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Chuck Schumer, the US Senate majority leader, broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday over his handling of the invasion of Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections.
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, said he had a longstanding relationship with Netanyahu but believed he “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”.
Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli fire killed 20 people and injured 150 waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged Palestinian territory. The Israeli military denied the reports.
Here is how Schumer’s comments were received: The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, criticised Schumer. Israel’s ruling Likud party told Schumer to “respect Israel’s elected government and not undermine it”.
Here are the details that Gaza’s health ministry gave about the attack: Officials said an Israeli attack occurred as a crowd gathered to receive aid from a food truck at the Kuwait roundabout, a key interchange used by humanitarian convoys carrying desperately needed food into northern Gaza. An AFP journalist on the scene saw several bodies and people who had been shot.
Father of Michigan school shooter found guilty of involuntary manslaughter
The father of a school shooter in Michigan has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter – the first mass shooter case to find a parent criminally responsible for the actions of their child.
James Crumbley, 47, is the father of Ethan Crumbley, who at the age of 15 took a gun from home and killed four students at Oxford high school on 30 November 2021. Ethan, now 17, is serving a life sentence for murder and terrorism.
“James Crumbley is not on trial for what his son did,” prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury. “James Crumbley is on trial for what he did and for what he didn’t do.”
What are the details before the shooting? Earlier in November 2021, Ethan wrote in his journal that he needed help for his mental health “but my parents don’t listen to me so I can’t get any help”. Ethan made a macabre drawing of a gun and a wounded man on a math assignment on the day of the shooting, but his parents declined to take Ethan home after a brief meeting at his school. Hours later he began shooting.
Guns and weapons trafficked from US fueling Haiti gang violence
As Haiti has again plunged into violent chaos, images of gang members bearing high-powered rifles, pump-action shotguns or automatic weapons in the streets of Port-au-Prince have become ubiquitous. But this weaponry is not made in Haiti, a country with no firearms or ammunition manufacturing capabilities.
It is an arsenal that largely comes directly from the US, with most guns, experts say, likely to have originated from states with lax firearm laws, and many trafficked into Haiti from Florida.
This clandestine trade has left Haiti’s gangs with a vast cache of illegal arms and much greater firepower than the country’s dispirited and underfunded police force. The violence forced the prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, to resign this week after the gang insurrection caused days of chaos.
Weapons in Haiti: A 2020 estimate published by Haiti’s disarmament commission estimated there could be as many as 500,000 small arms in the country, with just 38,000 of those legally registered. The number, analysts say, is now likely to be even higher after an uptick in trafficking operations in recent years.
In other news …
Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on a British military aircraft carrying the UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, from Poland to the UK near Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.
Brazil will release millions of anti-dengue mosquitoes as the death toll from its dengue outbreak mounts.
Props from a botched Willy Wonka event in Glasgow that went viral after frustrated attenders called the police have raised more than £2,000 at auction for a Palestinian aid charity.
Experts warn that a rare but dangerous bacterial infection is spreading at a record rate in Japan, with hundreds of cases and officials struggling to identify the cause.
Don’t miss this: A forever war? Putin for life? Russia’s bleak post-election outlook
Russians go to the polls on Friday in elections that the president, Vladimir Putin, is expected to sweep. Putin’s re-election campaign, which has included a more than £1bn propaganda push – according to leaked documents obtained by the Estonian outlet Delfi and reviewed by the Guardian – has put the Ukraine war front and centre. The Russian leader envisages a militarised society stripped of its liberal trimmings, write Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer.
… or this: ‘I’m a world champion litter-picker’
SpoGomi is a sport involving litter-picking by teams of three, Sarah Parry tells Christine Ro. You’re given an area of roughly 0.6 sq miles (1.5 sq km), and have to collect as much litter as possible within an hour or so. It’s noisy and tensions are running high, so you have to have really good communication skills. Once you’re drawn into SpoGomi, your attitude towards litter and how you contribute completely changes.
Climate check: Phoenix, Arizona reports record 645 deaths related to high temperatures in 2023
Phoenix, Arizona, the hottest big city in the US, reported a staggering 645 heat-associated deaths last year – more than 50% higher than 2022 and another consecutive annual record in arid metro Phoenix. The figures raised concerns about how to better protect vulnerable groups such as homeless people and older adults from the blistering summer heat. Last summer, Phoenix experienced the hottest three months since record-keeping began in 1895.
Last Thing: Blueberry the size of a golf ball wins Guinness World Record
“When we put it on the scales I was a bit shocked,” said Brad Hocking, the blueberry lead at Costa, a fruit and vegetable producer in Corindi, New South Wales, Australia. The berry weighs 0.72 ounces (20.4 grams) and is 1.55 inches (39.31mm) wide – and won the title for world’s heaviest blueberry. “I knew they were big but had to do a double take to make sure,” Hocking said.
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