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Biden says the US is rushing weaponry to Ukraine as he signs a $95 billion war aid measure into law
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he was immediately rushing badly needed weaponry to Ukraine as he signed into law a $95 billion war aid measure that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hotspots.
The announcement marked an end to the long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine, with Biden promising that U.S. weapons shipment would begin making the way into Ukraine “in the next few hours.”
“We rose to the moment, we came together, and we got it done," Biden said a White House event to announce the bill signing. "Now we need to move fast, and we are.”
But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine aid. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it's unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.
Biden immediately approved sending Ukraine $1 billion in military assistance, the first tranche from about $61 billion allocated for Ukraine. The package includes air defense capabilities, artillery rounds, armored vehicles and other weapons to shore up Ukrainian forces who have seen morale sink as Russian President Vladimir Putin has racked up win after win.
Meanwhile, Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials confirmed Wednesday. The U.S. is providing more of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in the new military aid package, according to one official who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Still, longer term, it remains uncertain if Ukraine — after months of losses and sustaining massive damage to its infrastructure — can make enough progress to sustain American political support before burning through the latest influx of money.
“It’s not going in the Ukrainians' favor in the Donbas, certainly not elsewhere in the country,” said White House national security spokesman John Kirby, referring to the eastern industrial heartland where Ukraine has suffered setbacks. “Mr. Putin thinks he can play for time. So we’ve got to try to make up some of that time.”
Tucked into the measure is a provision that gives TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, nine months to sell it or face a nationwide prohibition in the United States. The Biden administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have called the social media site a growing national security concern, which ByteDance denies.
The bill also includes about $26 billion in aid for Israel and a surge of about $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza suffering as the Israel-Hamas war continues. Biden said Israel must ensure the humanitarian aid for Palestinians in bill reaches Gaza “without delay.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed a vote on the supplemental aid package for months as members of his party's far right wing, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, threatened to move to oust him if he allowed a vote to send more assistance to Ukraine. Those threats persist.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 presidential GOP nominee, has complained that European allies have not done enough for Ukraine. While he stopped short of endorsing the supplemental funding package, his tone has shifted in recent days, acknowledging that Ukraine's survival is important to the United States.
Indeed, many European leaders have long been nervous that a second Trump presidency would mean decreased U.S. support for Ukraine and for the NATO military alliance. The European anxiety was heightened in February when Trump in a campaign speech warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that don't meet defense spending goals if he returns to the White House.
It was a key moment in the debate over Ukraine spending. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg quickly called out Trump for putting “American and European soldiers at increased risk.” Biden days later called Trump's comments "dangerous" and “un-American” and accused Trump of playing into Putin's hands.
But in reality, the White House maneuvering to win additional funding for Ukraine started months earlier.
Biden, the day after returning from a whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv following Hamas militants' stunning Oct. 7 attack on Israel, used a rare prime time address to make his pitch for the supplemental funding.
At the time, the House was in chaos because the Republican majority had been unable to select a speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who had been ousted more than two weeks earlier. McCarthy’s reckoning with the GOP's far right came after he agreed earlier in the year to allow federal spending levels that many in his right flank disagreed with and wanted undone.
Far-right Republicans have also adamantly opposed sending more money for Ukraine, with the war appearing to have no end in sight. Biden in August requested more than $20 billion to keep aid flowing into Ukraine, but the money was stripped out of a must-pass spending bill even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Washington to make a personal plea for continued U.S. backing.
By late October, Republicans finally settled on Johnson, a low-profile Louisiana Republican whose thinking on Ukraine was opaque, to serve as the next speaker. Biden during his congratulatory call with Johnson urged him to quickly pass Ukraine aid and began a months-long, largely behind-the-scenes effort to bring the matter to a vote.
In private conversations with Johnson, Biden and White House officials leaned into the stakes for Europe if Ukraine were to fall to Russia. Five days after Johnson was formally elected speaker, national security adviser Jake Sullivan outlined to him the administration's strategy on Ukraine and assured him that accountability measures were in place in Ukraine to track where the aid was going — an effort to address a common complaint from conservatives.
On explicit orders from Biden, White House officials also avoided directly attacking Johnson over the stalled aid.
Johnson came off to White House officials as direct and an honest actor throughout the negotiations, according to a senior administration official. Biden had success finding common ground with Republicans earlier in his term to win the passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure deal, legislation to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry, and an expansion of federal health care services for veterans exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits. And he knew there was plenty of Republican support for further Ukraine funding.
Biden praised Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying in the end they “stepped up and did the right thing.”
“History will remember this moment," Biden said. "For all the talk about how dysfunctional things are in Washington, when you look over the past three years, we’ve seen it time and again on the critical issues. We’ve actually come together.”
At frustrating moments during the negotiations, Biden urged his aides to “just keep talking, keep working,” according to the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
So they did. In a daily meeting convened by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, the president's top aides — seated around a big oval table in Zients' office — would brainstorm possible ways to better make the case about Ukraine’s dire situation in the absence of aid.
Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, and legislative affairs director Shuwanza Goff were in regular contact with Johnson. Goff and Johnson’s senior staff also spoke frequently as a deal came into focus.
The White House also sought to accommodate Johnson and his various asks. For instance, administration officials at the speaker's request briefed Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., two conservatives who were persistent antagonists of Johnson.
All the while, senior Biden officials frequently updated McConnell as well as key Republican committee leaders, including Reps. Michael McCaul and Mike Turner.
In public, the administration deployed a strategy of downgrading intelligence that demonstrated Russia's efforts to tighten its ties with U.S. adversaries China, North Korea and Iran to fortify Moscow's defense industrial complex and get around U.S. and European sanctions.
The $61 billion can help triage Ukrainian forces, but Kyiv will need much more for a fight that could last years, military experts say.
Realistic goals for the months ahead for Ukraine — and its allies — include avoiding the loss of major cities, slowing Russia's momentum and getting additional weaponry to Kyiv that could help them go on the offensive in 2025, said Bradley Bowman, a defense strategy and policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“In our microwave culture, we tend to want immediate results,” Bowman said. “And sometimes things are just hard and you can’t get immediate results. I think Ukrainian success is not guaranteed, but Russian success is if we stop supporting Ukraine."
Biden lamented that the package did not include money to bolster U.S. border security. The White House had proposed including in the package provisions that it said would have helped stem the tide of migrants and asylum seekers coming to the U.S.
Republicans, however, rejected the proposal at the urging of Trump, who did not want to give Biden the win on an issue that’s been an albatross for the Democratic administration.
“It should have been included in this bill,” Biden said. “I’m determined to get it done for the American people.”
TikTok may be banned in the US. Here’s what happened when India did it
The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.
In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here's what happened:
WHY DID INDIA BAN TIKTOK?
In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.
The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.
The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.
“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.
Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”
HOW DID USERS AND CREATORS REACT?
At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users, the most outside of China. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.
TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.
“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.
In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.
But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.
Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.
“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.
Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.
HOW IS INDIA'S BAN DIFFERENT FROM THE U.S.
The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.
The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.
In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.
But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.
As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.
The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.
“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.
“There should be different rules for democratic countries and for authoritarian regimes where companies can act as an extension of the state,” he added.
Protests at US campuses are pressing colleges to cut financial ties with Israel
Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their schools: Stop doing business with Israel — or any companies that empower its ongoing war in Gaza.
The demand has its roots in a decades-old campaign against Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. The movement has taken on new strength as the Israel-Hamas war surpasses the six-month mark and stories of suffering in Gaza have sparked international calls for a cease-fire.
Inspired by ongoing protests and the arrests last week of more than 100 students at Columbia University, students from Massachusetts to California are now gathering by the hundreds on campuses, setting up tent camps and pledging to stay put until their demands are met.
“We want to be visible,” said Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, who noted that students at the university have been pushing for divestment from Israel since 2002. “The university should do something about what we’re asking for, about the genocide that’s happening in Gaza. They should stop investing in this genocide.”
Campus protests began after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and noncombatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
WHAT DO THE STUDENTS WANT TO SEE HAPPEN?
The students are calling for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are empowering Israel’s military efforts in Gaza — and in some cases from Israel itself.
The demands vary from campus to campus. Among them:
__ Stop doing business with military weapons manufacturers that are supplying arms to Israel.
__ Stop accepting research money from Israel for projects that aid the country’s military efforts.
__ Stop investing college endowments with money managers who profit from Israeli companies or contractors.
__ Be more transparent about what money is received from Israel and what it’s used for.
Student governments at some colleges in recent weeks have passed resolutions calling for an end to investments and academic partnerships with Israel. Such bills were passed by student bodies at Columbia, Harvard Law, Rutgers and American University.
HOW ARE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES RESPONDING?
Officials at several universities say they want to have a conversation with students and honor their right to protest. But they also are echoing the concerns of many Jewish students that some of the demonstrators’ words and actions amount to antisemitism — and they say such behavior won’t be tolerated.
Sylvia Burwell, president of American University, rejected a resolution from the undergraduate senate to end investments and partnerships with Israel.
“Such actions threaten academic freedom, the respectful free expression of ideas and views, and the values of inclusion and belonging that are central to our community,” Burwell said in a statement.
Burwell cited the university’s “longstanding position” against the decades-old Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Protesters in the movement have drawn parallels between Israel’s policy in Gaza — a tiny strip of land tucked between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to about 2.3 million Palestinians — to apartheid in South Africa. Israel imposed an indefinite blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the strip in 2007.
Opponents of BDS say its message veers into antisemitism. In the past decade alone, more than 30 states have enacted laws or directives blocking agencies from hiring companies that support the movement. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called it a “pernicious threat” in 2019, saying it fueled bias against Jews on U.S. campuses.
Asked this week whether he condemned “the antisemitic protests,” President Joe Biden said he did. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” Biden said after an Earth Day event Monday.
At Yale, where dozens of student protesters were arrested Monday, President Peter Salovey noted in a message to campus that, after hearing from students, the university’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility had recommended against divesting from military weapons manufacturers.
President Minouche Shafik at Columbia said there should be “serious conversations” about how the university can help in the Middle East. But “we cannot have one group dictate terms,” she said in a statement Monday.
MIT said in a statement that the protesters have “the full attention of leadership, who have been meeting and talking with students, faculty, and staff on an ongoing basis.”
HOW MUCH MONEY ARE THE SCHOOLS RECEIVING?
On many campuses, students pushing for divestment say they don’t know the extent of their colleges’ connections to Israel. Universities with large endowments spread their money across a vast array of investments, and it can be difficult or impossible to identify where it all lands.
The U.S. Education Department requires colleges to report gifts and contracts from foreign sources, but there have been problems with underreporting, and colleges sometimes dodge reporting requirements by steering money through separate foundations that work on their behalf.
According to an Education Department database, about 100 U.S. colleges have reported gifts or contracts from Israel totaling $375 million over the past two decades. The data tells little about where the money comes from, however, or how it was used.
Some students at MIT have published the names of several researchers who accept money from Israel’s defense ministry for projects that the students say could help with drone navigation and missile protection. All told, pro-Palestinian students say, MIT has accepted more than $11 million from the defense ministry over the past decade.
MIT officials didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
“MIT is directly complicit with all of this,” said sophomore Quinn Perian, a leader of a Jewish student group that is calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. He said there’s growing momentum to hold colleges accountable for any role they play in supporting Israel’s military.
“We’re all drawing from the same fire,” he said. “They’re forcing us, as students, to be complicit in this genocide.”
Motivated by the Columbia protests, students at the University of Michigan were camping out on a campus plaza Tuesday demanding an end to financial investments with Israel. They say the school sends more than $6 billion to investment managers who profit from Israeli companies or contractors. They also cited investments in companies that produce drones or warplanes used in Israel, and in surveillance products used at checkpoints into Gaza.
University of Michigan officials said that they have no direct investments with Israeli companies, and that indirect investments made through funds amount to a fraction of 1% of the university’s $18 billion endowment. The school rejected calls for divestment, citing a nearly 20-year-old policy “that shields the university’s investments from political pressures.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE STUDENTS?
Students at Harvard and Yale are demanding greater transparency, along with their calls for divestment.
Transparency was one of the key demands at Emerson College, where 80 students and other supporters occupied a busy courtyard on the downtown Boston campus Tuesday.
Twelve tents sporting slogans including “Free Gaza” or “No U.S. $ For Israel” lined the entrance to the courtyard, with sleeping bags and pillows peeking out through the zippered doors.
Students sat cross-legged on the brick paving stones typing away on final papers and reading for exams. The semester ends in a couple of weeks.
“I would love to go home and have a shower,” said Owen Buxton, a film major, “but I will not leave until we reach our demands or I am dragged out by police.”
German leader says Europe must keep increasing aid to Ukraine after US approves new military help
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Europe must continue to step up its help for Ukraine even after the approval of a big U.S. aid package, but made clear that he's sticking to his refusal to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv.
Scholz spoke after meeting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Berlin. The two countries are Europe's biggest suppliers of military assistance to Ukraine as it counters Russia's full-scale invasion, and both vowed to keep that up “for as long as it takes.”
Ukraine's cause was boosted this week by the approval in Congress of a $61 billion U.S. military aid package that had been held up for months. Scholz described it as “an encouraging and necessary signal.”
“But I also want to say clearly that the United States' decision doesn't release us here in Europe from the task of further expanding our support for Ukraine so that the country can defend itself against the aggressor,” he said.
Scholz, whose country recently pledged to supply a third Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, appealed again for other European countries that have the system to examine whether they can spare one.
Still, asked whether he will reverse his often-criticized refusal to send Taurus missiles, Scholz listed at length the military hardware Germany has provided and added: “As far as the weapons system you mention is concerned, my decision won't change.”
Scholz has argued that Taurus missiles could only be used responsibly with the involvement of German soldiers, whether inside or outside Ukraine, and says that is a line he doesn't want to cross.
Sunak, who on Tuesday pledged new military aid to Ukraine, praised Germany's efforts on air defense in particular and said “every country has got different things that it can bring to the table.”
Ukrainian troops have faced acute shortages of shells and air defense systems, allowing Russian forces to edge forward in some parts of eastern Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for greater international assistance, warning that his country will lose the war without it.
Iran's Raisi says West doesn't monopolize knowledge, technology
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said his country has proven the West doesn’t have a monopoly on technology while inaugurating a hydropower and irrigation project in Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
Raisi is the first Iranian leader to visit Sri Lanka since former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad visited the country in 2008.
“The Western countries tried to convince all others that knowledge and technology is exclusive to those countries,” Raisi said, addressing Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other top officials. He added that the “idea” was rooted in “colonialism and arrogance” and that Iran was now able to share its knowledge with others, currently having projects in 20 countries.
The Uma Oya project, in the central Badulla district, was constructed with Iranian technical assistance. Valued at $514 million, it was started in 2010 by Iran’s FARAB engineering group and Iran initially provided $50 million. But in 2013, funding could not be continued because of international sanctions against Iran. The Sri Lankan government then decided to complete the project with its own funds using the same Iranian contractor.
The project was scheduled for completion in 2015 but was delayed by international sanctions against Iran, technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, the government said in a statement ahead of Raisi’s visit.
The project will add 290 GWh of electricity annually to the national grid and irrigate 4,500 hectares (11,100 acres) of new land and 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of existing agricultural land.
“Our enemies did not want Iran to develop and progress ... so the will and determination of the Iranian people were realized and our enemies were disappointed,” Raisi said.
Raisi and Wickremesinghe are to witness the signing of five memoranda of understanding and are scheduled to issue a joint statement.
Raisi arrived in Sri Lanka from Pakistan, where the two countries agreed to strengthen economic and security cooperation.
The Indian Ocean island nation declared bankruptcy in April 2022 with more than $83 billion in debt — more than half of it to foreign creditors. Wickremesinghe's government secured an IMF four-year bailout package to rescue the country from its worst economic crisis.
Despite improving economic indicators, Wickremesinghe — who came to power in 2022 — faces public backlash over heavy taxes and the high cost of living.
UN calls for investigation into mass graves uncovered at two Gaza hospitals raided by Israel
The United Nations called Tuesday for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.
Credible investigators must have access to the sites, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, and added that more journalists need to be able to work safely in Gaza to report on the facts.
Earlier Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Shifa medical center in Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis as well as the reported discovery of mass graves in and around the facilities after the Israelis left.
He called for independent and transparent investigations into the deaths, saying that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”
“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” Türk said. “And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are ‘hors de combat’ (incapable of engaging in combat) is a war crime.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel on Tuesday called the reports of mass graves at the hospitals “incredibly troubling” and said U.S. officials have asked the Israeli government for information.
The Israeli military said its forces exhumed bodies that Palestinians had buried earlier as part of its search for the remains of hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The military said bodies were examined in a respectful manner and those not belonging to Israeli hostages were returned to their place.
A Palestinian baby in Gaza is born an orphan in an urgent cesarean section after an Israeli strike
The Israeli military says it killed or detained hundreds of militants who had taken shelter inside the two hospital complexes, claims that could not be independently verified.
The Palestinian civil defense in the Gaza Strip said Monday that it had uncovered 283 bodies from a temporary burial ground inside the main hospital in Khan Younis that was built when Israeli forces were besieging the facility last month. At the time, people were not able to bury the dead in a cemetery and dug graves in the hospital yard, the group said.
The civil defense said some of the bodies were of people killed during the hospital siege. Others were killed when Israeli forces raided the hospital.
Israeli strikes on southern Gaza city of Rafah kill 22, mostly children, as US advances aid package
Palestinian health officials say the hospital raids have destroyed Gaza’s health sector as it tries to cope with the mounting toll from over six months of war.
The issue of who could or should conduct an investigation remains in question.
For the United Nations to conduct an investigation, one of its major bodies would have to authorize it, Dujarric said.
“I think it’s not for anyone to prejudge the results or who would do it,” he said. “I think it needs to be an investigation where there is access and there is credibility.”
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said after visiting Israel and the West Bank in December that a probe by the court into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”
The discovery of the graves "is another reason why we need a cease-fire, why we need to see an end to this conflict, why we need to see greater access for humanitarians, for humanitarian goods, greater protection for hospitals” and for the release of Israeli hostages, Dujarric said Monday.
In the Hamas attack that launched the war, militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
In response, Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza, aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women. It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities, created a humanitarian crisis and led around 80% of the territory’s population to flee to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.
A Russian strike on Kharkiv's TV tower is part of an intimidation campaign, Ukraine's Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a Russian missile strike that smashed a prominent skyline television tower in Kharkiv was part of the Kremlin’s effort to intimidate Ukraine’s second-largest city, which in recent weeks has come under increasingly frequent attack.
The strike sought to “make the terror visible to the whole city and to try to limit Kharkiv’s connection and access to information,” Zelenskyy said in a Monday evening address.
The northeastern Kharkiv region straddles the approximately 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been locked in battle for more than two years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The front line has changed little during a war of attrition, focused mostly on artillery, drones and trenches.
Since late March, Russia has stepped up the pressure on Kharkiv, apparently aiming to exploit Ukraine’s shortage of air defense systems. It has pounded the local power grid and hit apartment blocks.
On Monday, a Russian Kh-59 missile struck Kharkiv’s 250-meter (820-foot) -high TV tower, breaking it roughly in half and halting transmissions.
A Washington think tank said Russia may be eyeing a ground assault on Kharkiv.
“The Kremlin is conducting a concerted air and information operation to destroy Kharkiv City, convince Ukrainians to flee, and internally displace millions of Ukrainians ahead of a possible future Russian offensive operation against the city or elsewhere in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment.
The expected arrival in Ukraine in coming weeks of new military aid from its Western partners possibly has prompted Russia to escalate its attacks before the help arrives, the ISW said, adding that trying to capture Kharkiv would be “a significant challenge” for the Kremlin’s forces.
Instead, the Russian military command “may attempt to destroy Kharkiv City with air, missile, and drone strikes and prompt a large-scale internal displacement of Ukrainian civilians,” it said.
The U.S. Senate was returning to Washington on Tuesday to vote on $61 billion in war aid to Ukraine after months of delays. Zelensky said U.S. President Joe Biden assured him the aid would include long-range and artillery capabilities.
“Four priorities are key: defense of the sky, modern artillery, long-range capacity, and to ensure that packages of American aid arrive as soon as possible,” Zelenskyy said.
Also Tuesday, Britain pledged 500 million pounds ($620 million, 580 million euros) in new military supplies for Ukraine, including 400 vehicles, 60 boats, 1,600 munitions and 4 million rounds of ammunition.
The shipment will also include British Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which have a range of about 150 miles (240 kilometers) and have proven effective at hitting Russian targets, the British government said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke with Zelenskyy on Tuesday morning to confirm the new assistance. He announces the aid during a visit to Warsaw later in the day where he was meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Less cheering news came from the European Union, however. EU countries that have Patriot air defense systems gave no clear sign Monday that they might be willing to send them to Ukraine, which is desperately seeking at least seven of the missile batteries.
Ukraine’s army is also heavily outnumbered in the fight, and expanding the country’s mobilization has been a delicate issue.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday signaled that authorities plan to clamp down on young men of conscription age who have moved abroad, with details of the specific measures to be made public soon.
“Staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the homeland,” Kuleba said on the social media platform X.
Meanwhile, Russia launched 16 Shahed drones and two Iskander-M ballistic missiles over Ukraine’s southern and central regions, the Ukrainian air force said Tuesday morning. It said all but one of the drones were intercepted.
In Odesa, an overnight attack injured nine people, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. Among those injured were two infants and two children aged nine and 12, Kiper said. City mayor Hennadii Trukhanov said 58 apartments in 22 buildings were damaged.
Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US college campuses following mass arrests at Columbia
Columbia canceled in-person classes, dozens of protesters were arrested at New York University and Yale, and the gates to Harvard Yard were closed to the public Monday as some of the most prestigious U.S. universities sought to defuse campus tensions over Israel's war with Hamas.
More than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia's green were arrested last week, and similar encampments have sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggle with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
At New York University, an encampment set up by students swelled to hundreds of protesters throughout the day Monday. The school said it warned the crowd to leave, then called in the police after the scene became disorderly and the university said it learned of reports of "intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents." Shortly after 8:30 p.m., officers began making arrests.
A Palestinian baby in Gaza is born an orphan in an urgent cesarean section after an Israeli strike
"It's a really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow the police to arrest students on our own campus," said New York University law student Byul Yoon.
"Antisemitism is never OK. That's absolutely not what we stand for and that's why there are so many Jewish comrades that are here with us today," Yoon said.
The protests have pitted students against one another, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel's assault on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Some Jewish students, meanwhile, say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into antisemitism and made them feel unsafe, and they point out that Hamas is still holding hostages taken during the group's Oct. 7 invasion.
Israeli strikes on southern Gaza city of Rafah kill 22, mostly children, as US advances aid package
Tensions remained high Monday at Columbia, where the campus gates were locked to anyone without a school ID and where protests broke out both on campus and outside.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina who was visiting Columbia with three other Jewish members of Congress, told reporters after meeting with students from the Jewish Law Students Association that there was "an enormous encampment of people" who had taken up about a third of the green.
"We saw signs indicating that Israel should be destroyed," she said after leaving the Morningside Heights campus. Columbia announced Monday that courses at the Morningside campus will offer virtual options for students when possible, citing safety as their top priority.
A woman inside the campus gates led about two dozen protesters on the street outside in a chant of, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" — a charged phrase that can mean vastly different things to different groups. A small group of pro-Israel counter demonstrators protested nearby.
University President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the school community Monday that she was "deeply saddened" by what was happening on campus.
"To deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday," Shafik wrote, noting that students who don't live on campus should stay away.
Protests have roiled many college campuses since Hamas' deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
Israeli strikes on southern Gaza city of Rafah kill 18, mostly children, as US advances aid package
On Sunday, Elie Buechler, a rabbi for the Orthodox Union's Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to nearly 300 Jewish students recommending they go home until it's safer for them on campus.
The latest developments came ahead of the Monday evening start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish freshman who lives in a Jewish theological seminary building two blocks from Columbia's campus, said protesters over the weekend were "calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel." He said some of the protesters shouting antisemitic slurs were not students.
"Jews are scared at Columbia. It's as simple as that," he said. "There's been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism."
The protest encampment sprung up at Columbia on Wednesday, the same day that Shafik faced bruising criticism at a congressional hearing from Republicans who said she hadn't done enough to fight antisemitism. Two other Ivy League presidents resigned months ago following widely criticized testimony they gave to the same committee.
In her statement Monday, Shafik said the Middle East conflict is terrible and that she understands that many are experiencing deep moral distress.
"But we cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view," Shafik wrote.
Over the coming days, a working group of deans, school administrators and faculty will try to find a resolution to the university crisis, noted Shafik, who didn't say when in-person classes would resume.
U.S. House Republicans from New York urged Shafik to resign, saying in a letter Monday that she had failed to provide a safe learning environment in recent days as "anarchy has engulfed the campus."
In Massachusetts, a sign said Harvard Yard was closed to the public Monday. It said structures, including tents and tables, were only allowed into the yard with prior permission. "Students violating these policies are subject to disciplinary action," the sign said. Security guards were checking people for school IDs.
The same day, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee said the university's administration suspended their group. In the suspension notice provided by the student organization, the university wrote that the group's April 19 demonstration had violated school policy, and that the organization failed to attend required trainings after they were previously put on probation.
The Palestine Solidarity Committee said in a statement that they were suspended over technicalities and that the university hadn't provided written clarification on the university's policies when asked.
"Harvard has shown us time and again that Palestine remains the exception to free speech," the group wrote in a statement.
Harvard did not respond to an email request for comment.
At Yale, police officers arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with misdemeanor trespassing, said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesperson. All were being released on promises to appear in court later, he said.
Protesters set up tents on Beinecke Plaza on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend, calling on Yale to end any investments in defense companies that do business with Israel.
In a statement to the campus community on Sunday, Yale President Peter Salovey said university officials had spoken to the student protesters multiple times about the school's policies and guidelines, including those regarding speech and allowing access to campus spaces.
School officials said they gave protesters until the end of the weekend to leave Beinecke Plaza. The said they again warned protesters Monday morning and told them that they could face arrest and discipline, including suspension, before police moved in.
A large group of demonstrators regathered after Monday's arrests at Yale and blocked a street near campus, Bruckhart said. There were no reports of any violence or injuries.
Prahlad Iyengar, an MIT graduate student studying electrical engineering, was among about two dozen students who set up a tent encampment on the school's Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus Sunday evening. They are calling for a cease-fire and are protesting what they describe as MIT's "complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza," he said.
"MIT has not even called for a cease-fire, and that's a demand we have for sure," Iyengar said.
2 Malaysian military helicopters collide and crash while training, killing all 10 crew
Two Malaysian military helicopters collided midair and crashed during a training session on Tuesday, killing all 10 people on board and injuring a swimmer in a pool, authorities said.
The helicopters were rehearsing at a naval base in northern Perak state for the navy’s 90th anniversary celebration when the accident occurred, the navy said in a brief statement. “All victims were confirmed dead on site,” it said.
A video circulating on social media purported to be of the incident shows several helicopters flying low in a formation. One of the helicopters veers sideways and clips the rotor of another helicopter, causing both to plunge and crash. A local police officer, who declined to be named because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the footage is genuine.
The two choppers were mangled beyond recognition. Rescue workers sifted through the debris to find the bodies. The victims included three women and seven men aged between 26 and 41, authorities said.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the nation mourned over the “heart and soul-wrenching tragedy.” He said the navy will immediately carry out an investigation to find the cause of the incident.
Seven of the dead crew members were aboard an AW139 maritime operations helicopter, the navy said. That aircraft is produced by AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of the Italian defense contractor Leonardo. The other three were on a Fennec lightweight helicopter, manufactured by European multinational defense conglomerate Airbus.
Defense Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said that the anniversary celebration this Saturday will be cancelled and replaced with Friday prayers for the victims.
Khaled said the two helicopters were among seven rehearsing when the collision occurred. One crashed into an empty sports field, while another plunged into a nearby swimming pool. A swimmer sustained injuries after he was hit by debris from the plane, he added.
The UK pledges $620 million in new military aid for Ukraine
The U.K. on Tuesday pledged an additional $620 million in new military supplies for Ukraine, including long-range missiles and four millions rounds of ammunition, at a time when Ukraine is struggling to hold off advancing Russian forces on the eastern front line of the war, now in its third year.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday morning to confirm the assistance and "assure him of the U.K.’s steadfast support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s brutal and expansionist ambitions,” Sunak's office said.
Sunak was traveling to Warsaw later Tuesday to meet with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for talks about further aid for Ukraine.
Ahead of the visit the U.K. government said Sunak would announce 500 million pounds ($620 million, 580 million euros) in new British military supplies, including 400 vehicles, 60 boats, 1,600 munitions and 4 million rounds of ammunition. The shipment will include British Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which have a range of some 150 miles and have proved effective at hitting Russian targets.
“President Zelenskyy thanked the Prime Minister for the U.K.’s continued support, saying the new military assistance would make a material difference to ordinary Ukrainians fighting on the front line to defend their country," Downing Street said.
The announcement comes three days after the U.S. House of Representatives approved $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, as American lawmakers raced to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally.
However, Downing Street did not indicate whether the aid would be immediately available for delivery. Zelenskyy has repeatedly pleaded for greater international assistance, warning that his country will lose the war without it.
Ammunition shortages linked to the aid holdup over the past six months have led Ukrainian military commanders to ration shells, a disadvantage that Russia seized on this year — taking the city of Avdiivka and currently inching towards the town of Chasiv Yar, also in the eastern Donetsk region.