Washington, D.C
Gaza Protesters Block Roads in Washington as Biden Delivers State of the Union
As President Joe Biden prepared for his pivotal 2024 State of the Union on Thursday, protestors demanding a cease-fire in Gaza blockaded outside the White House and near the Capitol.
The protesters, wearing shirts with the slogan “Biden Legacy = Genocide,” unfurled a large Palestinian flag across Pennsylvania Avenue, and formed a human barricade by sitting in the road to block traffic. The demonstrations were large enough to force Biden’s motorcade to take an alternate route from the White House to the Capitol, CNN reported. The pool traveling with the president said he took “the long way” to the Capitol, avoiding a large group of demonstrators just blocks away from the building. Activists could be heard outside as reporters loaded up into vans to head to the Capitol.
The protests continued as Biden’s delayed speech finally began within the Capitol. The area was practically surrounded by police vehicles and law enforcement officers who declined to speak to Rolling Stone. Despite the outsized police presence, the only protest-related arrest Thursday was that of an unidentified individual who allegedly menaced protesters near the White House by revving his car engine at them. As the protest dispersed near midnight, smaller clusters of demonstrators marched in various directions into the streets surrounding the Capitol, chanting slogans of “Free Palestine,” as they went.
“We forced the president to reroute and arrive late to give his speech to the country,” Jay Saper, an organizer with the group Jewish Voice for Peace, told Rolling Stone. “We know that right now the majority of Americans want a full, permanent, lasting cease-fire […] It’s important for our elected officials to actually answer to the people, as opposed to answering to a [foreign] government that’s actively carrying out genocide by continuing to send and pledge money and weapons to them,” they added.
“We are outraged, we are heartbroken, and we are demanding that President Biden stop funding and arming Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” Elena Stein of Jewish Voice for Peace, which helped organize the protest, told Rolling Stone.
The Biden administration has expressed concern over Israel’s bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza, but has largely maintained its support for the Israel. The White House announced plans on Thursday for a floating military operation designed to provide aid to Palestinians, but it wasn’t enough to appease activists. “This is a stunt to save his image rather than an actual intent to save lives,” Stein said. “If Biden wanted to save lives, we would not be on Day 150 of Israel dropping U.S.-made bombs on the people of Gaza.”
Biden’s State of the Union address sparked protests not just in Washington, D.C., but across the country, with demonstrators also blocking traffic in Boston and Los Angeles, according to Reuters. “We are here today because enough is enough,” Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told the outlet. “We want to make clear that the State of the Union right now is that of enabling, aiding, and abetting a genocide. Despite the fact that in the U.S. millions of Americans are living without healthcare, millions more are drowning in student debt, libraries are being shut down, budget cuts left and right — and still our government is choosing to use our taxpayer dollars to send weapons to Israel to rain them down on Palestinians,” she added.
The president is on track to be the Democratic nominee in November — but the results in Tuesday’s primaries indicate he has a growing political problem on his left. Biden has received harsh criticism from activist Democrats who are calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. This dissent has appeared in election results as a movement of Democratic voters have been casting ballots for “uncommitted,” as a way to register their disapproval of the president’s refusal to take a stronger stance toward Israel. The uncommitted campaigns “should shake” Biden and his administration, Abuznaid said. “This is not some far off struggle, this is a struggle of the American people as well for what they want their government to represent,” she added.
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel, in which 1,139 were killed and more than 200 were kidnapped, Israel has laid waste to Gaza with the Biden administration’s support. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, 2 million have been internally displaced, and hundreds of thousands are at imminent risk of famine, according to the United Nations.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
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4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
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