Good morning,
Joe Biden made a forceful State of the Union speech on Thursday, criticising the former president Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection, vowing to stand up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, urging Israel to take responsibility in the delivery of aid to Gaza, backing reproductive freedom and taking on rightwing antagonists over immigration.
The overall tone of Biden’s speech, which marked his last State of the Union address before November, was strikingly combative, while hopeful. Biden repeatedly invoked Trump by referring to “my predecessor” as he attacked the former president on everything from foreign policy to immigration reform.
Biden compared 2024 to 1941, the moment the US stood on the precipice of entering the second world war, and he repeatedly reminded Americans that “history is watching” how the nation will react to the crises unfolding around the world.
Republicans in the chamber pretended to be bored or not listening, PBS NewsHour reported, with only a handful clapping when Biden condemned the January 6 attack on Congress.
Here are some of the speech’s key themes:
Threats to democracy: “Not since President Lincoln and the civil war have our freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today,” Biden said. “What makes our moment rare is freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.”
Israel’s war on Gaza: “Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority” for Israel, he said.
Abortion on the ballot: The president said efforts to restrict abortion were an “assault on freedom”, and he derided the supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade.
The age question: Biden, 81, leaned into his age, mentioning he was born during the second world war, but defended his vision for the country as fresh. “You can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back,” he said, referring to Trump.
As Gaza hunger grows, Biden announces the US will build a shoreline pier for aid delivery
US forces will build a temporary dock on the Gaza shoreline to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale, Biden announced in his State of the Union speech, amid warnings of a widespread famine among the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
Biden’s announcement raised hopes for faster delivery of food, water and medicine to Gaza. But it also represents a US failure to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to facilitate greater aid – amid frustration of what is seen in Washington as Israeli obstruction of road deliveries on a substantial scale.
Meanwhile, a further 87 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry, taking the overall death toll to 30,878 people. The invasion began after Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and another 200 were taken hostage.
It came as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will resist international pressure to stop an attack on Rafah.
Here’s what we know about Biden’s plan: “Tonight, I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” Biden said. He said there would be “no US boots will be on the ground”.
Here’s the latest on ceasefire negotiations in Egypt: Talks on a six-week ceasefire are yet to produce results. Hamas confirmed on Thursday that its delegation had left Cairo but said talks would resume next week.
Trump ordered to pay $382,000 after losing UK lawsuit over Steele dossier
Trump has been ordered to pay $382,000 in legal fees in a UK court case. He tried to sue a company that conducted research for Democrats about his Russia links in 2016.
But a London judge, who threw out the case against Orbis Business Intelligence last month saying it was “bound to fail”, ordered Trump to pay legal fees of £300,000 ($382,000), according to court documents released on Thursday.
The so-called Steele dossier assembled in 2016 created a political storm just before Trump’s inauguration with uncorroborated allegations about Russia links that have since been largely discredited.
What do we know about Trump’s legal troubles? Trump is charged in four criminal cases and faces a civil complaint in US courts. He lost a subsequent defamation case in which a jury found him liable for sexual abuse, and has been ordered to pay $355m after a fraud verdict against his businesses. But in this case he was not the defendant.
What are the polls showing? A YouGov/Economist poll conducted 3-5 March found Trump on 44% and Biden on 42%.
In other news …
Gunmen have attacked a school in Nigeria’s north-west region seizing at least 287 students, in the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited Kashmir for the first time since he revoked the region’s autonomy in 2019. Modi said the Muslim-majority state was finally “breathing freely”, despite allegations of systematic repression.
The former boxing heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson, 57, will return to the ring against the YouTuber turned fighter Jake Paul, in a Netflix broadcast on 20 July.
A mass shooting in Ottawa, Canada left six dead, including four children. The mayor described it as “one of the most shocking incidents of violence” in the city’s history.
Don’t miss this: Astronomers detect ‘waterworld with a boiling ocean’ in deep space
Astronomers have observed a distant planet that could be entirely covered in a deep water ocean. The observations, by Nasa’s James Webb space telescope, revealed water vapour and chemical signatures of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, which is about 70 light years away. The ocean could be upwards of 100C (212F).
Climate check: Great Barrier Reef suffering ‘mass coral bleaching’ from hotter ocean
The Great Barrier Reef in Australia – a coral system bigger than Italy – is suffering its fifth mass bleaching in eight years, surveys have found. Corals bleach when, in response to warmer oceans, they expel algae, which provides them with nutrients and colour. Bleaching can lead to coral death. “It’s devastating. Unbelievable. The water was way too warm,” said Diana Kleine, of CoralWatch.
Last Thing: Paris is at war over 300 wild rabbits
A fight has erupted in Paris to save or annihilate the wild rabbits living in the shadow of Napoleon’s tomb, writes Agnès Poirier. About 300 rabbits have been digging thousands of tunnels underneath the manicured lawn of the Esplanade des Invalides. Authorities estimate that it would cost $400,000 to reverse damage they caused. But activists are fighting to save the rabbits, who once charmed the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
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