Blinken returns to Israel for another round of tough conversations with Netanyahu as diplomatic efforts ramp up
CNN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns to Israel Friday as part of an intensive diplomatic push to reach a “sustained and immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and deter an Israeli offensive into Rafah.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns to Israel Friday as part of an intensive diplomatic push to reach a “sustained and immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and deter an Israeli offensive into Rafah. The stop in Tel Aviv will cap Blinken’s sixth round of shuttle diplomacy in the region since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. He is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet as the stakes around the ongoing war mount. Blinken’s travel to Israel Friday coincides with the resumption of talks in Doha aimed at securing a deal for a ceasefire tied to the release of the hostages held by Hamas as well as a vote at the UN on a US-sponsored Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza conflict. Relations between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government have frayed in recent weeks, and domestic US frustrations about the war continue to mount. Partisan divides have grown on Capitol Hill, exemplified by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call last week for an election in Israel and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday stating his intention to invite Netanyahu to address Congress. Blinken’s meetings are expected to be tense with Netanyahu vowing to carry out an Israeli military incursion into Rafah, where more than a million Gazans have been forced to flee, despite US and international criticism of such a plan. “Our position, which is very clear, is that a major military operation in Rafah would be a mistake, something we don’t support,” Blinken reiterated at a press conference Thursday. “There is no place for the many civilians who are massed … in Rafah … to go to get out of harm’s way. And for those that would inevitably remain, it would be a humanitarian disaster.”
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
After nearly eight weeks of testimony, Massachusetts prosecutors and defense attorneys for Karen Read are presenting their closing arguments as her retrial for the death of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, nears its end.
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected another attempt by President Donald Trump to review a $5 million judgment against him for sexually abusing and then defaming E. Jean Carroll.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national mistakenly deported three months ago, has pleaded not guilty to federal human trafficking charges.
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday blocked part of President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to revamp how elections are run in the United States.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning.
Flying home from his first visit to Paris as president, an awestruck Donald Trump told aides aboard Air Force One that the military parade he’d just witnessed was one of the most dazzling spectacles he’d ever seen.
As the Supreme Court bears down on the most contentious stretch of its annual session, the justices have been taking detours in opinions that reveal policy preferences and simmering grievances.
A bitter feud is escalating between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Donald Trump’s top border official, injecting uncertainty into Congress’s attempt to pass the administration’s signature policy bill this month.
The fact that Israel struck Iran without any US involvement, and against the president’s publicly stated wishes, now thrusts Trump into one of the biggest tests of his young presidency.
President Donald Trump unlawfully federalized thousands of members of California’s National Guard and must return control of the troops to the state, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani bitterly clashed over age and experience Thursday in the final debate before New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, as Cuomo warned that electing the progressive state assemblyman is unprepared for the job and Mamdani hammered the former governor over scandals during his time in Albany.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line.
When the Trump Justice Department took the extraordinary step of arresting a local judge seven weeks ago, plenty feared what it could portend.