Hamas says it has accepted proposal regarding cease-fire agreement

No ceasefire deal reached in Gaza, Israeli official says

Mohammed Salem, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ari Rabinovitch

An Israeli official said on Monday no ceasefire had been agreed in Gaza, after Hamas said it had accepted a proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The Israeli official said the proposal that Hamas had accepted was a "softened" version of an Egyptian proposal, which included "far-reaching" conclusions that Israel could not accept.

"This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal," said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

From ABC News

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, said in a statement the group has called the prime minister of Qatar and Egyptian minister of intelligence "and informed them of the Hamas movement's approval of their proposal regarding the ceasefire agreement."

There were no further details about conditions of the cease-fire agreement.

Washington Post

Hamas informed Arab mediators that it would approve a Qatari-Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement Monday. There has been no response yet from Israel, which earlier in the day ordered about 100,000 civilians in parts of Rafah to evacuate “immediately” to a humanitarian zone. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Monday, President Biden reiterated his opposition to a ground invasion of Rafah and provided an update on negotiations in Doha, according to a White House readout of the conversation.

U.S. military downs Chinese balloon over Atlantic Ocean

 

U.S. fighter aircraft, acting on an order from President Biden, downed a Chinese surveillance balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, the Pentagon said, ending what senior administration officials contend was an audacious attempt by Beijing to collect intelligence on sensitive American military sites.

Biden had authorized the takedown on Wednesday “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement confirming the operation.

7 things we’ve learned from the Jan. 6 committee report so far

 

1. What’s in the four criminal referrals

1. Obstruction of an official proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)): The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), spotlighted this law a year ago, which makes it a crime to “corruptly” seek to obstruct, influence or impede “any official proceeding,” or to attempt to do so. The official proceeding was Congress’s counting of the electoral votes on Jan. 6, which the committee says Trump tried to thwart through his various schemes and by directing his supporters to the Capitol after riling them up with false voter-fraud claims. The second key part of this charge is doing so “corruptly,” which is why the committee laid out extensive evidence that Trump was told his stolen-election claims were false, that participants knew their plot to overturn the election was illegal and that Trump acknowledged he had in fact lost. The committee also referred attorney John Eastman and others for violations of this statute.
2. Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371): By citing this law to make a criminal referral of Trump, Eastman and others, the committee says that Trump did not work alone to commit the above offense. The committee did not “attempt to determine all of the potential participants in this conspiracy, as our understanding of the role of many individuals may be incomplete even today because they refuse to answer our questions,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) during Monday’s hearing.
3. Conspiracy to make a false statement (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1001): This concerns the so-called “fake electors” plot. The committee alleges that Trump conspired with others to submit to Congress and the National Archives alternate slates of Trump electors from key states, which in some cases involved falsely asserting in a legal document that they had been duly elected. Some of the fake electors themselves have faced legal scrutiny because of this.
4. “Incite,” “assist” or provide “aid and comfort” an insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383): Trump was impeached for his alleged incitement of the mob but was later acquitted, despite a historic number of crossover votes by Republicans. The committee suggests Trump and others, through actions before and during the riot, satisfied each of the quoted words.

2. More evidence Trump resisted urging peace — even before Jan. 6

The committee has repeatedly pointed to Trump not only being negligent on Jan. 6, but perhaps approving of the violence that day (or at least perceiving some advantage in it). And the final report adds more details on that front.

Specifically, it says that:

• Longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks texted a campaign aide during the riot that, on Jan. 4 and 5, she’d said Trump should preemptively call on those attending his speech on the Ellipse to be peaceful: “I suggested it several times Monday and Tuesday and he refused.” The request (which she did not make to Trump personally) fell upon deaf ears.
• Hicks also testified that White House lawyer Eric Herschmann made a similar request — in his case, to Trump himself, according to the committee.

Twitter suspends journalists who have been covering Elon Musk and the company

 Thursday's suspensions come as Musk has backtracked on his promise that he Thursday's suspensions come as Musk has backtracked on his promise that he would run Twitter as a free speech absolutist could run Twitter as a free speech absolutist.

Twitter suspended several high-profile journalists Thursday evening who have been covering the company and Elon Musk.

The suspensions come a day after Twitter changed its policies around accounts that track private jets, including one owned by Elon Musk.

The accounts of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept and independent journalists Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster had all been suspended as of Thursday evening.

From Rolling Stone

Twitter on Thursday afternoon, adding onto an already controversial week of content moderation decisions by new platform owner Elon Musk. 

New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, Mashable’s Matt Binder, CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan, and independent journalist Aaron Rupar were removed from the platform in a late afternoon purge. The removed accounts shared a common thread of critical coverage of Musk and his management and policy decisions following his October takeover of Twitter. 

Also removed from twitter was an account run by freelance journalist Tony Webster, who shared on Mastodon, that he was booted from his account with no warning. “My Twitter account has been suspended,” he wrote with a screenshot of his suspended account. “I’ve received no explanation.”

From The New York Times:

The social media service, which is owned by Elon Musk, said the accounts were suspended for “violating the Twitter rules” but did not provide details.

Twitter suspended the accounts of roughly half a dozen journalists on Thursday, the latest change by the social media service under its new owner, Elon Musk.

The accounts suspended included Ryan Mac of The New York Times; Drew Harwell of The Washington Post; Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist; Donie O’Sullivan of CNN; Matt Binder of Mashable; Tony Webster, an independent journalist; and the political journalist Keith Olbermann. It was unclear what the suspensions had in common; each user’s Twitter page included a message that said it was suspended for “violating the Twitter rules.”

Sahil Kapur

@sahilkapur

Just tried to post a link to my Mastadon account and Twitter blocked my tweet as “harmful”

Vote Republican and this is what you’ll get

 

How the Supreme Court has moved quickly toward the right

Post reporter Robert Barnes explains how the Supreme Court has moved quickly to the right and what that means for future rulings.

Russia's war is poisoning Ukraine's environment for generations

 

Russia's war with Ukraine is releasing untold volumes of toxins and pollutants into the environment that will impact Ukrainians for years to come.

How The Post covers the war against Ukraine using news gathering and social media

 

War coverage has come a long way, from the first televised war in Vietnam to CNN’s live coverage of the Gulf War. When it’s hard to have correspondents, photographers or video reporters on the ground, newsrooms are turning to open sources like social media and satellite imagery.

Irpin residents return home with resolve to rebuild

As hundreds wait in a line for humanitarian aid on May 6, 2022, residents embrace the desire to rebuild following the Russian occupation in Irpin, Ukraine.

Video shows Russian ‘filtration camp,’ Mariupol mayor’s office says

 

Video released by the office of the Mariupol mayor on Thursday claimed to show the inside of a Russian “filtration camp.” The three clips — released on Telegram — were filmed inside a school in the Ukrainian village of Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, according to geolocation by The Washington Post. The school is on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which is briefly shown in one of the videos. Men forcibly taken from Mariupol “were placed in the school in Bezimenne village,” according to the accompanying Telegram post, and denied medical assistance. Russian soldiers frequently threaten the detainees with torture and executions, it continued.

For one Ukrainian family, a harrowing escape from Mariupol and an uncertain future

When their house in Mariupol was hit, this family knew they had to escape to western Ukraine. After a harrowing journey to Lviv, they're now trying to figure out what's next.

Protests, violence and celebration mark International Workers’ Day around the world

 

Thousands of demonstrators protested for pension and wage increases and against inflation around the world on May 1.

Displaced Ukrainians return east from Lviv despite danger

 

Some Ukrainians are leaving the relatively safe city of Lviv to return to their hometowns despite the ongoing danger there.

A mother and son escape Russian occupation, but face an uncertain future

 

Yevgenia Trivonos and her son Danylo, 10, were forced to flee their home in Vasylivka, a southern city now under Russian occupation. They arrived late at night by bus in Zaporizhia on March 9, and plan to keep pushing west in search of refuge.

The life of a soldier on Ukraine's front lines

 

Follow a battalion commander through the trenches of eastern Ukraine as he prepares his troops for a possible Russian invasion. A Washington Post team traveled to the outpost of Novotroitske, where soldiers keep their eye on nearby positions of Russia-backed separatists, wait for more Western weapons and wonder nervously about Russia’s next move.

Beijing Olympics: China's human rights record takes center stage

 

When Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared after accusing a high ranking communist official of sexual assault, the international outrage threw the Beijing Winter Games into upheaval. On Dec. 6, the White House announced that no U.S. government officials, including President Biden, will attend

The Washington Post reconstructed who did what to clear protesters from Lafayette Square, which sits north of the White House, on June 1. (Video)

 

Trump is impeached, again | Impeachment This Week

 

Donald Trump is the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. A week after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, the House passed one article of impeachment, for inciting an insurrection.

Watch how the events unfolded during the Capitol riots

 

Pro-Trump supporters rioted and overtook U.S. Capitol officers to enter the building as lawmakers attempted to count the electoral college votes on Jan. 6. Protesters were in the District to falsely assert the presidential election was stolen from Trump.

Trump begs Georgia secretary of state to overturn election results in remarkable, hourlong phone call (video)

 

“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said. "There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes."

President Donald Trump begged Georgia's secretary of state to overturn the election results in a remarkable, hourlong phone call obtained by NBC News on Sunday.

Excerpts of the call, which took place Saturday, were first published by The Washington Post earlier Sunday.

The phone call featured Trump, days before he is set to leave office, pleading with Raffensperger to alter the vote total and launching into a barrage of discredited conspiracy theories about the election. Trump even suggested that Raffensperger may face criminal consequences should he refuse to intervene in accordance with Trump's wishes.