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US rejects Hamas response to new Gaza ceasefire proposal

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US rejects Hamas response to new Gaza ceasefire proposal

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US envoy Steve Witkoff has rejected Hamas’s response to a fresh ceasefire proposal in the Gaza war as “totally unacceptable”.

Hamas had earlier responded positively to the release of a comparable number of Israeli hostages, but raised “clarifications” regarding the overall deal, according to a diplomat briefed on the talks.

The militant group also insisted that its goal was still to permanently end the war, secure a comprehensive Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, and guarantee increased humanitarian aid flows.

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“I received the Hamas response to the United States’ proposal. It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward,” Witkoff said in a statement.

“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”

Witkoff’s new proposal called for a 60-day pause in the fighting, the release of half the 58 remaining Israeli hostages, 20 of whom are still alive, and “good faith negotiations” over a permanent halt to the war.

The Trump administration indicated this week that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted the terms, although he has consistently rejected ending the fighting before Hamas is completely destroyed.

Netanyahu’s office on Saturday night said that while Israel had accepted the proposal, “Hamas continues to stick to its refusal,” and vowed “to continue operations for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

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The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday confirmed that Hamas’s military chief, Mohammed Sinwar, and several other senior commanders were killed in a May 13 air strike in the city of Khan Younis in south Gaza. According to the IDF, the group was targeted while in a tunnel located below the grounds of the city’s European hospital.

Sinwar took overall command of Hamas’s forces last year, after most of the group’s other top leaders — including his brother, Yahya — were previously killed by Israel.

Also on Saturday, Israel blocked the entry of several Arab foreign ministers to the occupied West Bank, calling it a provocative move aimed at promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Israeli veto came ahead of a visit on Sunday to Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, by a high-level delegation including Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister.

It would have been the first official visit by a senior Saudi official to the territory which was seized by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Successive US administrations have sought to normalise relations between the kingdom and Israel.

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Other members of the delegation included the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain — all Arab states that have diplomatic ties with Israel.

An Israeli official said with regard to the refusal to allow the Arab delegation into the West Bank that the Palestinian Authority “intended to host . . . a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state . . . [that] would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel”.

“Israel will not co-operate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security,” the official added.

International pressure on Israel has intensified in recent weeks, primarily over its renewed offensive in Gaza and the dire humanitarian conditions in the enclave.

Much of the international community views the West Bank, alongside East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, as the basis of a future Palestinian state.

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France and Saudi Arabia are set to host a summit in New York next month on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with several western governments, including the UK, considering recognising a Palestinian state.

Jordan’s foreign ministry said that the denial of entry to the delegation was a “blatant violation of Israel’s obligations as the occupying power” in the West Bank and reflected “the extent of the Israeli government’s arrogance, its disregard for international law and its continued illegitimate measures and policies”.

The Palestinian ambassador in Riyadh told Saudi state news television channel Al-Ekhbariya on Friday that the “rare” visit sought to mobilise support for a two-state solution ahead of the conference in New York.

On Thursday the Israeli government announced the creation of 22 new settlements across the West Bank, the biggest expansion in years of an enterprise that many governments consider illegal.

Israeli ministers described the decision as a “decisive response” to Palestinian militancy and a “strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state”.

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Nearly 500,000 Jewish Israelis have settled in the West Bank over the past five decades. About 3mn Palestinians live in the territory under Israeli military rule and partial autonomy administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Additional reporting by Ahmed Al Omran in Jeddah and Andrew England in London

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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