of the procurement process. According to the report released Wednesday, the MBTA did not complete or maintain records about its evaluation of IXP’s response to the 2017 request for proposals. That means that the Inspector General investigation could not fully assess the process. In addition, according to the report, communications between the Transit Police and IXP during the evaluation process raised concerns about a bias toward the company. After the failed 2016 procurement process, officials at the Transit Police continued communicating with IXP over e-mail, with one official telling the company, “The MBTA is looking at other solutions but I’m still interested in bringing IXP on board.” “Based upon our investigation, significant concerns were raised regarding whether or not the selection process was fair,” Shapiro said. “The MBTA’s poor record-keeping and records retention practices meant that the authority could not conclusively demonstrate that its selection of IXP was free from favoritism. That is not acceptable.” While Shapiro said the lack of record-keeping was a “chronic problem” at the MBTA, he said Wednesday he is optimistic that new leadership at the T and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation will be able to fix the issues revealed in the report. “Nonetheless, the test will be how the MBTA conducts itself during future procurements and with future contract administration and how its actions align with the results from future oversight reviews,” he said. In a statement, an MBTA spokesperson said the agency has not yet had the chance to do a comprehensive review of the report, but has identified potential areas for improvement and is committed to transparency and accountability under its new leadership. “As we continue working to strengthen MBTA operations overall, we remain committed to making appropriate changes that bolster accountability, integrity and responsible stewardship of funding, including continued improvements in record-keeping protocols and expanded staff training around procurement best practices,” they said. “The public deserves assurance that every MBTA project and expenditure is fully compliant and in the public’s interest.”

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A Palestinian Man Vanished Oct. 7. His Family Wants to Know Who Killed Him.

On a clear December morning, two Palestinian brothers stood on a mound in southern Israel that overlooked Gaza, watching smoke rise after Israeli airstrikes. It was a conflicted moment for the men, Abd Al-Mughani Abu Amar, 37, and Mahmood Abu Amar, 24. They live in East Jerusalem, and were thinking of their relatives in Hamas-controlled Gaza, whom they had not heard from in weeks. But the brothers had been drawn to the Gaza border for another reason: Their youngest brother, Soheib Abu Amar, a bus driver, was captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, taken after he drove Israeli partygoers to a music festival the night before. His brothers had come to retrace Mr. Abu Amar’s last known steps. Some two million Arabs live in Israel, roughly a fifth of the country’s population of more than nine million. Several were among the 1,200 people killed by Hamas on Oct 7.

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On Vivek Ramaswamys R.I. nomination papers: Signatures of dead Rhode Islanders

And now, election officials have found the names of dead people on nomination papers submitted on behalf of Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate for president. Last year, election officials found the names of dead people on nomination papers submitted on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, a Democrat then running for the First Congressional District seat. PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island is seeing dead people, again. The signatures of dead people on candidate nomination papers, that is. The Warwick Board of Canvassers reported finding the names of “several deceased voters” on Ramaswamy’s nomination papers, and the boards of canvassers in Providence, Hopkinton, and Coventry reported that they have invalidated “an unusually high number” of signatures on Ramaswamy’s nomination papers, said Ben Smith, a spokesperson for the state Board of Elections. Advertisement On Friday, Board of Elections spokesman Christopher Hunter said West Greenwich officials contacted the board on Thursday night to report an unusually high number of Ramaswamy disqualifications due to signature mismatch. Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up “The Board of Elections asked for local boards of canvassers to be extra vigilant and to notify them if they see patterns of fraudulent signatures,” Smith said. “They were asking to take a closer look at all nomination papers, and in this case the nomination papers for Ramaswamy.” A spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, Tricia McLaughlin, said the campaign used an outside vendor, Ground Game LLC, to collect signatures for nomination papers in Rhode Island. She said an investigation began as soon as the campaign heard the report about deceased voters, and it found that one of the vendor’s employees had intentionally used the names of deceased individuals on those forms. That person has been fired, and the campaign will work with law enforcement on any review of the matter, McLaughlin said. She said it is common for national campaigns to use vendors to collect signatures for nomination papers. Advertisement Miguel J. Nunez, the Board of Elections’ deputy director of elections, sent local boards a message Wednesday, saying the Coventry Board of Canvassers had “invalidated an unusually high number of signatures on the nomination papers submitted on behalf of presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, which were collected by Heidy Moore and Michael Michols. Please vigilant when processing forms collected by these individuals, and contact me if you believe any contain a pattern of fraudulent signatures.” Also, Nunez wrote, “We have also been notified by the staff of the Warwick Board of Canvassers of several deceased voters on the nomination papers submitted on behalf of presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.” And, he said, “We have also been notified by the staff of the Cranston Board of Canvassers that they have found names of several deceased voters on petitions from the No Labels Rhode Island Party. Likewise, please notify me if you observe any patterns of fraudulent signatures on these petitions.” Smith, a board of elections spokesperson, explained that the No Labels Rhode Island Party is trying to get on the Rhode Island ballot for the first time and faces a separate deadline in August. He said both Cranston and Jamestown election officials have invalidated an unusually large number of signatures on No Labels petitions. The deadline for presidential candidates to submit nomination papers to the local boards of canvassers was 4 p.m. Thursday. Earlier this week, some Republican candidates had been struggling to gather more than the 1,000 valid signatures required to appear on the April 2 ballot in Rhode Island. Advertisement On Tuesday, state Republican Party Chairman Joe Powers sent out an email — with the subject line “This is not a drill” — asking for help in gathering signatures. “Folks,” Powers wrote, “There is no easy way of putting this. But if we do not get the minimum of 1,000 signatures in the next 3 days, our Republican Presidential candidates will not be on the April ballot. Unfortunately, a few Board of Canvassers have rejected some signatures without a clear reason. As of now, understanding the cause is not our priority; we can address that later. What’s crucial is that we need EVERYONE’s help to gather as many signatures as possible.” As of 4:42 p.m. Friday, the secretary of state’s office reported the following totals of “validated signatures” for Republican candidates: Former President Donald J. Trump: 2,502 Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley: 2,202 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: 2,196 Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie: 1,573 Biotechnology entrepreneur Ramaswamy: 1,273 Businessman and pastor Ryan L. Binkley: 293 Christie dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the following totals were reported for Democratic candidates: President Joe Biden: 1,632 US Representative Dean B. Phillips: 1,059 The secretary of state’s office reported zero valid signatures for Democratic hopefuls such as Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur. Self-help guru Marianne Williamson did not file to take part in the primary in Rhode Island, according to the secretary of state’s office. On Thursday, Republican Party executive director Jesus Solorio Jr. said the state party reached out to the campaigns for six candidates, and four of those campaigns accepted the party’s help in collecting signatures: Trump, Haley, DeSantis, and Christie. He said the party did not hear back from the campaigns for Ramaswamy or Create Church pastor Ryan Binkley. Advertisement “We are still collecting signature but pretty confident all our candidates will be on the ballot,” Solorio said. “The deadline is 4 o’clock today. We are running to the tape.” Candidates always aim to submit more than the minimum number of signatures required, he noted. “So we had a call to action to make sure we have more than the bare minimum,” he said. Faith Chybowski, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, explained that local boards have until Jan. 24 to “validate” those signatures and send the nomination papers to the secretary of state’s office, which then certifies that the candidates submitted the required number of signatures. Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.

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Opinion | I Am Gaza Citys Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble.

As a teenager in the 1980s, I watched the construction of the intricately designed Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, named after one of Gaza’s greatest public figures, and its theater, grand hall, public library, printing press and cultural salon. Students and researchers, scholars and artists from across the Gaza Strip came to visit it, and so did President Bill Clinton in 1998. The center was the gem of Gaza City. Watching it being built inspired me to become an engineer, which led to a career as a professor and, in the footsteps of al-Shawa, as mayor of Gaza City. Now that gem is rubble. It was destroyed by Israeli bombardment. The Israeli invasion has caused the deaths of more than 20,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and destroyed or damaged about half the buildings in the territory. The Israelis have also pulverized something else: Gaza City’s cultural riches and municipal institutions. The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had — has broken my heart.

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Survey: Children in state struggling to access behavioral health care

It’s the perfect post-pandemic storm: an increase of children needing behavioral health care and a decrease in available clinicians. A survey conducted by the Association for Behavioral Healthcare found that children in the state are waiting longer for behavioral health services. For instance, there is an average wait of 20.5 weeks for families seeking in-home therapy with MassHealth (the state’s Medicaid program), and those with private health insurance must wait even longer with an average of 26.5 weeks for those types of services. The survey said clinician shortages are hampering children’s ability to receive behavioral health help. “Massachusetts has an impressive system of home- and community-based mental health services for families with public and commercial health coverage, but that system is on paper only,” said the report released in December describing the survey results. “Children are suffering because we are failing to invest in services and in the workforce.” Association for Behavioral Healthcare is an organization that represents over 80 community-based mental health and addiction treatment organizations. Its survey, which it conducted in July, was answered by 30 organizations that run 208 sites across Massachusetts and found that “as many as 3,300 families were waiting to receive services at the end of Fiscal Year 2022.” Lydia Conley, president and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, explained that if children are not given the resources when they initially need them, the children’s needs can become acute while waiting for care. In response to the federal litigation Rosie D. v. Romney, the state created the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative for children with MassHealth to provide services such as in-home therapy and behavioral health services. In 2019, a similar standard of services was required for those with private insurance, called Behavioral Health for Children and Adolescents. The Association for Behavioral Healthcare survey notes that due to unclear guidelines from private insurance companies, “There is less incentive to accept families with commercial insurance, creating a two-tier system as to who accesses and receives CBHI services within the Commonwealth.” Meanwhile, the number of children the system is treating has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, the survey found. “To date, utilization of these services has not rebounded, due to diminished provider capacity. ... By the end of May 2023, respondents reported approximately 32% fewer children and families than pre-pandemic levels received these same services,” the report says. Wages for clinicians are a factor, the survey noted. Many of the services provided by Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative are based in an in-home setting to involve family members and caretakers. These appointments are often conducted on nights and weekends and present more complexities than in-office appointments, yet the wages paid are significantly lower than those for in-office or remote clinicians. As of August 2023, state officials have invested $70 million into the initiative, but Conley said, “it is not sufficient to elevate salaries to attract and keep staff.” As a result, about 756 staff positions are sitting vacant, and difficulties finding financing and staff have caused program closures. Between the 2019 to the 2023 fiscal years, the report said, six in-home behavioral services programs, 15 therapeutic mentoring programs and 17 in-home therapy programs have closed. In addition to the state’s Roadmap for Behavioral Health Reform, the Association for Behavioral Healthcare provided specific recommendations in order to meet the needs of families in the communities. It suggested providing sustainable rates for clinicians, paying a rate differential for non-English services, eliminating provider referrals, investing in outpatient services, implementing loan repayment awards and scholarships to attract and retain clinicians and reducing unnecessary administrative work for clinicians. Katherine Mague, senior vice president of Behavioral Health Network, confirmed that as one of the organizations that reported to the Association for Behavioral Healthcare’s survey and provides services to youths in both Hampden and Hampshire counties, the findings are spot on. “There was an exodus of staff during the pandemic and hiring back has been hard,” Mague said. “Kids come in with much more acute conditions now than before. This is a real mental health crisis and it’s now harder to do the work with many more needing it.” If you or someone you know is looking for help, call or text the Behavioral Health Help Line at 833-773-2445.

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Hamas will release 14 Israeli hostages for Israel freeing 42 Palestinians in the second swap

Politics Hamas will release 14 Israeli hostages for Israel freeing 42 Palestinians in the second swap Overall, Hamas will release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners during the four-day truce, all women and minors. People react as they hear the news of the release of 13 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. Friday marks the start of a four-day cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, during which the Gaza militants pledged to release 50 hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) AP KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Egyptian officials said Hamas was preparing to release 14 Israeli hostages Saturday for 42 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as part of an exchange on the second day of a cease-fire that has allowed critical humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and given civilians their first respite after seven weeks of war. On the first day of the four-day cease-fire, Hamas released 24 of the about 240 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war, and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison. Those freed from captivity in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino. On Saturday, Hamas provided mediators Egypt and Qatar with a list of 14 hostages to be released, and the list has been passed along to Israel, according to an Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk about details of the ongoing negotiations. A second Egyptian official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the details. Advertisement: Under the truce agreement, Hamas will release one Israeli hostage for every three prisoners freed, and Israel’s Prison Service had already said earlier Saturday it was preparing 42 prisoners for release. It was not immediately clear how many non-Israeli captives may also be released. Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners during the four-day truce, all women and minors. Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed — something United States President Joe Biden said he hoped would come to pass. Separately, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to coordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly,” according to a diplomat briefed on the visit. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details with the media. The start of the truce Friday morning brought the first quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling and desperate from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent as well. For Emad Abu Hajer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again dig through the rubble of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week. Advertisement: He found the bodies of a cousin and nephew Friday, bringing the death toll in the attack to 19. With his sister and two other relatives still missing, he resumed his digging Saturday. “We want to find them and bury them in dignity,” he said. The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of humanitarian aid convoys on Oct. 21. It was also able to deliver 129,000 liters (34,078 gallons) of fuel — just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first time since the war began. In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with gas cans and other containers waited outside a filling station hoping to get some of the newly delivered fuel. As he waited for fuel, Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days. “I wish it could be extended until people’s conditions improved,” he said. For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed to northern Gaza on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area since the start of the war. Advertisement: The U.N. said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City, where much of the fighting has taken place, to a hospital in Khan Younis. The relief brought by the cease-fire has been tempered, however, for both sides — among Israelis by the fact that not all hostages will be freed and among Palestinians by the brevity of the pause. The short truce leaves Gaza mired in a humanitarian crisis and under the threat that fighting could soon resume. Amal Abu Awada, a 40-year-old widow who fled a Gaza City-area camp for Khan Younis with her three children earlier in November, ventured out Friday to a U.N. facility looking for food and water, but said there was none available. “We went back empty handed,” she said. “But at least there are no bombs, and we can try again.” FIRST HOSTAGES FREED After nightfall Friday, a line of ambulances emerged from Gaza through the Rafah Crossing into Egypt carrying the freed hostages. The freed Israelis included nine women and four children 9 and under. The released hostages were taken to three Israeli hospitals for observation. The Schneider Children’s Medical Center said it was treating eight Israelis — four children and four women — and that all appeared to be in good physical condition. The center said they were also receiving psychological treatment, adding that “these are sensitive moments” for the families. At a plaza dubbed “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, a crowd of Israelis celebrated the news. Advertisement: The hostages included multiple generations. Nine-year-old Ohad Munder-Zichri was freed along with his mother, Keren Munder, and grandmother, Ruti Munder. The fourth-grader was abducted during a holiday visit to his grandparents at the kibbutz where about 80 people — nearly a quarter of all residents of the small community — are believed to have been taken from. The plight of the hostages has raised anger among some families that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to bring them home. Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, hundreds of Palestinians poured out of their homes to celebrate, honking horns and setting off fireworks that lit up the night sky. The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers, and others who had been arrested at checkpoints in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is currently holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war. A LONGER PEACE? The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, said the hope is that momentum from the deal will lead to an end to the violence. Qatar served as a mediator along with the U.S. and Egypt. Advertisement: Israeli leaders have said they would resume fighting eventually and not stop until Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for the past 16 years, is crushed. Israel has set the release of all hostages as the second goal of the war, and officials have argued that only military pressure can bring them home. At the same time, the government is under pressure from the families of the hostages to make the release of the remaining captives the top priority, ahead of any efforts to end Hamas control of Gaza. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the latest number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down. Rising reported from Bangkok, Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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An Alleged Plots Burning Question: Why Would India Take the Risk?

Remember the bizarre and disturbing case of four infants found in the freezer in a home on East Broadway last year? Well, we have a long overdue update via the Boston Globe. And this case gets even more strange. The Globe is reporting that according to court records related to the case, the death investigation “is complex and ongoing.” It also reveals that a potential suspect has been identified, and the remains of the infants have led to evidence in an “unrelated homicide” that has already gone to trial. So strange. Evidently, as the investigation was happening, police unwittingly discovered information related to an unrelated homicide. On November 17th and 18th of last year, the remains of two boys and two girls were found in unit 3 at 838 East Broadway. Also, according to the Globe, investigators have sought to exhume a body, obtain a DNA swab, and evaluate the competency of a potential suspect. Police have not publicly revealed the identities of the infants or their families. No arrests have been reported as part of the death investigation. Prosecutors are hoping the death investigation will be completed in March. You can read the full article here.

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Washington Urges Israel to Scale Down Its War in Gaza

Biden administration officials want Israel to end its large-scale ground and air campaign in the Gaza Strip within weeks and to transition to a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas, American officials said Thursday. Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, met with Israeli leaders on Thursday about the direction of the war. Mr. Sullivan did not specify a timetable, but four U.S. officials said Mr. Biden wants Israel to switch to more precise tactics in about three weeks. The officials asked for anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking. American officials have made that timeline clear to their Israeli counterparts in recent days, the latest step in a gradual move by the administration to communicate that American patience with widespread civilian deaths is running out. “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives — not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday after a speech on prescription drug costs at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The new phase that the Americans envision would involve smaller groups of elite forces that would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, carrying out more precise missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels, the officials said. The moment appeared to be the most definitive effort yet by the United States to restrain Israel in its campaign against Hamas for the attacks it led on Oct. 7, particularly as the conditions in Gaza turn catastrophic. After wholeheartedly embracing Israel even as the Palestinian death toll mounted, the Biden administration has found itself under pressure at home and abroad to rein in the assault. The challenge has been preserving the president’s determination to let Israel eliminate Hamas while at the same time easing the chorus of critics outraged by the humanitarian crisis. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said before meeting with Mr. Sullivan on Thursday that his country’s campaign against Hamas would last “more than several months,” a signal from Israeli officials that they intend to keep fighting until Hamas is eliminated. He said destroying Hamas, the armed group that carried out the devastating Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, was essential to his country’s security. Mr. Gallant described Hamas as well entrenched. “They built infrastructure under the ground and above the ground, and it is not easy to destroy them,” Mr. Gallant said. “It will require a period of time — it will last more than several months.” U.S. officials insisted that the two positions were not in direct conflict. Israel’s efforts to hunt down Hamas leaders will continue for months, even after the transition from higher to lower intensity operations takes place, they said. During their meetings in Israel on Thursday, Israeli leaders presented Mr. Sullivan with their own timeline for waging a more targeted offensive. Their timeline was slower than the one favored by Mr. Biden and some of his advisers. The American officials emphasized that Mr. Sullivan did not direct or order Israeli leaders to change tactics. Still, the U.S. efforts come as differences between the United States and Israel have spilled into the open. Mr. Biden said this week that Israel was losing international support because of the “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, a much harsher assessment than his earlier public statements urging greater care to protect civilians. The conflict has forced Mr. Biden to confront the limits of his leverage over Israel, which receives $3.8 billion a year in American security assistance. Most American arms sales come with strings attached; Ukraine, for example, has been prohibited from firing American-made missiles into Russian territory. Mr. Biden could put a similar limit on how American bombs are used in dense civilian areas like Gaza. But to do so could also diminish Israel’s ability to go after underground Hamas tunnels and complexes — and it would put Mr. Biden at odds with the pro-Israel lobby with which he has been sympathetic over many years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, in the past, acquiesced to advice from the Biden administration — for Israel to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza and to take steps to reduce civilian casualties — after initially rejecting them outright. Mr. Netanyahu’s office released a statement about the U.S. desire for a more targeted strikes, saying only that “Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will continue the war until we complete all of its goals.” Mr. Sullivan also heard from Israeli officials about their concerns about a wider regional conflict, as their military trades strikes with the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon across Israel’s northern border. “The international community, and the United States in particular, must take swift action to ensure that this threat is removed,” the office of Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet and a former military chief of staff, said in a statement. The statement noted that Hezbollah and Hamas share an ally and sponsor in Iran. Israel’s determination to carry on with its siege of Gaza comes as Philippe Lazzarini, the director of the United Nations agency that assists Palestinians, described conditions in the Palestinian territory as a “living hell.” Fighting across Gaza appears to have intensified this week, with Israel saying Wednesday that 10 of its soldiers had been killed in a single day. More than two months of air and artillery strikes have forced hundreds of thousands of Gazans into makeshift encampments without enough food or water, and nearly nonexistent sanitation, Mr. Lazzarini said in a speech Wednesday hours after visiting southern Gaza. He described Gazans as “desperate, hungry people” and said the sight of a truck carrying humanitarian assistance now provokes chaos, with people stopping the convoys and eating what they can get from the trucks on the streets. “Civil order is breaking down,” he said. “We are still distributing whatever food we manage to bring in, but this is often as little as a bottle of water and a can of tuna per day, per family, often numbering six or seven people,” he said. Mr. Netanyahu’s government and the Biden administration have mostly sought to paper over their divides since the attack that killed at least 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel has responded with more than two months of bombardment and a ground invasion of Gaza that have killed at least 15,000 people, and likely thousands more, according to Gazan health officials, and forced most of the territory’s 2.2 million people to flee their homes. The United States and Israel have also differed over who should control Gaza after the war. American officials have said the Palestinian Authority, which has international support, should control the enclave, while Mr. Netanyahu has appeared to rule that out for now. Even as Mr. Biden has said Israel must do more to protect civilians, he has been steadfast in supporting its right to respond to the Oct. 7 attack.

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Ukraine Says It Downed 5 Russian Planes, as Moscow Claims It Seized a Town

The Ukrainian military said on Monday that it had shot down five Russian fighter jets in three days, one of the biggest weekly losses for the Russian air force since the war began and a rare bright spot for Ukraine, whose forces have faced setbacks since its failed monthslong counteroffensive this year. But the news could be offset if Russia’s claim that it had seized full control of the eastern town of Marinka is true. Russian forces have gradually advanced over months of battle against Ukrainian troops there, but Ukraine denied that the town was entirely under Russian control. Just days after claiming to have downed three Su-34 fighter-bombers on Friday, the Ukrainian military said it had destroyed two more jets on Sunday. The claims could not be independently verified. Early Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s Air Force claimed another victory, saying it had destroyed a Russian ship, the Novocherkassk. The account could not be independently verified. Sergey Aksyonov, the Russia-installed head of Crimea, said that Ukrainian forces had attacked the Crimean Black Sea town of Feodosia, starting a fire in its port.

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Canadas House Speaker Apologizes After Ukrainian Who Fought for Nazis Was Honored

The Ukrainian man sitting in the gallery of Canada’s House of Commons was a “hero,” the speaker of the House said on Friday, drawing applause from lawmakers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who had just addressed the chamber during his first visit to Ottawa since Russia invaded his country. But several Jewish groups responded with outrage, saying that the man, Yaroslav Hunka, 98, had served in a Nazi unit known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, which fought alongside Germany during World War II and declared allegiance to Adolf Hitler. On Sunday, Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, issued a written apology, saying that he had “subsequently become aware of more information” and took “full responsibility for my actions.” In remarks after Mr. Zelensky addressed Canada’s Parliament on Friday, Mr. Rota introduced Mr. Hunka as a resident of his district who had fought for Ukrainian independence from Russia and later immigrated to Canada.

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Rirkrit Tiravanija: Can Pad Thai Diplomacy Change the World?

“Having been labeled as the cook of the art world,” Rirkrit Tiravanija said, “I think people come to see my work expecting to interact.” Indeed, they expect to eat. The 62-year-old artist is easily the most influential of the loose cadre that rose to prominence in the early 1990s under the banner of “relational aesthetics” — a kind of installation- and performance-based conceptual work that makes spectators feel like participants. Tiravanija’s “untitled 1990 (pad Thai),” in which he cooked and served noodles in the back room of Paula Allen Gallery, is quintessential. Tiravanija’s early relational pieces — offering curry and tom ka soup, sodas and beers, grass mats and pillows for weary visitors — appeared as museums increasingly promoted the politics of multiculturalism. The relative unfamiliarity of Thai cuisine in the United States was part of the work’s thrust. Thirty years later, there’s nothing unusual about a soup line at an art museum, and institutions heap adjectives like “interactive,” “immersive” and “inclusive” on their exhibitions like sprinkles on ice cream. Image Tiravanija, left, cooking tom ka soup at his show at Jack Tilton Gallery in New York, 1991. Credit... via Tilton Gallery, New York For Tiravanija’s largest survey to date, “A Lot of People,” on view at MoMA PS1 through March 4, the organizers tout the activities. An ad for the show reads: “Play Ping-Pong. Taste curry. Make music.” (It’s unclear why you’d want to do these things in a museum.)

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Massachusetts legislature passes few bills

Healey said she understood. She acknowledged that residents across the state are similarly struggling. “Maureen and her plight is, like, Example A of why we need to pass the Affordable Homes Act,” Healey said, referring to a sweeping housing bond bill she introduced in October — officially putting the onus on the Legislature. ”I have not been able to find anything affordable in my area,” Maureen, who identified herself by her first name, pleaded to Governor Maura Healey during the Democrat’s monthly GBH radio appearance Monday. “I’ve been there for 18 years in Tyngsboro.” The caller was desperate. After seven years of paying her rent on time, through two rent increases during the pandemic, she said, her landlord last week delivered an eviction notice. Advertisement When that could be is anyone’s guess. Nearly 11 months after it convened, the Legislature has failed to move proposals to Healey’s desk that would address some of the state’s most pressing issues — housing, gun control, and oversight of the beleaguered MBTA. And by Tuesday, lawmakers hadn’t yet sent Healey a nearly $3 billion spending bill designed to close out last fiscal year, and this time, includes hundreds of millions in funding for homeless children and families. Such a plodding pace is not new on Beacon Hill; just two years ago, one national study deemed Massachusetts’ the least effective state legislative body in the country. Tension and power dynamics among lawmakers also contribute to glacial policymaking, leading this session to divorced joint committees and backroom infighting over committee rules that, at times, have spilled into the public eye. But the dysfunction has reached a new level. In the House, where any spending bill must originate, lawmakers have taken fewer votes at this point in their two-year session than any other going back two decades, a Globe review found. And it comes at a time of an escalating statewide housing crisis that advocacy groups say is screaming for a more urgent legislative response. Advertisement “Actions speak louder than words,” said Chris Norris, executive director of Metro Housing|Boston, which administers rental assistance programs and helps connect people with housing. “Folks tell us there is urgency. But the question is: Do the actions demonstrate that it is an urgent issue to be addressed? We have seen more deliberation, and less action.” In just a year’s time, the pain wrought by the housing crisis has intensified by nearly every metric. There have been more than 35,000 eviction cases filed in the state’s housing court so far in 2023, a 25 percent jump from the same point last year, according to court data. The state has fielded more than 122,000 applications this year from low-income families for a rental assistance program known as RAFT. A crush of migrant families has pushed the emergency shelter program to unprecedented — and officials say, unsustainable — levels. The budget the Legislature passed this summer includes major increases, such as a 27 percent boost in funding for RAFT alone, and made permanent a pandemic-era renter protection law. But it’s unclear whether the Legislature will seek to bolster those programs or others geared toward low- and middle-income housing on a wider scale before formal sessions are scheduled to wrap up next July. In statements Tuesday, the House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen E. Spilka defended their records, boasting accomplishments made in the budget, as well as the passage of major bills such as a tax overhaul that expanded credits for families, seniors, renters, and low-income residents. Mariano added that the number of bills passed isn’t representative of the breadth of work accomplished, as many bills package together various policies. Advertisement “The challenges we face as a Commonwealth are complicated — and reaching consensus on the best solutions takes time,” said Gray Milkowski, a spokesperson for Spilka, an Ashland Democrat. “We have a two year session, and are confident we will have a productive 2024 as we continue to address the most pressing issues before us.” Two men conversed in the halls of the Massachusetts State House while lawmakers deliberated on high-stakes bills on the final evening of the two-year formal legislative session on July 31, 2022. Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe The pattern of inefficiency sets Massachusetts apart. According to a 2021 study by DC information company FiscalNote, Massachusetts had the lowest ratio of bills passed to bills introduced in the country. A bill introduced in Colorado, for instance, was nearly 200 times more likely to be enacted than one introduced in Massachusetts. Massachusetts passed 0.41 percent of bills introduced in 2021, making it the least effective state in the country, according to the study. The still-pending supplemental budget has become emblematic of the Legislature’s slow-moving gears. The state’s emergency shelter system is staggering amid a flood of homeless and migrant families; in at least one scenario posed by the Healey administration, it could run out of money by January. The Legislature also needs to pass the $2.8 billion supplemental to officially close the books on the fiscal year that ended nearly five months ago. Advertisement But lawmakers remain locked up in closed-door negotiations, leaving $250 million for the shelter program in limbo two weeks after the Legislature began its seven-week holiday break. The package also includes nearly $400 million for raises for thousands of public employees, for which unions already bargained. Powerful public sector unions like the Massachusetts Teacher’s Union and the AFL-CIO are so peeved by the slowdown they are asking lawmakers to sign on to a letter prodding leadership, according to a draft copy obtained by the Globe. “Many of these workers have gone years without a raise despite providing vital services to the Commonwealth,” the draft letter to both House and Senate Ways and Means chairs reads. “As their elected representatives, we owe them quick and decisive action immediately.” Peter Enrich, a former law professor at Northeastern who served as general counsel to the state’s Executive Office for Administration and Finance, said supplemental budgets like the one up for debate are routine bills. But leadership exercises control by rolling in other items and leaving major bills until the last minute, he said, giving rank-and-file members little time to debate or hash things out. “It’s frankly shameful,” said Enrich, who helps lead a coalition promoting legislative transparency. “The real impacts — the families who don’t know how their shelter is being taken care of or the employees coming into the holiday season without the money they have been owed for months — it’s really unacceptable.” Advertisement Whether or not the supplemental bill passes this year, this session still will rank among the least productive first year of session in decades. The Massachusetts House is poised to end the year having taken 70 roll call votes, the lowest at this point in the two-year session this century. Just four years ago, state representatives took twice as many by this point, and averaged more than 200 over the last decade, a Globe review found. The votes, or lack thereof, are in part a byproduct of the Legislature’s increasing reliance on bulky, omnibus packages to move proposals big and small. But it also means lawmakers make public their policy positions far less often, leaving voters far less information on which to asses their records. The Legislature has produced some major changes in the past 11 months. A $1 billion tax package that Healey signed in October marked the most significant tax relief Beacon Hill has passed in two decades. The annual budget — which the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass — made free meals in public schools a permanent program and included funding for tuition for students attending community college nursing programs, among other changes. But such sweeping bills are few and far between. Nearly 45 laws passed this year are specific to a town or city, either approving a liquor license or allowing a police officer or firefighter to serve past a certain age. Another 20 create sick leave banks for an employee or transfer a piece of land within a town — minor bills that effectively amount to legislative housekeeping. Two other bills were passed to simply keep government running because legislators were so late in passing the annual budget. Boston Representative John Moran, who is serving his first term in the Legislature, said he spent Monday — when it appeared the House could vote on the supplemental budget but didn’t — “sitting here and hoping we would come to a resolution.” “I know everyone is acting with a sense of urgency, but it probably doesn’t feel that way if you are waiting for that promised pay increase or if you’re part of the migrant population,” the South End Democrat said. “I wish I had a quick answer in terms of resolution. . . . We do need a solution.” Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross. Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.

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This Venezuelan Family Won Asylum. Days Later, They Lost It.

A Radical Agenda To be sure, some of what Mr. Trump and his allies are planning is in line with what any standard-issue Republican president would most likely do. For example, Mr. Trump would very likely roll back many of President Biden’s policies to curb carbon emissions and hasten the transition to electric cars. Such a reversal of various rules and policies would significantly weaken environmental protections, but much of the changes reflect routine and longstanding conservative skepticism of environmental regulations. Other parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda, however, are aberrational. No U.S. president before him had toyed with withdrawing from NATO, the United States’ military alliance with Western democracies. He has said he would fundamentally re-evaluate “NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission” in a second term. He has said he would order the military to attack drug cartels in Mexico, which would violate international law unless its government consented. It most likely would not. He would also use the military on domestic soil. While it is generally illegal to use troops for domestic law enforcement, the Insurrection Act allows exceptions. After some demonstrations against police violence in 2020 became riots, Mr. Trump had an order drafted to use troops to crack down on protesters in Washington, D.C., but didn’t sign it. He suggested at a rally in Iowa this year that he intends to unilaterally send troops into Democratic-run cities to enforce public order in general. “You look at any Democrat-run state, and it’s just not the same — it doesn’t work,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, calling cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco crime dens. “We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I’ll do — because you’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting.”

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Hamas and Israel Begin 3rd Exchange of Hostages for Prisoners

A display in Tel Aviv of photos of Israeli citizens held hostage in Gaza, 13 of whom have been freed on Friday. Hamas released a second group of 13 Israeli hostages on Saturday as part of a cease-fire deal, a day after it released another 13. Saturday’s group of Israelis — all women and children — included six members of an extended family from the ravaged Israeli border village of Be’eri, all of whom were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel. Here’s what we know about the Israelis released on Saturday. (Read about the Israeli hostages who have already been released here.) Shoshan Haran, 67 Image Shoshan Haran Credit... Rachel Gur, via Associated Press Shoshan Haran was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri along with another six members of her extended family. Her husband, Avshalom Haran, was killed in the Oct. 7 assault, as was her sister, Lilach Kipnis, a psychologist and peace activist, and her husband, Evyatar Kipnis, 65. The body of Mr. Kipnis’s caregiver, Paul Castelvi, was found in a nearby forest. The extended family, all residents of Be’eri, had been celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at Ms. Haran’s home when the village was struck. Several members of the family were considered missing for days and weeks before they were identified as being among the dead or kidnapped. Shoshan Haran holds Israeli and German citizenship. A plant protection expert with a doctorate in agronomy, she worked in the seed industry for many years, then founded Fair Planet, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping small farms in developing countries. Adi Shoham, 38; Naveh, 8; Yahel, 3 Image From left, Yahel, Adi and Naveh. Credit... Rachel Gur, via Associated Press Adi Shoham, Shoshan Haran’s daughter and a resident of Be’eri, was freed with her son, Naveh, 8, and her daughter, Yahel, 3. Her husband, Tal Shoham, 38, remains in captivity. A psychologist, Ms. Shoham worked in recent years to promote mindfulness as a means of easing the stress of residents of southern Israel who have lived under the threat of rocket fire from Gaza for more than two decades. Yuval Haran, 36, Adi Shoham’s brother and Shoshan Haran’s son, was away from the kibbutz on Oct. 7 and became the voice of his captive family. He was in the vanguard of a five-day march this month from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “I’m tired of sitting around,” he said. “I want to start walking to where the decisions are made.” Sharon Avigdori, 52; Noam Avigdori, 12 Image Sharon and Noam Avigdori Credit... Hostages and Missing Families Forum Sharon Avigdori, a sister of Avshalom Haran and a drama therapist, was visiting her family in Be’eri with her daughter, Noam Avigdori, when they were seized. Sharon Avigdori works with people on the autism spectrum and lives in Hod Hasharon, in central Israel. Her husband, Hen Avigdori, and their son Omer, 16, had stayed home that weekend. Mr. Avigdori, a television writer, told The Jerusalem Post this month that he was “a man on a mission” to bring back his wife and daughter. He said his wife’s work “changes the world.” He described his daughter as a young socialite and a top student. “She likes learning, she is hilarious, she has a very sarcastic sense of humor, she cracks me up,” he said. Emily Hand, 9 Image Emily Hand Credit... Yael Shahrur Noah, via Associated Press Emily Hand, an Irish Israeli, was kidnapped from a sleepover at a friend’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri and turned 9 while in captivity. Her family initially believed she had been killed in the attack, but was later informed that she was kidnapped. Her older sister, Natalie Hand, told Israel’s Channel 12 that the family had cried for Emily when it was informed she had been killed. “We were told that she had been murdered; we were in mourning,” she said. Then, “on Oct. 31, they told us that it was highly likely that she had been abducted.” Speaking at a news conference at the Israeli Embassy in London recently, her father, Thomas Hand, said, “I’m going to pull every little string that I can for my own daughter, and hopefully that helps the rest as well.” Ireland’s president met with Mr. Hand in recent weeks. Maya Regev, 21 Image Maya Regev Credit... Regev Family, via Associated Press Maya Regev was at the Tribe of Nova music festival on Oct. 7 when Hamas attackers infiltrated Israel and massacred hundreds of young festivalgoers. Her brother, Itay, with whom she attended the festival, is still believed to be held in Gaza. Their father, Ilan Regev Derby, described in October being haunted by the last conversation he had with Ms. Regev, which he recorded on his phone. She called as the gunmen closed in. In one Hamas video, Itay is shown, hands bound, in the back of a pickup, alive. Another friend they attended the festival with, Omer Shem Tov, is also still believed to be held in Gaza. Mirit Regev, Maya’s mother, expressed the mixed feelings of many families in a statement on Sunday: “I’m excited and happy that Maya is on her way to us now. Nonetheless, my heart is split because my son, Itay, is still in Hamas’s captivity in Gaza,” she said, adding, “I am going to hug Maya so hard. We will not stop until Itay and all the hostages get back home.” Alma Or, 13; Noam Or, 17 Image Alma and Noam Or Credit... Hostages and Missing Families Forum Alma Or and Noam Or were kidnapped from their home in Be’eri, a kibbutz near the Gazan border on Oct. 7. They were taken hostage with their father, Dror, who is believed to still be held in Gaza. Their mother, Yonat, was one of dozens killed in Kibbutz Be’eri. Hila Rotem Shoshani, 12 Image Hila Rotem Shoshani Credit... Hostages and Missing Families Forum Hila Rotem Shoshani was hiding in her family’s safe room with her mother, Raaya, the morning of Oct. 7, before they were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Be’eri, according to The Times of Israel. The outlet reported that Raaya, who is still believed to be held in Gaza, texted her brother around noon, telling him that she and her daughter were being taken. It was the last time anyone heard from her. Their family was told on Oct. 29 that the mother and daughter were being held captive. Noga Weiss, 18; Shiri Weiss, 53 Image Noga and Shiri Weiss Credit... Hostages and Missing Families Forum, via Reuters Shiri Weiss and Noga Weiss, mother and daughter, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7. Noga was hiding under a bed when she texted the family group chat that her mother was taken from their safe room, her second cousin, Oren Rubinstein, said at a rally in the San Francisco area on Nov. 4. Noga fled her house, which was engulfed in flames, and attempted to hide outdoors in bushes nearby, according to Mr. Rubinstein. The last her family heard from her was a text: “They’re coming.” Her family was able to track her live location through WhatsApp as she moved into Gaza, he said. Mr. Rubinstein has demanded their release in rallies throughout the San Francisco area, where he lives. “This is a nightmare,” he said at the rally, which was recorded and posted on YouTube by Unxeptable, an organization formed by Israeli citizens in 2020 to protest their country’s right-wing government. “And we have to remember — we have to support who is going to bring them home. The IDF is going to bring them home; the U.S. Special Forces are going to bring them home.” Shiri’s husband, Ilan Weiss, left their home the morning of Oct. 7 to join an emergency squad, according to The Times of Israel, and is still considered missing. According to the kibbutz administration, Shiri’s brother Gil — a member of the local civilian emergency response team — was killed during the battle for Be’eri. Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting.

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Im done: Fairhaven selectman says he will not seek reelection due to racism

Local News ‘I’m done’: Fairhaven selectman says he will not seek reelection due to racism In October, Leon Correy announced in an emotional Facebook post that he would not be seeking reelection. Selectman Leon Correy, fourth from left, and Town Administrator Angie Lopes Ellison, third from left, at a Fairhaven Town Meeting in November. Town of Fairhaven, Massachusetts Fairhaven, a town of 16,000 on the South Coast of Massachusetts, is known for its Colonial Era settlers, whalers and sailors, an American Revolution battle, and European-style public buildings. It’s also 95 percent white, according to the 2022 census. Leon Correy, the chair of the town’s Select Board, has lived in Fairhaven for seven years with his wife and two children. In 2022, he was elected to the board. Before that, he founded the Belonging Committee, aimed at addressing diversity and inclusion in the town. Correy, 46, said he is the first Black person ever elected as a selectman in the town. He’s finishing his two-year term in April, but in October, he announced in an emotional Facebook post that he would not seek reelection due to what he describes as racism and microaggressions he has faced as a town official. Advertisement: “‘Hey Leon, nice house I thought you were poor. Why is he flexing about his education in a meeting that has nothing to do with him? Ironic a black man holding the same fire hoses that used to spray his people during the civil rights movement. He serves us, know your place and shut your mouth. I like you, you’re one of the productive ones,’” Correy wrote on Facebook on Oct. 28. “These are just examples of the things I have heard over the 17 months that I have been in service of a town that people thought was progressive.” “Some of these statements are from people who thought they were progressive. Some were statements from people who voted for me. All are racist whether or not that’s their intention.” Correy told Boston.com he chose to post on Facebook to educate residents about their actions and inactions. “There’s never been a leader figure of color in the town,” he said. “In theory, I think the town thought it was more progressive or more liberal than it actually is. Then, when you got some people of color in positions of leadership, it’s been a learning lesson in who the town really is.” Advertisement: Correy described multiple instances where residents used racist slurs, targeted aggressions, or sometimes subtle microaggressions. He said after a Town Meeting, a man started yelling at him and had to be physically restrained by police, and that there are “secret Facebook groups” that target him and the town administrator, who is also Black. “Acknowledging that there is a race problem in a town means just that,” Correy said. “It doesn’t mean everybody in the town is a racist.” Town Administrator Angie Lopes Ellison said she is the only Black woman running a municipality anywhere in Massachusetts. She and Correy make up the extent of town leaders of color in Fairhaven. “He’s been incredible and very supportive and also very in tune with the community needs and wants,” Lopes Ellison said of Correy. She said she’s disappointed he’s chosen to not run again. “I’ve been trying to convince him otherwise,” she said. “I understand his decision.” Racist graffiti found on Rogers School A few weeks after Correy’s announcement, graffiti was found at the historic Rogers School that included the n-word, phallic images, and other expletives. “I took that to be a sign that our community’s not really where it needs to be,” Lopes Ellison said. “Some people were justifying it that it’s just kids being kids, but it’s not kids. It’s adults that have taught these children.” Advertisement: Correy posted about the incident on Facebook, and said in an interview that Fairhaven officials worked quickly to remove the graffiti. “I really appreciate the head of facilities because it was close to a playground, he couldn’t use or he chose not to use the acid that he would normally use to remove it,” Correy said. “He had to remove it by hand with just good old fashioned elbow grease.” After the Rogers School graffiti, Lopes Ellison recommended to town officials to read “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo, followed by an entire reading list aimed at addressing the impact of racism. Selectman Robert Espindola told Boston.com he read the book in an effort to learn more about racism. “I … will just say that I respect Selectman Correy’s decision,” he wrote in an email. Lopes Ellison, who has been town administrator for about a year-and-a-half, said she is seeing an active effort from many elected officials. “It’s not the entire community but when the loud voices are what you hear, it becomes degrading,” she said. Correy said he won’t return to public politics but is looking to run for a state democratic committee seat. He told Boston.com there’s a lesson for people of color in his story as well: “You don’t have to take it.” “I am not letting the bad people win,” Correy wrote on Facebook. “This is 2023, not 1963. I don’t have to fight for you. My life is fine. I can pack my bags and move to another town. I can walk away from this town and never look back. I am a fighter and I was willing to fight with you but I am not willing to fight for you. I am not willing to fight everybody.”

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Mass. Gov. Healey joins other state guvs to call for access to affordable contraception

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has joined with the chief executives of five other states to call on the federal government to ensure that Americans have access to contraception without facing additional costs. On Monday, the Bay State’s Democratic governor joined with other members of the executive committee of the multi-state Reproductive Freedom Alliance, to call on U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su to “take additional steps to ensure that all forms of contraception are affordable and accessible.” Together, the governors urged federal regulators in a Monday letter to clarify that non-prescription contraception would be covered, without cost-sharing, in those private insurance plans under the aegis of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. “I’ve long advocated for contraception to be available without a prescription to lower barriers to accessing this critical medication,” Healey said in a statement. “Now that it will finally be available over-the-counter, it is essential that it is covered by health insurance so that patients can afford it. I’m proud to stand with my fellow governors to ensure that reproductive health care is affordable and accessible for all of our communities.” Healey was joined in the letter to Becerra and Su by Govs. Gavin Newsom, of California; JB Pritzker, of Illinois; Michelle Lujan Grisham, of New Mexico; Roy Cooper, of North Carolina, and Josh Shapiro, of Pennsylvania. In that letter, Healey and the other state governors asserted that “we see firsthand the need for affordable and accessible reproductive health coverage in our communities,” and that federal approval earlier this year of the first, over-the-counter daily birth control “could revolutionize access to contraception in the United States.” Ahead of that, the governors urged federal regulators “to promptly disseminate new guidance on coverage of [over-the-counter] contraception, and join us in expanding access to reproductive healthcare for the most vulnerable populations in our country.” Democratic governors in 20 states launched the multi-state alliance earlier this year, describing it as a way for they and their staffs to share best practices and to affirm abortion rights for the roughly 170 million Americans under the alliance’s umbrella. It also could ensure services for the remainder of U.S. residents who live in states with more restrictive laws, the Associated Press reported in February. “We can all coalesce,” New Mexico’s Lujan Grisham said told the AP at the time. She added that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that ended a national right to abortion “horrified” and put pressure on governors to act. “This is leveraging our strengths ... to have more of a national voice,” Lujan Grisham said, according to the AP.

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In the battle to build more housing, Massachusetts is making gains

The law was controversial because it diluted home rule, something legislators have treated as sacrosanct despite a century’s worth of evidence that towns have used that authority to limit growth, promote segregation, and harm the state’s overall economic well-being . This year began with a lot of anxiety about housing — and, in particular, whether Boston’s suburbs would comply with a controversial new state law that requires them to allow more of the kind of apartment and condo buildings that many of them have a well-earned reputation for resisting. A few local politicians made noise about resisting the law. But so far, municipalities have largely complied, often with an enthusiasm that belies their histories as hotbeds of NIMBYism. Advertisement In one suburb after another, towns adopted new zoning that in some cases went even beyond the law’s requirements. In town meetings, the vote was often lopsided in favor of change: Lexington, 107 to 63; Arlington, 189 to 35; Brookline, 207 to 33. Those actions will make building new construction easier and more predictable, hopefully leading to more of it. Get The Primary Source Globe Opinion's weekly take on politics, delivered every Wednesday. Enter Email Sign Up A view of construction underway in Everett. A new state law has prompted communities to loosen their zoning regulations for multifamily housing, which should lead to more of it over time. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff It hasn’t all been smooth sailing: Newton’s City Council ended up doing just about the bare minimum to comply. Milton’s Town Meeting approved its plan, but citizens appear to have gathered enough signatures to force a referendum seeking to overturn the vote. But the bottom line is that, so far, each of the 12 communities with a deadline this year has at least tried to meet it. To a certain extent, the local votes show just how bad the housing shortage and resulting price inflation in Massachusetts has become. When even voters in places like Lexington and Brookline are willing to allow the kind of multifamily housing that they and their ancestors fought so hard against, you know it’s gotten bad in the market. The price of housing rose more than 10 percent in Greater Boston in 2023, and the median single-family home went for $829,950, according to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. Rents are similarly stratospheric. Suburban homeowners may like those rising property values, but they don’t like seeing their kids move far away because they can’t afford to live here. There is also far more public attention on the damaging environmental and social consequences of exclusionary zoning, which may be shifting public opinion in a more altruistic direction. Advertisement Still, there’s no reason to imagine so many large suburbs would have rezoned in a single year without prompting. Which is why legislators should view the law’s early success as vindication for state intervention — and proof that a stronger state hand in housing is not only the right thing to do but also might even be welcome. Indeed, the strong margins in town meetings are enough to make you wonder if the hostility to housing in the suburbs was never more than just a bugaboo for the small minority that happened to show up at meetings. State pressure is necessary because Boston's suburbs have a well-earned reputation for resisting new housing. In 2004, a sign protested proposed construction of a proposed development in Bedford. By giving localities the legal tools to thwart housing, the state let them create the housing shortage Massachusetts finds itself in now. Pat Greenhouse Regardless, the next step should be for the state to build on this law and extend the state’s role. In her first year in office, Governor Maura Healey has taken several notable steps on housing, including appointing a housing czar and championing funds for market-rate housing. Her most important decision, though, may have been a provision in her proposed housing bond bill that requires communities to allow “in-law” apartments, which would build on the precedent of the MBTA law by again forcing communities’ hands. It is projected to add 8,000 new housing units statewide. Advertisement Defenders of home rule oppose that proposal. But the positive results of the MBTA law so far are a strong argument that the state can and should exert more power over housing — and not just over zoning but also over the whole gamut of financial, logistical, and environmental policies that determine how much is built, where, and for whom. The Globe editorial page has made the case this year for some of the ways the state could step up. It could, for instance, put more teeth in the Community Preservation Act, to force towns that accept state funds for the program to spend more of it on housing. It could standardize applications for income-restricted housing. It could change the way it awards tax credits to pressure developers to build subsidized housing for families, not just senior citizens. People waited in line for an income-restricted housing lottery in Boston in 2017. Housing set aside for low-income people is hard to find and hard to apply for. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff For the Healey administration, it should mean continuing to hold towns to account if they violate either the letter or the spirit of the law. In 2024, scores more municipalities will be required to zone areas for denser housing. Healey’s housing czar, Edward Augustus, sent a good message when he implicitly threatened that the administration would yank funding for a commuter rail station in Newton if the city didn’t include its vicinity in the rezoning plan. The city ended up including it, and other communities hopefully got the message that the state really means business. Advertisement Sustained pressure and leadership from the state is essential, because the truth is that the state’s housing deficit will take years to overcome. Massachusetts needs up to 200,000 new housing units by 2030, which would require it to produce housing at a much faster rate. The state only approved 18,940 private housing units in 2022, according to the St. Louis Fed, and the numbers for 2023 are shaping up to be even worse. The zoning changes approved in towns this year are only a first step at fixing the imbalance; now developers have to actually take advantage of those loosened regulations. A view of a condo development in Danvers. Massachusetts is still not building nearly enough new housing to meet its needs. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Until those numbers rise, house hunters will continue to suffer from rising housing prices. Businesses will find it harder to attract employees. Renters will crowd into unsafe living conditions. Homelessness will linger. For a place that proudly insists on calling itself a commonwealth instead of merely a state, Massachusetts has tiptoed around the sacred cow of local control for far too long. That is finally starting to change. If there’s one important takeaway from 2023, it’s that the state’s role in housing can’t be merely to ask politely for more. It’s time to use all the powers at the state’s disposal to insist on it. Advertisement Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.

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Three Questions About Iowa

So far, the 2024 presidential campaign looks to be the least competitive in decades. The incumbent president is likely to win the Democratic nomination easily, while a former president seems to be running away with the Republican nomination. Of course, this conclusion is based only on opinion polls, rather than actual voting. By tonight, however, voting will have begun, at least on the Republican side, thanks to the Iowa caucuses. Today’s newsletter offers a preview, in the form of three questions. 1. What’s the biggest story tonight? Don’t get distracted by secondary issues. The big question is whether Donald Trump wins the landslide victory that polls have forecast. If he does, it will be the clearest sign yet that he is on pace to join Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and only a handful of earlier politicians who won the nomination of a major party at least three-times. Recent polls have shown Trump receiving around 50 percent of the Republican vote in Iowa, with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis both at 20 percent or below. The only other significant candidate remaining is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been polling below 10 percent.

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Boston City Council District 4 Race: Brian Worrell

Politics Boston City Council District 4 Race: Brian Worrell Brian Worrell, a constituent since 2022, is running uncontested for District 4. Boston councilor Brian Worrell poses for a portrait outside of City Hall. (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff) We surveyed Brian Worrell on his priorities and some of the most pressing issues facing the Boston City Council this election season, based on input from our readers. Here’s what he had to say. The following responses have been lightly edited for clarity. What are two of your top priorities that you would like to address? The first initiative my office launched was the ‘Black & Brown Economic Empowerment Agenda,’ a multi-faceted approach to give Bostonians of color access to more opportunities and address long-standing economic and educational disparities in our City. Two major pieces of this agenda, which are my top priorities, include housing access and affordability and creating opportunities for our Boston Public School students. In my first term, I have focused my efforts on addressing the housing crisis and expanding homeownership by working with the administration to direct Federal ARPA funding to be used to create a homeownership voucher program and hiring the first-ever Boston Housing Authority (BHA) position solely focused on creating pathways to homeownership. I have also moved initiatives forward to study how we can build more accessible and affordable housing in my district and find creative ways to spur more private investment in our neighborhoods, activating vacant lots, and reimagining existing spaces to help solve the housing crisis. Advertisement: Lastly, I introduced the Cradle-to-Career initiative to help improve our Boston Public Schools and utilize data, institutions, and partnerships, including labor, to prepare our students for emerging careers and economic opportunity. What solutions would you support regarding the area of Mass and Cass and the underlying issues of addiction, mental health, and homelessness? It is important to remember that the crisis at the intersection of Mass Ave and Melnea Cass Boulevard is a reflection of not only our public health and housing crises, but also a public safety crisis for those who live and work in that area. I believe that we should be giving the mayor and our public safety professionals every resource possible to address the public safety and public health crisis at Mass and Cass and continuing to work towards a permanent solution by reactivating the Long Island Recovery Campus. I also believe we need to ensure our response to this crisis is coordinated across departments to ensure our approach is comprehensive and that our state leaders, and surrounding communities, have a responsibility to be our partners in decentralizing these services and addressing the underlying issue. How can housing in Boston be more affordable and inclusive of all communities while mitigating gentrification? As someone with a background in real estate, I have worked to address the housing and affordability crisis during my first term in office and it remains a top priority. I am committed to continuing to ensure we are expanding pathways to homeownership and prioritizing stable housing both for longtime residents and new folks we are trying to attract to our City. In order to do that, we need to continue to maximize state and federal funding to expand pathways to homeownership, provide rental support and assistance, and increase our housing production around public transit for workforce housing and more units available for families at affordable price points. We must continue to work closely with community stakeholders, real estate professionals, and the City to spur more private investment in our neighborhoods, activating vacant lots, and reimagining existing spaces to help solve the housing crisis. What does the city need to do to address gun violence and improve public safety? My district continues to feel the impacts of violence in our communities and I have convened local leaders during my first time to better understand what solutions are needed and address the root causes of inaction to move those solutions forward. I believe we need to address root causes of violence by investing in our youth, expanding economic opportunities, and addressing housing insecurity. Additionally, we need to shift the way we are advancing public safety in these neighborhoods to a more community-driven approach. I support efforts to regularly convene residents and public safety departments to best assess resources currently available and needs we must address, increase diversity and accountability within our police department to build public trust, expand programs and services for mental health, trauma response, and recovery, and create centralized point of contact in our City to focus on violence prevention. How would you improve Boston’s roads and public transit? My proudest achievement has been delivering a massive increase in City funding for projects and improvements to District 4. After demonstrating the generational inequities in capital spending for District 4 in relation to the other districts, I was able to secure increased spending on our local parks, playgrounds, infrastructure, trees, schools, and so much more by over $11 million in a single year. As we continue to focus on high priority infrastructure projects, from the work the Mayor has launched on complete streets to much-needed improvements to the MBTA, I will continue to advocate for an equitable approach to how we prioritize these projects and ensure that residents have access to reliable and safe transit in their communities and roadways and corridors that are safe for all types of commuters. Many readers say they’ve lost faith in the Boston City Council. How would you work to regain their trust? As public officials, we have a responsibility to those we serve to operate with the utmost integrity and accountability and act with urgency on the issues impacting our residents. I will continue to lead in a way that centers those duties every day and work to collaborate with colleagues on the Council and in the Mayor’s office to move our city forward. I am hopeful that work can be the focus going forward to rebuild public trust. Advertisement: Find out more about Brian Worrell on their website and social media.

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The U.S. Strikes More Houthi Sites in Yemen

For the sixth time in 10 days, the United States on Friday said it had destroyed Houthi missiles in Yemen that were poised to attack merchant and military vessels in the Red Sea, a pattern of strikes that the White House says will continue for the foreseeable future to weaken the militia group. The U.S. military hit three Houthi missiles and launchers, John F. Kirby, a spokesman for National Security Council, told reporters on Friday. He did not say what weapons the United States had deployed in the attack, but previous strikes have used cruiser missiles and munitions dropped by fighter jets. The strikes — the fourth U.S. salvo in as many days — have so far failed to deter the Houthis from attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, going to and from the Suez Canal, that are critical for global trade. The Iran-backed group says it will keep up its attacks in what it says is a protest against Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip against Hamas. President Biden said on Thursday that U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis will continue even though they have not halted the group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping. “Are they stopping the Houthis? No,” Mr. Biden said. “Are they going to continue? Yes.” Last Thursday, American and British attack planes and warships attacked more than 60 Houthi targets, including air defenses, command hubs and facilities to store and launch anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. But the U.S. officials cautioned on Saturday that even after hitting more Houthi missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the strikes had damaged or destroyed only about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis’ offensive capability, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden.

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By 5-4 Vote, Supreme Court Revives Bidens Regulation of Ghost Guns

[GUN CLICKS] This is a gun I made myself. The government doesn’t know I have it, but it’s totally legal. You can buy a kit online with all the parts you need to build a Glock 19. You don’t need a 3-D printer or fancy tools, and you don’t need a background check. I purchased the Glock 19 during Glocktober, so I got $100 off. People call these ghost guns. And they’re becoming more popular, especially for people who want a gun, but don’t want any record that it exists. I’d like to see how easy it is to build one of these guns and to find out what these kits mean for the future of gun regulation. Order is confirmed. All that’s left to do is build it. I don’t have a handgun license in New York, so I sent the kit to Virginia, where you don’t need one. Let’s make a gun. I get the appeal of making a gun. I like building stuff. And for a lot of people who buy these kits, that’s the point. They’re fun to make. “Hey, guys. Today we’re going to be going over how to build your Full Conceal Polymer80 frame. So it’s actually fairly quick to do this.” “Kind of paint by numbers in a sense.” The lower receiver or frame is the only part of the gun that’s technically considered a firearm under U.S. law. Gun kits aren’t regulated like firearms because they come with unfinished lower receivers. “So this is the lower receiver, and it’s in this jig. So what we’ll need to do is remove the extra pieces that are sticking up out of the jig.” [SNAPPING] Yeah, instead of shop, I took early childhood development. It was actually really awesome. The finished lower receiver looks almost identical to the unfinished one. You just drill a few holes and remove these extra bits of polymer. Then you assemble and add the rest of the parts. If you do it right, you’ll have a working firearm. On a factory-made gun, the serial number would go here. But the gun I’m building won’t have one, so there’s no way to trace it. Gun kits aren’t regulated at all in most states. There are no records of sales. And for a lot of people, that’s the appeal. “Hey.” “Hey.” “Andy Lander.” “Jeremy White.” Andy Lander is a firearms expert who worked for the N.R.A. for 13 years. He’s built guns before. “We’re still technically a free country. And I think that one of the greatest freedoms is having privacy. To me, if you bought 100 guns, it’s none of my business.” It’s impossible to say how many ghost guns are out there or who owns them. Last year, nearly a third of all firearms seized by law enforcement in California were homemade without serial numbers. Still, Andy says the kits aren’t the problem. “A criminal is going to steal a gun. He’s going to either rob somebody and get a gun. He’s going to get a gun anyway. I’m not worried about a guy building a Glock 19 in his garage.” “Nope. Drop it in from the top.” “Drop it in.” “Straight down.” “Oh, it has to be all the way —” “You have to clear that, yeah. Push down till it pops. Yeah, that’s it.” [GUN CLICKS] “There you go. You’re done.” “Wow. Thanks for your help.” [GUN CLICKS] It took me about six hours to build my ghost gun. [GUN CLICKS] If I had to do it again, I could do it much faster. Still, there’s no guarantee that it will work. “Scot Thomasson.” “Jeremy White.” “Nice to meet you.” “Good to meet you.” “How are you?” “Good.” “Good. It’s the same damn gun.” “Really is.” “The difference is right there, serial number. And that’s important.” Scot Thomasson is a retired A.T.F. agent. He’s letting me try out my new gun on his property. “Looks O.K. Looks like it’s not going to blow up anybody’s hand, so that’s a good thing.” “Let’s go test it out.” [GUN CLICKS] [GUN FIRES] “Hit.” [GUN FIRES] “Hit.” [GUN FIRES] “O.K.” “That’s a working gun.” “Yeah, sure enough is. Listen, I worked violent crime my whole career for 26 years. You want those officers to have every means possible bringing to justice those who use that firearm to commit acts of violence. And without a serial number on that firearm, you can’t do it.” “So if these kits had a serial number and were sold through licensed dealers, do you see any problem with that?” “No problem whatsoever. So what?” “Right now we really don’t know what we don’t know, because these guns are completely untraceable.” Jennifer Wexton is a representative from Virginia’s 10th district and a co-sponsor on two bills that would broaden the definition of firearms to include assembly kits. so you couldn’t buy them without the government knowing. “Normally the serial number would be here.” “No. And look, there’s nothing there.” “There’s nothing there.” “Yeah. That’s part of the allure of these kinds of ghost guns, by the way. So when they’re picked up in crime scenes and things like that, we know that they are out there. And we’re seeing it happen more and more.” “What do you say to the Second Amendment advocate that says, these laws are an invasion of my privacy when it comes to gun ownership?” “I think that guns should be traceable. So I think that weighing the interest in not having a serial number on your firearm versus the overall public safety, I come down on the side of public safety.” In the end, the government does find out about my ghost gun. Without a handgun license, I can’t bring this gun back to New York, so I’m turning it in to the local police. They interview me, do a background check and file a police report. That’s a lot more screening than I went through to get the gun in the first place. For most people, this isn’t the easiest way to get a gun. It takes time and skill. Some people may like that challenge. Most people would rather just buy one from a gun shop or a licensed dealer. But if you’re a felon, or underage, or you can’t legally buy a gun for some other reason, these kits make it remarkably easy to get one anyway.

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Warren: Federal government needs to step up on housing crisis

Despite Massachusetts’ efforts to fight the housing crisis, including the massive $4.12 billion bond bill that Gov. Maura Healey proposed in October, homes remain unaffordable to a large portion of the state’s population. That’s because a local or even state government isn’t powerful enough to fix the crisis on its own, according to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “It is time for the federal government to step up, not to tell local governments what to do, but to be a good partner for communities that are prepared to act,” Warren, D-Mass., said during a speech to the New England Council in Boston Monday. Warren said that frequently when she speaks to constituents anywhere in Massachusetts, they say affordable housing is their number one concern. For employers, the biggest challenge is finding workers because of the high cost of housing. Nationwide, 7 million more homes are needed to house U.S. residents, she said. In Massachusetts, up to 200,000 new homes will need to be built over the next six years to address the housing shortage and bring prices down. However, last year, only 17,692 housing units were approved in the state. “That is not even one-tenth of the units that we need, just to get us to a point where we’re even not where we have excess capacity,” Warren said. “Even at this rate, we can’t even hold steady on this crisis. This crisis will continue to grow.” Warren gave several reasons why intervention from the federal government was necessary. The first, she said, it’s the only way to raise enough revenue to make the needed changes. A bill she filed that would put a 15% minimum corporate tax on companies that report over $1 billion in earnings could be used to stimulate the creation of more housing, Warren said. In addition, improving the housing landscape could relieve pressures on other issues the federal government pays for, such as Medicaid, she said. Finally, Warren said increasing the housing supply was a simple question of the country’s values. She pointed out that while the housing crisis affects a large portion of the population, it disproportionately hurts low-income residents and people of color. “For less than 5% of the annual defense budget, for example, we can create a fund that year after year after year could be used to increase and upgrade the supply of housing nationwide,” she said. “If we’re serious about equity, both generational equity and racial equity, then creating more housing opportunities is a great place to start.” Proposed legislation that Warren has been pushing which would contribute $40 billion annually to the construction of affordable housing would kickstart that change, she said. That money could fund incentives for communities that modernize building codes and improve zoning, grants to help homeowners build accessory dwelling units, commonly known as “granny flats,” and contribute to construction projects to allow them to create more units. “The price per unit for apartments and condos comes down if you’re willing to make even a modest upfront investment,” Warren said. “Housing is local, but there is an important role for the federal government to be a good partner to boost housing supply. It’s time for us to start building out that role.” Warren pointed out that in addition to the shortage of homes, another issue exacerbating the housing crisis is the trend of corporate landlords picking up homes for sale, often ones that are being sold after a foreclosure, and using them as an investment or astronomically raising rents for existing tenants. She said that by 2030, corporations are expected to own up to 40% of single-family rental homes in the country. “They use their immense reserves of wealth and their deal-finding algorithms to swoop into markets and snap up homes that otherwise could have gone to first-time homebuyers,” Warren said. “For someone selling a home, a corporate all-cash offer is often too sweet to pass up.” While Warren acknowledged that passing legislation like this would be difficult, earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s administration released a blueprint for a Tenant Bill of Rights, which would implement protections such as fair leases, anti-discrimination measures, the right to organize and eviction protections. In addition, Biden has proposed new measures to prevent rent gouging and asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission to collect information on unfair practices. “This is a big, big problem,” Warren said. “Solving this crisis requires creative solutions and persistence from us at all levels of government.”

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politics

Ohio Governor Orders Restrictions on Transgender Care After Vetoing Ban

Background The moves come as the state’s House of Representatives prepares to return early next week in an effort to override the governor’s veto on the bill that would have barred transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries. Mr. DeWine’s veto was a rare rejection of transition care bans from a Republican governor. Though gender-transition surgeries in adolescents are extremely rare, minors are increasingly seeking top surgeries, or breast removal procedures, to better align their bodies with their gender identities. Medical professionals have debated which children should be receiving gender-affirming treatments and at what age. But leading medical groups in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say such care should be available to minors and oppose legislative bans. Under the proposed rules that Mr. DeWine directed health agencies to draft, parents would also need to explicitly give consent for all treatments. On Friday, Mr. DeWine said his executive order would take the thornier question of surgeries “off the table.” But the governor stood by his veto of the broader ban on gender-affirming care. “I believe the parents, not the government, should be making these crucial decisions for their children,” he said. Why It Matters The directives could be Mr. DeWine’s attempts to strike a compromise with Republican lawmakers who pushed for the bill. They also appeared to add new restrictions to adult transition care that weren’t included in the bill. For transgender adults, many studies have shown that transition care can improve psychological well-being and quality of life. But several states have sought to impose adult-care regulations, including requirements that doctors, instead of a nurse practitioner, oversee hormone therapy, and that such care be provided through in-person visits. Under the proposed rules, transgender people must provide “sufficient informed consent” for gender-affirming care after “comprehensive” and “lengthy” mental health counseling. Hospitals and clinics would also be required to report diagnoses of gender dysphoria and treatments to state health officials every six months. The debate over medical care for transgender minors is one strand of a concerted effort by the Republican Party to mobilize cultural conservatives around transgender issues. Just last year, 22 states passed bans on transition care for minors. Some also put in place legislation affecting other facets of transgender people’s lives, including ones on sports participation, bathroom use and drag performances. What’s Next The Ohio House has scheduled a special session for Wednesday, where representatives are expected to vote on whether to override the governor’s veto. The State Senate is expected to vote later in the month. Mr. DeWine said his administration would pursue the new rules regardless of a veto override.

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One of Trumps Oldest Tactics in Business and Politics: Im Rubber. Youre Glue.

Days before the Iowa caucuses, former President Donald J. Trump is appearing twice in court this week — on Tuesday in Washington and Thursday in New York. He was not required to attend either hearing. But advisers say he believes the court appearances dramatize what is fast becoming a central theme of his campaign: that President Biden — who is describing the likely Republican nominee as a peril to the country — is the true threat to American democracy. Mr. Trump’s claim is the most outlandish and baseless version of a tactic he has used throughout his life in business and politics. Whenever he is accused of something — no matter what that something is — he responds by accusing his opponent of that exact thing. The idea is less to argue that Mr. Trump is clean than to suggest that everyone else is dirty. It is an impulse more than a strategy. But in Mr. Trump’s campaigns, that impulse has sometimes aligned with his political interests. By this way of thinking, the more cynical voters become, the more likely they are to throw their hands in the air, declare, “They’re all the same” and start comparing the two candidates on issues the campaign sees as favorable to Mr. Trump, like the economy and immigration.

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Vinie Burrows, Acclaimed Actress Who Became an Activist, Dies at 99

But despite her success, Ms. Burrows said in a 1994 interview with the Rochester, N.Y., newspaper The Democrat and Chronicle, she was beginning to feel dissatisfied chasing roles that tended toward what she called the “dese, dem and dose” variety. She was also dissatisfied with the scant pay. “My babysitter — my little boy was 2 years old — I think made more money than I did,” she said of her experience in “The Blacks” in a 2020 interview with American Theatre magazine, “and I said, ‘I will never work so hard for anybody unless I am working for myself.’” Instead, Ms. Burrows took matters into her own hands as a solo artist. She received rave reviews for her 1968 Off Broadway show, “Walk Together Children,” which she described as “the Black scene in prose, poetry and song.” It drew from the writings of enslaved people, poets and contemporary activists to trace the African American experience. Ms. Burrows, the critic Clive Barnes wrote in a review in The New York Times, “wounds and hurts, giving some of Black America’s most excoriating literature the whiplash impetus of a relentless performance.” “Yet,” he added, “while angry, she is not bitter. She is all woman and all fundamental charm. She is a magnificent performer.”

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Springfield mayoral candidate Justin Hurst accuses opponent of trying to steal election by accusing him of paying for votes

SPRINGFIELD – Mayoral candidate Justin J. Hurst vehemently denied accusations his campaign paid people $10 to vote for him, calling the allegations a coordinated effort by his opponent to steal the election. The 10-year city councilor held a press conference Thursday morning to address claims that he and a campaign volunteer recruited people near the Worthington Street shelter on Saturday, drove them to the polls and then paid them $10 after they returned with an “I voted early” sticker. Hurst is in a head-to-head race with long-time Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, following a five-way preliminary election where the mayor came on top with 47.8% of the vote and Hurst followed with 28.8% of the ballots. Election Day is Tuesday, but the city has held early voting daily, starting on Oct. 25 and ending Friday. “Any accusations that my team paid residents in exchange for their vote is unequivocally false and nothing more than a last-minute smear campaign by an administration that is vulnerable for the first time in 16 years,” Hurst said. Surveillance cameras outside City Hall recorded Hurst dropping voters off at the polls and one of his volunteers handing out $10 bills on Saturday, when early voting was taking place. Hurst pushed back at what the video shows. “I don’t see anything germane to us buying votes in it,” he said. His campaign offers supporters with limited transportation rides to the polls and brings them home after they vote. The practice is common among many candidates’ organizations and Hurst said he has done it in the past when running for the council. “We don’t give out money in exchange for votes. I don’t know how much clearer I can be,” Hurst said. But city officials said the allegations are not simply based on camera footage of Hurst giving rides to residents. The video shows Gilfrey T. Gregory, peeling off bills for voters outside City Hall. Gregory, who is a convicted felon, said in an earlier interview that he often hands out money to people who need help and denied paying for votes. Hurst came to Gregory’s defense, saying the man has turned his life around, as have many disfranchised people he hopes to assist if elected as mayor. “That gentleman is a volunteer for our campaign. That gentleman has volunteered on many campaigns. That particular gentleman has spent more time in prison than he has spent out, but he is a good man,” Hurst said. “We’re running a campaign that is inclusive. We know that individuals struggle. We know that. But we also know that people want to make sure that they can turn their pain into purpose.” How it began Election Commissioner Gladys Oyola-Lopez first reported suspicious activity during Saturday’s early voting to the mayor’s office. Staff referred her to City Solicitor John Payne, who is also a retired judge, Sarno said in a written statement. “These allegations are very serious and upsetting to me,” Sarno said. “Voting is a sacred trust and should be treated as such. The integrity of our elections must be protected.” Payne said he has reviewed the surveillance video footage and the affidavits. Based on what he saw, he called for the Hampden District Attorney’s Office to launch a criminal investigation. Officials for District Attorney Anthony Gulluni have declined to comment about the allegations or a possible investigation. Several election workers, as well as a police officer who was providing security at the polls, also signed affidavits. They said in those sworn statements that voters asked where they would get their $10 — along with other questionable comments. Hurst said he hasn’t seen the affidavits and said the first time he heard of the allegations was when a reporter for The Republican called him Wednesday. “The use of municipal resources and employees, all of whom are hired and paid by the mayor, to investigate voter fraud in a hotly contested race that he is running is flat out wrong,” Hurst said. He added that it is suspicious that the allegations are being reported five days before Tuesday’s election and by a newspaper that endorsed his opponent. “These allegations are deliberately designed to distract voters who want answers from the current mayor as to why their taxes have gone up eight of the last eight straight years and will go up again this year,” Hurst said. He also brought up other issues he has been hammering the mayor on for months, such as the $90 trash fee all residents pay, questions about financial mismanagement and claims that much of the $123.8 million in federal pandemic recovery money the city has received has gone to businesses that support Sarno. In the last month, the two have been campaigning hard, between grassroots efforts and advertising on television, radio and on websites. The most recent campaign finance reporting shows that as of Tuesday, Sarno had $70,000 at the end of the preliminary election in September and raised about $85,800 this month. He spent $124,000 and has a balance of about $32,000. Hurst missed the Wednesday deadline to submit his monthly finance report to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. He ended the preliminary election with just under $4,000 in the bank and in an earlier interview said he had raised enough money to do the outreach his campaign needs to win. He accused Sarno of “running scared” and said the mayoral race will not be decided by an established candidate spending a lot of money, since many people are looking for change. “The assumption that if you are Black, Brown, or poor and decide to exercise your right to vote that you are being paid in return is exactly why we are in desperate need of change,” Hurst said. If elected, Hurst will be the city’s first Black mayor.

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Opinion | The Election No One Seems to Want Is Coming Right at Us

Gail Collins: Hey, Bret, it really is 2024 now. Happy new year. And the race is on! Next week, the Iowa caucuses. After Iowa … Bret Stephens: Le déluge. Gail: OK, I want to hear your thoughts. Any chance Donald Trump won’t be the Republican nominee? Do you have a Nikki Haley scenario? Bret: Gail, my feelings about the G.O.P. primary contest are like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. After the 2022 midterms, when Trump’s favored candidates were more or less trounced and he looked like a total loser, I was in complete denial that he could win. Then as his standing in the party failed to evaporate as I had predicted, I was angry: “Lock him up,” I wrote. Next came bargaining: I said he might be stopped if only Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and every other Republican dropped out of the race to endorse Haley. Gail: Stage 4? Bret: Now I’m just depressed. After he takes back the White House in November, I guess acceptance will have to follow. Is there a Stage 6? Does eternal damnation come next?

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politics

The 14th Amendment Disqualification Was Not Meant for Trump - The New York Times

Challenges to disqualify Donald Trump from the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment are popping up all over the country. On Thursday the secretary of state of Maine ruled that Mr. Trump would be ineligible for the state’s primary ballot, a decision that can be appealed to the state’s Supreme Court. On Wednesday the Michigan Supreme Court ruled narrowly that the state will allow Mr. Trump to stay on the primary ballot but left open a potential future challenge to his inclusion on a general-election ballot. But so far only one — the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that bars Mr. Trump from the primary ballot — has reached the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court should take the case and reverse the Colorado Supreme Court ruling and do so for the very reason cited by the Colorado judges. According to the Colorado court (quoting an earlier, unrelated case), Section 3 should be interpreted “in light of the objective sought to be achieved and the mischief to be avoided.” That is exactly right. The Colorado court failed, however, to follow its own advice. When Congress passed the 14th Amendment, there wasn’t a person in the Senate or House who worried about loyal Americans electing a former rebel like Jefferson Davis as president. Instead, Republicans feared that the leaders of the rebellion would use their local popularity to disrupt Republican Reconstruction policy in Congress or in the states. Section 3 expressly addressed these concerns and did so without denying loyal Americans their right to choose a president.

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Senator spent time with Thanksgiving traditions, judge security bill (Letter)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope that dinner on Thursday was spent with loved ones and that amid all the excitement and stress of preparation and travel, everyone also took some time to reflect on what they are thankful for this year. I know for myself that it’s a long list, but at the top of it is my family. It was a still a busy week in the district ahead of the holiday. Monday morning was the groundbreaking for the Appleton Mills project in Holyoke. This revitalization project will be restoring the currently unused Appleton Mills building to create 88 units of affordable senior housing. As the cost of housing continues to skyrocket, seniors on a fixed income are some of the hardest hit, and this project will go a long way to protecting one of our most vulnerable populations. On Tuesday, I got to take part in of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions: serving dinner down at the Forum House in Westfield. This organization does amazing work and helps those with disabilities enter and stay in the workforce. They are a great group to work alongside, and I thank them for inviting me to serve their holiday meals. I’m already looking forward to next year.

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Hamas Says Commander of Its Northern Gaza Brigade Is Dead

Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, said on Sunday that one of its top commanders had been killed in its war with Israel there. The announcement from Hamas came on the third day of a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas to facilitate the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Israel has vowed it will continue its military campaign in the enclave after the truce is scheduled to end on Tuesday morning, with its primary goal being the destruction of Hamas. On Sunday morning the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, issued a brief statement saying that Abu Anas al-Ghandour, who led the group’s fighters in northern Gaza, and three other commanders had been killed. It did not provide further details on when or where they had died. The Israeli military said earlier this month — before the truce began — that it had targeted Mr. al-Ghandour in a strike on Hamas’s underground infrastructure, but did not say at the time whether he was dead or alive. On Sunday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it had killed Mr. al-Ghandour “prior to the operational pause” in fighting, calling him a “leading figure in the planning and execution” of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The military also confirmed it had killed the three other commanders Hamas named in its statement — Aiman Siam, Wael Rajeb and Rafet Salman. A number of other Hamas officials and commanders are believed to have been killed since Israel launched a war in retaliation for the group’s Oct. 7 attacks, which killed an estimated 1,200 people in southern Israel and led to the abduction of roughly 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. Mr. al-Ghandour was the most senior commander that Hamas has confirmed dead since the group’s announcement last month that Ayman Nofal, a member of its General Military Council and the commander of the Central Brigade in the Qassam Brigades, had been killed. The State Department put Mr. al-Ghandour under U.S. sanctions in 2017, saying that he had been “involved in many terrorist operations” — including a 2006 attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and led to the kidnapping of another, Gilad Shalit. Mr. Shalit was released in October 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. One of those freed in the deal, Yahya Sinwar, eventually became Hamas’s leader in Gaza and, according to Israeli officials, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks.