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☆ World Central Kitchen Will Resume Operations in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The World Central Kitchen said on Sunday that it would resume operations in Gaza with a local team of Palestinian aid workers, nearly a month after the Israeli military killed seven of the organization’s workers in targeted drone strikes on their convoy. Israeli military officials have said the attack was a “grave mistake” and cited a series of failures, including a breakdown in communication and violations of the military’s operating procedures. The Washington-based aid group said that it was still calling for an independent, international investigation into the April 1 attack and that it had received “no concrete assurances” that the Israeli military’s operational procedures had changed. But the “humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire,” the aid group’s chief operating officer, Erin Gore, said in a statement. “We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible,” she said.

Persons: ”, Erin Gore Locations: Gaza, Washington

☆ Middle East Crisis Top U.N. Court Orders Israel to Allow ‘Unhindered’ Aid Into Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Anushka Patil | Marlise Simons | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

In an interim ruling on Jan. 26, the court ordered Israel to ensure that more aid would be allowed into Gaza. Since then, the “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” necessitating further measures, the court said on Thursday. The ruling touches on some issues that leading aid organizations have called Israeli impediments contributing to the risk of famine in Gaza. Palestinians, U.N. officials and aid workers have voiced concerns about diseases spreading, hospitals collapsing and children beginning to starve to death. But, she wrote, the court “can at least mitigate” the risk to Palestinians by directing the parties before it: South Africa and Israel.

Persons: Israel, “, Aharon Barak, Abdulqawi Yusuf, ”, Nawaf Salam, ” Hilary Charlesworth, Johnatan Reiss, Victoria Kim Organizations: International Court of Justice, United Nations, South, United Nations ’, ” Locations: The Hague, Gaza, Israel, South Africa, Africa, Somalia

☆ Middle East Crisis Top U.N. Court Orders Israel to Ensure Aid to Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

Mr. Conrad said he met Mr. Issa, Mr. al-Jabari and Mahmoud al-Zahar, another senior Hamas official, about 10 times between 2009 and 2011 in Gaza City. “He was the master of the data on the prisoners,” Mr. Conrad said of Mr. Issa. Mr. Awawdeh, the analyst, called Mr. Issa a man who liked to “remain in the shadows” and who seldom granted interviews to the media. Mr. Issa was born in the Bureij area of central Gaza in 1965, but his family hails from what is now the Ashkelon area in Israel. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, has said that Mr. Issa helped plan the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.

Persons: Marwan Issa, Jake Sullivan, Mr, Issa, —, Mohammed Deif, Ahmed al, Yahya Sinwar, Salah al, Din, Issa’s, ” Maj, Tamir Hayman, Deif, Sinwar’s, “ There’s, ” Mr, Awawdeh, “, ” Michael Milshtein, Qassam, wasn’t, Milshtein, Gerhard Conrad, Conrad, Mahmoud al, ”, Gilad Shalit, Al Jazeera, Daniel Hagari Organizations: U.S, Hamas, Qassam, Palestinian Authority Locations: Israel, Gaza, Gaza City, Palestine, Bureij, Ashkelon

☆ First Ship Carrying Food Aid Arrives in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A humanitarian aid ship arrived on Friday in Gaza for the first time since the start of the war, a first step in a fledgling maritime operation to bring more aid to hungry Palestinians as aid groups say that Israel is restricting more efficient deliveries by road. Linda Roth, a spokeswoman for World Central Kitchen, said that the Open Arms had docked at a newly built jetty on the Gaza coast and that workers were beginning to move the food onto land. “For aid delivery at scale there is no meaningful substitute to the many land routes and entry points from Israel into Gaza,” two U.N. aid officials, Sigrid Kaag and Jorge Moreira da Silva, said in a statement this week. Still, they welcomed the opening of a maritime corridor, given how much more humanitarian assistance is needed in Gaza. Israel, which tightened an already restrictive blockade on Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, has said throughout the war that it is committed to allowing as much aid into Gaza as possible.

Persons: Ursula von der Leyen, Linda Roth, Sigrid Kaag, Jorge Moreira da Silva Organizations: Arms, United Nations Locations: Gaza, Israel, Cyprus, Gaza . Israel

☆ Second Gaza Aid Convoy Ends in Violence, With at Least 20 Killed
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Raja Abdulrahim | Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For the second time in just over two weeks, a convoy bringing aid to hunger-stricken northern Gaza ended in bloodshed late Thursday when Palestinians were killed and wounded in an attack surrounding the trucks, according to Gazan health officials and the Israeli military, which offered divergent accounts of what happened. The Israeli military has said that most of the people died in a stampede and that some were run over by the trucks. Israel, which has been under growing pressure to allow more aid into the territory, had organized that convoy to northern Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of people are facing starvation. It was not clear immediately on Friday who had sent the latest supplies, driven the trucks or provided security for them. The Israeli military said it had “facilitated the passage” of the 31 trucks but did not elaborate on that.

Persons: ” Organizations: Gaza Health Ministry, “, United Nations Locations: Gaza, Kuwait, Gaza City, Israel

☆ Israeli forces claim to assassinate a Hamas commander in a strike on a U.N. aid warehouse in Rafah.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Israeli military confirmed that it had bombed an aid warehouse in Rafah in southern Gaza on Wednesday, saying it had “precisely targeted” and killed a Hamas commander in an attack that the United Nations said also killed at least one aid worker and injured 22 others. The Israeli military said the Hamas commander, whom it identified as Muhammad Abu Hasna, was “involved in taking control of humanitarian aid” and coordinating “the activities of various Hamas units.”UNRWA, the U.N. agency that supports Palestinians, said the strike in Gaza’s southernmost city hit one of its facilities that serves as both an aid warehouse and a food distribution center. The agency, formally the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is the largest provider of aid on the ground in Gaza and the chief lifeline for the enclave’s 2.2 million residents, more than half of whom have been forced by Israeli military orders or fighting to cram into Rafah. The UNRWA facility was not distributing food to civilians on Wednesday, but more than 50 staff members were working at the facility when it was hit by Israeli forces around noon, according to Juliette Touma, an UNRWA spokeswoman. Physical damage to the facility appeared to be minimal, but the human toll was “quite high” and some of the 22 wounded aid workers were “severely injured,” she said.

Persons: Muhammad Abu Hasna, Juliette Touma, “, ” Organizations: United Nations, UNRWA, United Nations Relief, Works Agency Locations: Rafah, Gaza, Gaza’s

☆ Middle East Crisis Israeli’s Military Turns Back Convoy Trying to Get Food Into Gaza, U.N. Agency Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Starbucks franchise operators across the Middle East and Southeast Asia are losing significant business amid boycotts linked to the Israel-Hamas war, and at least one has started laying off employees. “I think all those who are boycotting Starbucks Malaysia should know that it is a Malaysia-owned company,” he said. A similar post was published on the site for Starbucks in the Middle East. In January, Starbucks cut its global annual sales forecast as the Israel-Hamas war hurt the business of its licensees in the Middle East. Starbucks said it would continue to grow its business in the Middle East, including working with Alshaya Group in developing plans for the region.

Persons: Vincent Tan, ”, Laxman Narasimhan, Howard Schultz Organizations: Starbucks, Alshaya, Hamas, Food Berhad, Starbucks Malaysia, Alshaya Group Locations: East, Southeast Asia, Israel, Kuwait, North Africa, United States, Malaysia

☆ An Israeli strike near a hospital in Rafah killed at least 11 people, Gaza health officials say.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

An Israeli strike outside a hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Saturday killed at least 11 people and injured dozens of other displaced Palestinians, including children, who were sheltering in tents nearby, the Gaza Health Ministry said. At least two health care workers, including a paramedic, were among those killed after the strike near the gate of the Emirati maternity hospital, the health ministry said. The victims of the strike were sheltering near the Emirati maternity hospital, one of the last hospitals still functioning in Gaza. The Emirati hospital is essentially “the last hope for pregnant women in the whole of Gaza,” Mr. Allen said. A strike so close to the hospital poses a “terrifying” risk to pregnant women, newborns and the overloaded health care workers trying to care for them, he added.

Persons: Abdul Fattah Abu Marai, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dominic Allen, Mr, Allen Organizations: Gaza Health Ministry, “ Islamic, World Health Organization, United Nations Population Fund Locations: Israeli, Rafah, Gaza, Kuwaiti, stretchers, Gaza’s, State, Palestine

After nearly 15 weeks of war, sharp divisions within Israel over the path forward in the Gaza Strip are increasingly coming into the open. A member of Israel’s war cabinet, a general who lost a son in the conflict, urged in a television interview broadcast late Thursday that the country pursue an extended cease-fire with Hamas to free the remaining hostages, a rebuke of the “total victory” being pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And in a sign of the growing exasperation among parts of the Israeli public over the government’s failure to free the hostages, relatives and supporters of the captives partially blocked traffic on a major highway in Tel Aviv before dawn on Friday, prompting the police to briefly detain seven for having “participated in disorderly conduct and unlawful behavior.”Israel’s emergency governing coalition is under intense and competing pressures as the war drags on. Right-wing politicians are urging the military to act more aggressively in Gaza, even while Israel is contending with outrage across the globe over the carnage and decimation of so much of the territory. At the same time, the families of hostages are urging concessions to secure their return.

Persons: ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, “ Locations: Israel, Gaza, Tel Aviv

Citizens of Thailand, the Philippines and Russia, who were freed through separate talks, also numbered among the hostages Hamas released. The New York Times compared the Israeli data with lists of the Palestinians released each day by the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs. The Israeli data shows that three-quarters of the released Palestinians had not been convicted of a crime. More than half of the cases were being prosecuted in Israeli military courts, which try Palestinians in the occupied West Bank but not Israeli settlers who live there. Nearly all Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts are convicted, and those accused of security offenses can be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial.

Persons: Israel Organizations: New York Times, Palestinian, Commission, Prisoners ’ Affairs, West Bank Locations: Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Gaza, Israel

☆ The activist Ahed Tamimi is among the Palestinians freed in the latest exchange.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

The prominent Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and more than two dozen other women and children were released from Israeli prisons early Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian authorities said, in the latest exchange for hostages held in Gaza. The military had moved on Sunday to keep Ms. Tamimi imprisoned under administrative detention, which would have allowed it to hold her indefinitely without charge or trial. But her name later appeared on the Israeli government’s list of Palestinian prisoners and detainees approved for potential release in the hostage exchange. The sheer number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war has also left an indelible mark, Nariman Tamimi said. Israeli forces have also killed at least 225 Palestinians in the West Bank since the crackdown began, making 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians there since 2005, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian agency.

Persons: Ahed Tamimi, Tamimi, Mahmoud Hassan, Bassem Tamimi, Tamimi’s, Nariman Tamimi, “, ”, ” Ms, Barghouti, Omar al, Saleh al, Sara Aridi Organizations: West Bank, Health, Palestinian, United Nations, Palestinian Prisoners Society Locations: Gaza, Haifa, Israel, Ramallah

☆ Israel-Hamas War Israel Announces ‘Large Attack’ as Communications Blackout Cuts Off Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“Essentially today there is a northern Gaza and a southern Gaza,” Admiral Hagari said. Earlier in the day, the Israeli military had accused Hamas of using two hospitals in northern Gaza, Sheikh Hamad and Indonesian hospitals, as cover for its operational centers. The Israeli military had earlier made similar accusations about Al Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, and on Friday the Israeli military confirmed an airstrike near that facility. The communications blackout hit Gaza after sunset, around 6:20 p.m. local time, according to NetBlocks, an internet monitoring service. The first blackout on Oct. 27, which began around sunset, lasted nearly 36 hours and spread fear and panic across Gaza as Israel began a ground invasion.

Persons: Daniel Hagari, Israel, Admiral Hagari, ’, Sheikh Hamad, Al Shifa, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Tedros, NetBlocks, Alp Toker, “, ” Mr, Toker Organizations: BBC, West Bank, Al, Gaza’s, Palestine Red Crescent Society, UNRWA, World Health Organization Locations: Gaza City, Gaza, Indonesian, Al Shifa, Palestine, Israel, United States

☆ Israel Announces ‘Large Attack’ as Communications Blackout Cuts Off Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

☆ Third Communications Blackout Hits Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Gaza was plunged into a communications blackout on Sunday for the third time in 10 days, again leaving its people without access to internet or phone services as night fell and Israel’s heavy bombardment of the enclave continued. The widespread blackout began shortly before sunset, around 4:20 p.m. local time, according to NetBlocks, an internet monitoring service. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on social media that the blackout affected more than two million civilians, cutting off access to emergency medical services as the bombings continued, and that, as during the previous blackouts, it had lost contact with its teams in Gaza. UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, also said it was unable to reach “the vast majority” of its team in the enclave. “Without connectivity, people who need immediate medical attention cannot contact hospitals and ambulances,” he said on social media.

Persons: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, ”, NetBlocks, Alp Toker, “, ” Mr, Toker, Israel Organizations: Palestine Red Crescent Society, UNRWA, World Health Organization, Gaza’s Locations: Gaza, Palestine, Israel, United States

“There is no time to mourn — more death is on the way,” Mr. Mansour said. “The answer to the killing of Palestinian civilians is not the killing of Israeli civilians,” Mr. Mansour said. Mr. Mansour, the Palestinian representative, also directly responded to a speech the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, made at the U.N. Security Council this week. Mr. Cohen called for Israeli hostages to be brought home, but “for millions of Palestinians, there is no home to go back to,” Mr. Mansour said. “For thousands, there is no family left to embrace.”“He told you how horrible it was to kill civilians,” Mr. Mansour continued, “just before justifying the killing of Palestinian civilians by the thousands.

Persons: Riyad Mansour, —, ” Mr, Mansour, ”, Gilad Erdan, Erdan, Mr, Eli Cohen, Cohen, “, Dennis Francis of Trinidad, Jordan, Ayman Safadi, ” Anushka Patil Organizations: United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, Palestinian, Islamic, . Security, Arab Locations: Gaza ., Israel, Gaza, Islamic State, Iran, Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago, Jordan

At least four family members of a prominent Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza were killed, the news organization said on Wednesday. The network said the wife, son, daughter and infant grandson of Wael al-Dahdouh, the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language service, were killed at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where they had been sheltering. Al Jazeera identified two of the deceased as Mr. al-Dahdouh’s teenage son, Mahmoud, and his young daughter, Sham. Photos also showed Mr. al-Dahdouh clutching what appeared to be his daughter’s small, shrouded body, looking down at her bloodied face in anguish. In a translated interview aired by Al Jazeera’s English-language channel, Mr. al-Dahdouh, his face wet with tears, said no one was safe in Gaza.

Persons: Wael, Al, “ Al Jazeera, Dahdouh, Mohamed Moawad, Jazeera, Mahmoud, Al Jazeera’s, ” Hoda Abdel, Hamid, Issam Abdallah, Shireen Abu Akleh Organizations: Al, Al Jazeera Media Network, Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Protect Journalists, Hamas, —, Reuters, Agence France, Presse, Palestinian, West Bank, Israeli Army Locations: Al Jazeera, Gaza, Al Jazeera’s, Israel, “ Al, Gaza City, Al Aqsa, Deir al, Palestinian American, Jenin, Israeli

An aerial view of a music festival that was the site of a Hamas attack. The next images are of Ms. Schem, who disappeared from the site of a music festival where at least 260 people were killed, speaking directly to the camera in Hebrew. “At the moment I am in Gaza,” Ms. Schem says in a solemn, clipped voice. “She called me to say she was going to a party down south,” Keren Schem said. Keren Schem said one person who was at the show described having seen her daughter walking toward a kibbutz nearby.

Persons: Mia Schem, —, Schem, “, Ms, ”, Shem, Schem’s, Keren Schem, ” Keren Schem, Keren Schem’s, Mia, Nadav Gavrielov Organizations: Hamas, The New York Times Locations: Gaza, Israel, Tel Aviv

☆ The U.S. ambassador visits Evan Gershkovich, a WSJ reporter detained in Russia.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. ambassador to Russia met Friday with Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Moscow, a few days after his family appealed to the United Nations for help in bringing him home. The U.S. embassy in Russia confirmed the visit by Ambassador Lynne M. Tracy, which was the fourth time she had met with Mr. Gershkovich since he was detained by the Russian authorities in March. “He remains strong and is keeping up with the news — including his parents’ appearance at the U.N. this week,” the embassy said in a statement on social media. Mr. Gershkovich’s family on Wednesday had urged world leaders who will soon be attending the U.N. General Assembly to join the call for his release.

Persons: Evan Gershkovich, Lynne M, Tracy, Gershkovich, Gershkovich’s Organizations: Wall Street, United Nations, General Assembly Locations: Russia, Moscow, U.S

☆ Kim and Putin Meet in Russia: Ukraine War Live Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Choe Sang-Hun | Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin, the Russian president, are both pariahs, isolated from the West, but the war in Ukraine has elevated the North Korean leader’s significance to the Kremlin. Mr. Putin told reporters before the start of the summit that the meeting was being held at the cosmodrome because Mr. Kim “shows great interest in rocket technology,” RIA journalists reported on Telegram. Mr. Kim arrived in Russia on Tuesday from North Korea, having traveled to the meeting on his armored train, a trip that took days. North Korea also has one of the largest fleets of tanks in the world, though most are Soviet-era models. Earlier Wednesday, South Korea reported that North Korea had launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Kim Jong, Kim, Kim “, Kim’s, Dmitri S, Peskov Organizations: Vostochny Cosmodrome, Sputnik, North, Vostochny, Kremlin, United Nations Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian, North Korea, Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s, Amur, Pyongyang, Khasan, Korea, Soviet, Moscow, South Korea, North Koreans

☆ Evan Gershkovich’s family appeals to the U.N. for help in securing his release.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The family of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia since March, appealed on Wednesday for the United Nations’ help in bringing him home, urging world leaders who will soon be attending the U.N. General Assembly to join the call for his release. “Next week, world leaders will gather here to discuss many important issues,” Mr. Gershkovich’s father, Mikhail, said at a briefing in New York alongside the American ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. He called on those leaders to stand with his son, saying Evan Gershkovich represented “the basic right to free press and freedom of expression” and that “these rights are bedrock principles of the United Nations.”The United States “will not rest until Evan and Paul and all wrongfully detained Americans are home safe and sound,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said, referring to Paul Whelan, a former Marine serving a 16-year sentence on what U.S. officials say are bogus espionage charges.

Persons: Evan Gershkovich, Mr, Gershkovich’s, Mikhail, Linda Thomas, Greenfield, Evan, Paul, Ms, Thomas, Paul Whelan Organizations: Wall Street, United Nations, General Assembly, United, Marine, U.S Locations: Russia, New York, American, United States

☆ Blinken, in Kyiv, Says U.S. Will Send $1 Billion More in Aid
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

The aid will also include demining assistance to clear Russian land mines and prevent the remnants of war from causing further harm to civilians, Mr. Blinken said. It includes ammunition made with depleted uranium for Abrams tanks, which are scheduled to arrive in Ukraine this fall, Mr. Blinken said. Mr. Blinken traveled by train to Kyiv with Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, according to a State Department statement. He was replaced by Rustem Umerov, who has been the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund. A senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Mr. Blinken that the effort was aimed at “putting global support on a long-term, sustainable path.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, Biden, Dmytro Kuleba, Volodymyr Zelensky, ” Mr, Zelensky, ”, “, Lynsey Addario, Mr, Mette Frederiksen, Blinken’s, Oleksii, Rustem Umerov, Umerov’s, Tyler Hicks, Putin, Vladimir V, Russia, Erin Mendell, Anushka Patil Organizations: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kyiv, United, Pentagon, The New York Times, Ukraine’s, Department, Property Fund, 22nd Mechanized Brigade, State Department Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine, U.S, United States, matériel, Kostyantynivka, Ukrainian, ”, Russia, “, Denmark, Ukraine’s, Bakhmut, Israel

President Volodymyr Zelensky named Rustem Umerov as his choice to be Ukraine’s next defense minister, opting for a prominent member of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group who has played a key role in negotiations with Russia since the start of the war. In announcing his decision on Sunday to replace Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, Mr. Zelensky was brief. Umerov,” he said, “does not need any additional introductions.”Though a member of an opposition political party, Mr. Umerov, 41, has taken on several critical roles for the government since the Russian invasion last year. He was the chief Ukrainian negotiator of an agreement that allowed Ukraine to export some of its grain, and a prominent negotiator on prisoner exchanges. A former investment banker, Mr. Umerov is a lawmaker with the Holos party, which is in opposition to Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Umerov, Oleksii Reznikov, Zelensky, Mr, ”, “, Zelensky’s, Roman Abramovich Organizations: Defense, People, Ukraine Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian, Istanbul

☆ Oprah and Dwayne Johnson Give $10 Million to Help Maui Wildfire Victims
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson have donated $10 million to help establish a fund that will give direct cash assistance to Maui residents displaced by catastrophic wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes on the island, they said on Thursday. The new effort, called the People’s Fund of Maui, is offering payments of $1,200 per month to adults whose homes were destroyed or made uninhabitable by the wildfires in Lahaina and Kula this month. The assistance is available to both homeowners and renters, but not to property owners who do not live in homes they own. “People being able to have their own agency, being able to make decisions for themselves about what they need and what their family needs — that’s our goal,” Ms. Winfrey added in a video on Instagram. She promised that the public’s donations to the fund would go directly to victims.

Persons: Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne Johnson, “, Mr, Johnson, —, ” Ms, Winfrey Organizations: People’s, of Locations: Maui, of Maui, Lahaina, Kula, Hawaii

☆ Anti-Abortion Activist Who Kept Fetuses Is Convicted in Clinic Blockade
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Five anti-abortion activists, including one who was found to have kept five fetuses in her home last year, were found guilty of federal civil rights offenses on Tuesday after blocking access to an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in 2020. Lauren Handy of Virginia, who prosecutors said directed the invasion and blockade of the abortion clinic on Oct. 22, 2020, and her co-defendants were each convicted of a felony charge of conspiracy against rights and of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The law makes it a crime to threaten, obstruct or injure a person seeking access to a reproductive health clinic or to damage clinic property. Handy had arrived for an appointment she had made at the clinic under a false name. The defendants, who were livestreaming their blockade on Facebook, blocked a patient from entering the treatment area and left a nurse with a sprained ankle, prosecutors said.

Persons: Lauren Handy, Handy, “ Organizations: Washington , D.C, Prosecutors, Facebook Locations: Washington ,, Virginia

☆ Jimmy Carter, 6 Months Into Hospice, Is Still ‘Very Much’ Himself, Grandson Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Anushka Patil | More About Anushka Patil | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, are still holding hands and making memories together in their Georgia home six months after he entered hospice care there, one of the couple’s grandsons said on Monday. The former president, 98, is “still very much Jimmy Carter,” his grandson Josh Carter said in a telephone interview. “He’s still opinionated, he’s still strong-willed, he’s still him. And that’s great to see.”Mr. Carter, an avid outdoorsman who now uses a wheelchair, and Mrs. Carter, who uses a walker, try to get outdoors every day around the ranch-style home they built in the 1960s, their grandson said. According to the American Medical Association, hospice care is generally intended to relieve pain and suffering in patients who most likely have six months or less to live.

Persons: Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, ”, Josh Carter, “ He’s, he’s, Mr, Carter Organizations: American Medical Association Locations: Georgia

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