In an apparent shift of rhetoric, President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered his most pointed expression yet of concern for Palestinian civilians affected by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Biden said he continues to be alarmed about attacks by what he called extremist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, likening the assaults to “pouring gasoline on fire.”

He made the remarks at the beginning of his joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was at the White House for a state visit.

“This was a deal. The deal was made, and they’re attacking Palestinians in places that they’re entitled to be,” Biden said, referring to the 1993 Oslo Accords. “It has to stop,” he implored. “They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now.”

According to the health ministry run by the Palestinian Authority, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers and in military raids since Hamas launched its incursion on Israeli soil on Oct. 7, an attack in which Israeli authorities said at least 1,400 people were massacred and 200 were taken hostage.

Biden did not mention the Israeli military’s role in the West Bank violence. Following Hamas’ attacks, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right settler with a history of anti-Arab incitement, distributed weapons to settlers, many of whom were already heavily armed.

Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, cited Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank among its motives for attacking Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Israeli retaliatory airstrikes since October 7 have killed more than 5,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, and have displaced more than a million people who have followed Israeli evacuation orders.

Biden expressed skepticism on the death toll, doubting that “Palestinians are telling the truth.”

A senior administration official clarified to VOA the president is skeptical of Hamas-supplied figures given the limited ability of outside parties to verify them and because of the ministry’s “history of inflating death tolls.”

Robert McCaw, who leads the Government Affairs Department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, mocked Biden’s skepticism.

“Would it make the president feel better if only 1,000 children were dead?” he said to VOA.

Still, Biden’s remarks were his most extensive and sympathetic toward Palestinians since the war broke out. He outlined a postwar vision in which Hamas – the organization that Washington designated in 1997 as a foreign terrorist group – is dismantled and the region is on a path toward a two-state solution.

He underscored the need for Israel’s Arab neighbors to come to diplomatic terms with Israel without brushing aside the Palestinian cause, and he suggested that progress toward “regional integration for Israel” was a motive for Hamas’ attack.

Shift in tone

Wednesday’s remarks marked a shift in tone for Biden. Days after the militants’ attack, in a forceful and emotional speech denouncing Hamas as “pure, unadulterated evil,” Biden made no mention of Palestinian casualties despite hundreds already killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Fresh off his brief wartime visit to Tel Aviv, in an Oct. 20 speech requesting funding to support Israel and Ukraine, Biden said he was “heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life.”

In the same sentence, he backed Israel’s account that it was not responsible for the deadly hospital explosion in Gaza. U.S. officials say they have concluded Israel is not to blame for the explosion at the hospital.

 

As Israeli retaliatory airstrikes continue, with heavy tolls on civilians in Gaza and the threat of a wider war in the Middle East, some see a shift in Biden’s handling of the crisis.

The president’s rhetoric at the beginning of the conflict was “so decidedly one-sided” that the administration didn’t provide themselves with “a way out when they wanted to pivot,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

“Is it a decisive enough shift to represent balance? Not yet,” Zogby told VOA. “The Israelis certainly still have a green light.”

As casualties grow, Biden is under increasing pressure from groups denouncing his “unwavering” support of Israel.

American Muslims have been “disturbed, shocked, disappointed, and distraught” by Biden’s policies, said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Al-Marayati noted that while Biden’s words have become more sympathetic, they are betrayed by his administration’s actions.

“They’re ready for a full-scale invasion of the Middle East, not just Gaza,” he told VOA. “God knows where this will take us.”

In response to a reporter’s question, Biden said he did not ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay the ground invasion that Israel is planning, to allow extraction of hostages including Americans out of Gaza.

“What I have indicated to him is that if that’s possible to get these folks out safely, that’s what he should do,” he said. “It’s their decision, but I did not demand it.”

Americans side with Israel

Several polls taken after the Hamas attack show most Americans side with Israel in the conflict. The numbers reverse a long-term trend where Americans’ sympathies toward Palestinians have gradually increased over the past several years, although still less than toward Israelis. A 2013 Gallup poll indicated that 64% of Americans sympathized with Israelis and 12% with Palestinians. Earlier this year, the gap narrowed to 54% to 31%.

Even with domestic pressure from Arab and Muslim Americans as well as Progressive Democrats, a year away from U.S. presidential elections, the bigger factor in Biden’s calculation is international condemnation, said Zogby.

Massive anti-Israeli and anti-American demonstrations have created tensions in the Arab world, risking greater instability and prospects of regional escalation that Washington and its allies are keen to avoid.

Washington is also keen to keep good relations with Global South countries, many of which side with the Palestinian cause, as the U.S. competes for world influence with China and Russia, said Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.

One way to let off a little steam in the crisis is to ensure humanitarian aid gets into Gaza, Gowan told VOA.

“I think the U.S. wants to show that – both in the region and at the U.N. – it is trying to get assistance to the Palestinians, with the hopes that that will lower the rising temperature in the region.”

That hope was dashed Wednesday at the U.N. when Russia and China vetoed a U.S.- sponsored Security Council resolution that called for a humanitarian pause in fighting, the protection of civilians and a stop to arming Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip. Days earlier the U.S. vetoed a draft from Brazil that would allow humanitarian aid but did not include Israel’s right to defend itself.

Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.
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Fears that Hamas’ deadly terror attack on Israel could help spark a wider conflict or even terror attacks in the United States have yet to materialize into actual threats, according to U.S. officials, but that has not stopped concerns from spreading.

The focus on the potential threat has grown in recent days following the appearance online of an apparent Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, memo warning that operatives with links to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah might try to enter the U.S. along its southern border.

The U.S. has designated all three groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

“Individuals inspired by or reacting to the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border,” according to the memo, first obtained by The Daily Caller.

The document, from the CBP’s San Diego field office, further warns, “Foreign fighters motivated by ideology or mercenary soldiers of fortune may attempt to obfuscate travel to or from the U.S. to or from countries in the Middle East through Mexico.”

It then shows insignias associated with each of the groups and suggests questions that could help identify a foreign fighter.

CBP declined to confirm the authenticity of the memo but, in a statement to VOA, downplayed the threat.

“CBP has seen no indication of Hamas-directed foreign fighters seeking to make entry into the United States,” a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said CBP “provides frontline personnel a wide range of context for situational awareness in order to ensure they remain vigilant in fulfillment of our homeland and border security missions.”

“Situational awareness briefs are not threat assessments,” the spokesperson said.

Concerns that the Hamas terror attack and Israel’s subsequent military response could spill over into U.S. streets spiked earlier this month when a former Hamas leader called for a day of rage, urging Muslims “to join in the fight” and deliver a “message of anger” in support of the militant group’s fight against Israel.

Police departments in New York, Los Angeles and Washington heightened security as a precaution. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hosted a call for almost 4,000 law enforcement agencies across the country to review the security environment and share additional resources.

Despite the concerns, a homeland security official said at the time that the department had “no specific credible intelligence indicating any potential threat to the homeland at this time.”

“If any information is developed that would require that we adjust our security posture to protect the homeland, we are, of course, prepared to do that,” the official said.

DHS threat assessments have also warned, repeatedly, that the biggest danger is homegrown, not foreign, and “marked by lone offenders or small group attacks that occur with little warning.”

Officials expressed concern that the volume of videos and propaganda flooding social media could serve as an accelerant.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been raising concerns about the potential for terrorists to use the border with Mexico as a gateway into the U.S.

“The number of individuals with derogatory information in terrorist screening databases illegally crossing the southwest border has also skyrocketed during the Biden Administration,” the Republican chairmen of the House Oversight, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month. The letter warned of an “elevated national security risk.”

CBP officials maintain that “encounters of known and suspected terrorists at our borders are very uncommon.”

But a spike in migration across the Americas has raised the stakes.

“We obviously are concerned that with that increase, you might have an increase in people who might come over with malign intentions, including potential terrorists,” the DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis told an audience in Washington last month. 

Kenneth Wainstein said the department was working closely with the FBI to better identify anyone potentially affiliated with terror groups. The department’s various entities have “significantly ramped up their operations to ensure that we’re identifying any such bad actors before they come across,” he said.

More recently, DHS officials said there have not been any signs that terror groups are seeking to exploit migration patterns.

“We just haven’t seen information at all that would suggest that at this stage,” an official said earlier this month, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Still, other eyes are also keeping watch, especially when it comes to Hezbollah, an Iranian-linked group known to operate in Central and South America.

The U.S. is “watching very, very closely,” the commander of U.S. Southern Command said during a forum in Washington earlier this month.

“Working with our partner nations, obviously they’re concerned, too,” Gen. Laura Richardson said in response to a question from VOA.
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved the nomination of Jacob Lew to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The Senate could vote on Lew’s confirmation as early as next week. It’s expected to move on the nomination quickly, given the critical nature of U.S.-Israeli ties amid Israel’s raging conflict with Hamas.

Lew was approved by the committee Wednesday on a 12-9 vote, with all Republicans except for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky voting against him.

Lew, who previously served in the Obama administration as treasury secretary and budget director, was nominated for the ambassador position last month by President Joe Biden.  Former Israel ambassador Tom Nide left the position in July.

While stating that he would ensure that Israel has all the resources it needs to defend itself following the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas, Lew has also said he would look into the humanitarian crisis facing civilians in Gaza.

Lew enjoys support from Democrats who praise his government experience as enough qualification for him to have the job.

Republicans have concerns over his ability to deal with Iran, a key supporter of Hamas. Lew played a key role in negotiating the 2015 deal that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran accepting limits on its nuclear program.

Former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018.

In a hearing last week, Republican Senator Jim Risch voiced concern that Lew was giving “backhanded support” to Iran.

Lew refuted this and has described the Iranian government as an “evil, malign government.”

Some information in this report was taken from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The United States is providing up to $150 million in additional military aid for Ukraine in a package expected as soon as Wednesday, three U.S. military officials tell VOA, a week after Ukraine used its newest weapon from the United States to pummel Russian military targets deep into Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.

The package includes more GMLRS rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), TOW anti-tank missiles, AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and 155 mm rounds, according to two of the officials who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss the package prior to its announcement.

The availability of 155 mm rounds has raised concerns in recent days as U.S. partners Ukraine and Israel both need them to fight their wars, one against Russia’s invasion, the other against Palestinian militant group Hamas, who killed hundreds of Israelis and kidnapped dozens more in a brazen terrorist attack on October 7.

Washington has said it is able to support Tel Aviv’s and Kyiv’s military needs.

The U.S. withdrew some 155 mm rounds from its war reserves stockpile in Israel to replenish U.S. stockpiles in Europe earlier this year, but after October 7, much of those rounds were redirected back to Israel to provide to the Israel Defense Forces, according to a senior defense official.

“Yes, 155 [mm rounds] is an area that both have in common. But broadly speaking, that’s just one small area, and we don’t assess right now that we’re going to have any problems providing them with both,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Monday.

Ukraine launched ATACMS at Russian forces last week after the United States secretly provided a small number of the long-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine in recent days. The ATACMS provided to Ukraine have a maximum range of about 170 kilometers (106 miles), nearly twice as far as the other HIMARS artillery rockets in Ukraine’s arsenal and have allowed Ukraine to reach deeper into Russian-controlled territory.

Ukraine said last week that it destroyed at least nine Russian helicopters, an anti-aircraft launcher and an ammunitions depot in Berdiansk and Luhansk during attacks in which ATACMS are thought to have been used against Russian positions.

“Our agreements with President [Joe] Biden are being implemented, and they are being implemented very accurately. ATACMS have proven themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said following the attacks.

The package expected Wednesday marks the 49th time that the U.S. has used the presidential drawdown authority to provide Ukraine’s miliary with equipment from U.S. stockpiles.

The U.S. has provided about $44 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022.

The Pentagon still has about $5 billion of congressionally approved funding for Ukrainian military aid, after the Pentagon discovered in June that it had overestimated the value of weapons shipped to Ukraine by about $6 billion.

When calculating its aid package estimates, the Defense Department was counting the cost incurred to replace the weapons given to Ukraine, while it should have been totaling the cost of the systems actually sent, officials told VOA at the time the error was found.

The Pentagon continues to dip into its aid arsenal despite Congress excluding new aid for Ukraine in a stopgap spending bill passed last month to prevent a government shutdown.

Soon after the stopgap spending bill passed, the House ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his position as speaker.

The House has yet to vote in a new speaker, and new aid for Ukraine could hinge on who is selected.
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Another Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives may seek a floor vote Wednesday to try to become the chamber’s next speaker, after lawmakers struggled for three weeks to fill one of the top leadership roles in the U.S. government.

Republicans meeting in a closed-door session late Tuesday picked Representative Mike Johnson as their latest House speaker candidate, and the fourth since Representative Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job.

Johnson is a lawmaker from the state of Louisiana who rallied Republicans around former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He received 128 votes Tuesday night to beat other candidates. McCarthy, who was not a declared candidate, came in second place with 43 votes.

It was unclear if Johnson would be able to muster the support of most of the Republicans in the House, something the three previous candidates to replace McCarthy have been unable to do.

Republicans hold a slim 221-212 majority, and with Democrats united behind House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, any Republican candidate can only lose a few Republican votes and still achieve the simple majority threshold to win the speaker role.

Republicans moved on to Johnson after another candidate, Representative Tom Emmer, withdrew his candidacy earlier Tuesday.

Emmer had outlasted eight other candidates in rounds of secret balloting. The 62-year-old Emmer has served as majority whip, one of the top leadership posts in the House Republican Conference, since earlier this year.

Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform early Tuesday afternoon that he did not know Emmer well and referred to him as a RINO – a term meaning Republican in Name Only.

“The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!” Trump posted.

As many as 20 Republican House lawmakers said they would not vote for Emmer, leading to his withdrawal.

The role of speaker of the House has been vacant since October 3 when eight Republicans joined with all 212 House Democrats to make McCarthy the first-ever speaker to be removed from his position.

A right-wing faction of the Republican Party was displeased with McCarthy for passing a short-term measure funding the government to keep it open past a September 30 deadline with Democratic legislators’ help.

Since McCarthy’s ouster, House Republicans have been unsuccessful in coalescing around a replacement. They first nominated Representative Steve Scalise of the southern state of Louisiana, who was not able to secure the needed votes.

The Republican caucus next gave its nod to Representative Jim Jordan of the Midwestern state of Ohio. Jordan is a conservative firebrand and staunch supporter of Trump.

But Jordan also failed to gain a 217-vote majority in the House, falling well short on a first vote in the full House and then losing ground on two subsequent ballots.

The Republican infighting has left the role of speaker unfilled, leaving the House unable to respond to crucial budget matters. A Nov. 17 deadline looms for budget issues to be resolved or a partial government shutdown will go into effect.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is second in the line of presidential succession.

 
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The United States is trying to rein in some of the outrage that inflamed tensions and sparked protests around the world following last week’s explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

Much of the anger has focused on Israel, with many protesters following the lead of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which accuses Israel of carrying out an airstrike, calling the incident a “genocidal massacre.”

But the U.S. has been pushing back, publicly sharing its initial intelligence assessments while also sharing more detailed findings with key governments.

“We have gone out and shared analysis with a lot of our partners around the world,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters late Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the incident.

“Thus far it’s been fairly robust in terms of what we’ve been able to provide,” the official added. “I suspect we will be updating it and sending additional information out as we move forward.”

It is unclear, at this point, how much of an impact the intelligence sharing is having. 

Jordan and Egypt last week called off a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Amman, blaming Israel for the blast. And the explosion continues to be featured prominently at pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the world.

“One of the things that our diplomats have asked … is that the intelligence community do more to lay out our thinking,” the senior official said.

And it is not just U.S. diplomats. 

“There has been intense interest in the hospital explosion and conflicting accounts about what happened,” a second senior U.S. official told VOA. “The U.S. government has worked to be able to share as much information as we could in the interest of transparency.”

The tactic of declassifying and sharing this type of sensitive intelligence is increasingly part of the U.S. playbook.

U.S. officials used it most notably in the lead-up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

Since then, however, the U.S. has used what the White House calls “strategic downgrades” to counter Chinese claims about a spy balloon that traversed much of the United States and to defuse a potential crisis in Mali.

And in the case of last week’s explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital, U.S. intelligence officials believe there is compelling evidence to exonerate Israel.

Based on information culled from a variety of sources, including satellite imagery, data on missile activity and intercepted communications, as well as publicly available video and images, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded with “high confidence” that Israel was not responsible for the hospital explosion.

“There are two primary reasons,” said a second U.S. intelligence official, who like the other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“The first is what we see when we look at the blast effects,” the official said. “The damage at the hospital is consistent with what we would expect to see from a rocket and inconsistent with the larger craters and broader blast effects that we would expect to see were this an airdrop munition or an artillery round.

“The detonation of the warhead resulted in only light structural damage at the hospital,” the official continued. “There was no observable damage to the main hospital building, no large impact craters, only light damage to the roofs of the two structures near the main hospital building. And both of them remained intact.”

The second reason for high confidence that Israel was not involved, according to the official, comes from videos that captured the launch and explosion, from four different angles.

Based on two of the videos, U.S. intelligence determined the rocket was launched from within the Gaza Strip, traveling in a northeasterly direction.

Then, about 10 seconds into the rocket’s flight, the motor starts having trouble and becomes unstable.

“We can tell that in part based on the fluctuating intensity of the rocket’s plume,” the official said.

Five seconds later, the videos show a flash – “our assessment is that that is the rocket motor failing,” the official said, and five seconds after that, one object hit the ground followed by a second, a few seconds later, resulting in a large explosion.

“Our conclusion is that there was a catastrophic motor failure that likely occurred which separated the motor and the warhead,” the official said. “The warhead landed in the hospital compound.”

Gaza’s health ministry said the explosion killed about 500 people. But U.S. officials told VOA news last week that they assessed the number of deaths was likely between 100 and 300, with the actual death toll likely on the lower end of the scale.

Officials late Tuesday said getting a more accurate count will likely be difficult and cast doubt on the ability of Hamas authorities to keep track of casualties given that they themselves “are struggling to function at this point in time.”   

U.S. intelligence officials likewise pushed back on some theories, popular on social media, that seek to blame Israel for a Palestinian rocket falling in Gaza, including claims that the rocket was shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

“Our understanding is that the Iron Dome would not intercept a rocket that was still burning,” the U.S. intelligence official said. “Their SOPs [standard operating procedures] are that they would have to calculate where it’s likely to go. And until that rocket has finished burning through its propellant, it’s not going to be clear exactly how far it’s going to go.”

And the officials backed up Israeli claims that the failure rate for Hamas rockets is high. Israel in recent days has said that on Oct. 21 alone, as many as one in five Hamas rockets failed, hitting Gaza instead of targets in Israel.

One area in which U.S. intelligence is still trying to get clarity is the question of who fired the rocket that ended up striking the Ahli Arab Hospital.

The current U.S. assessment points to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, as the most likely culprit. But officials say they have “low confidence” in the finding because it is based, in part, on an intercepted communication between other militants thought to be part of Hamas. 

“They themselves are speculating about who’s responsible,” the U.S. intelligence official said, adding the audio examined by U.S. intelligence is different than audio circulated by Israeli officials last week, which has been subject to criticism.

“There is additional audio that was passed to us by the Israelis that has been carefully vetted and determined to be authentic communications of Palestinian militants. … The language patterns have been evaluated and determined to be authentic,” according to the official.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad has denied it launched the rocket that fell on the Ahli Arab Hospital.

But U.S. officials counter that, using geolocation techniques and other data, they are confident the rocket that caused the damage was fired from Gaza and suffered a catastrophic failure, causing the warhead to land by the hospital.

Still, they say if new information comes to light, they will examine it closely.

“This issue is not closed for us,” said the senior U.S. intelligence official. “If we get additional information that would point in a different direction, we would report that out, as well.”

 
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Republican Representative Tom Emmer withdrew his candidacy for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, the latest setback for lawmakers who have struggled for three weeks to fill one of the top leadership roles in the U.S. government.

The role of speaker of the House has been vacant since October 3 when Representative Kevin McCarthy became the first-ever speaker to be removed from his position. Eight Republicans joined with all 212 House Democrats for that vote. 

A right-wing faction of the Republican Party was displeased with McCarthy for passing a short-term measure funding the government to keep it open past a September 30 deadline.   

Emmer outlasted eight other candidates in rounds of secret balloting earlier Tuesday. The 62-year-old Emmer has served as majority whip, one of the top leadership posts in the House Republican Conference, since earlier this year. He has represented the Midwestern state of Minnesota since 2015.

Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform early Tuesday afternoon that he did not know Emmer well and referred to him as a RINO – a term meaning Republican in Name Only.

“The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!” Trump posted.

As many as 20 Republican House lawmakers said they would not vote for Emmer, and he withdrew later in the day.

Since McCarthy’s ouster, House Republicans have been unsuccessful in coalescing around a replacement. They first nominated Representative Steve Scalise of the southern state of Louisiana, who was not able to secure the needed votes.

The Republican caucus next gave its nod to Representative Jim Jordan of the Midwestern state of Ohio. Jordan is a conservative firebrand and staunch supporter of Trump. 

But Jordan also failed to gain a 217-vote majority in the House, falling well short on a first vote in the full House and then losing ground on two subsequent ballots.

The Republican infighting has left the role of speaker unfilled, leaving the House unable to respond to crucial budget matters. A November 17 deadline looms for budget issues to be resolved or a partial government shutdown will go into effect.

The U.S. Speaker of the House is second in the line of presidential succession.   
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Some Islamic organizations, Jewish temples of worship and even schools in the United States have received threats of violence as the war between Israel and Hamas continues. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks into what is driving the anger and how those communities are trying to remain safe.
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At least seven people were killed Monday after a “superfog” of smoke from marsh fires and dense morning fog caused a series of wrecks on Interstate 55 near New Orleans that left a long stretch of mangled and scorched cars, trucks and tractor-trailers.

An estimated 158 vehicles were involved and 25 people injured, according to the Louisiana State Police, who warned the death toll could climb as first responders worked into the night looking for victims, the smell of burnt wreckage still heavy in the air.

Vehicles were crushed, piled atop each other and engulfed by flames. Some people got out of their vehicles and stood on the side of the road or on the roofs of their cars looking in disbelief at the disaster, while others cried out for help.

Clarencia Patterson Reed was driving with her wife and niece and could see people waving their hands for her to stop, but when she did her car was hit from behind and on the side by two other vehicles, she told the The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.

“It was ‘Boom. Boom.’ All you kept hearing was crashing,” Reed said. She was able to scramble out of her car, but her wife was pinned inside and injured her leg and side.

Another driver Christopher Coll, said he was already braking when a pickup truck “drove up on top of my work trailer and took me for a ride.”

Coll could smell smoke as he heard the sounds of crashing cars and popping tires. He was able to kick open his passenger door to escape and then helped others — pulling out one person through a car window.

While 25 people were transported to the hospital, with injuries ranging from minor to critical, others sought medical aid on their own, authorities said.

Gov. John Bel Edwards asked for prayers “for those hurt and killed” on Monday and issued a call for blood donors to replenish dwindling supplies.

Louisiana State Police shared aerial photos on their Facebook page showing the crashed cars and extensive debris on both northbound and southbound lanes of the elevated interstate, which passes over swamp and open water between lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas.

As of Monday afternoon, state troopers were still working “to notify families, investigate the exact causes of the crashes” and coordinate with the state’s transportation department to have the bridge inspected.

Traffic backed up for miles in both directions on I-55. The lack of visibility also prompted closures of parts of I-10 and the 24-mile (39-kilometer) Lake Pontchartrain Causeway at times.

School buses were summoned to transport stranded motorists from the accident sites. At midday, state police told reporters at the scene that one vehicle went over the highway guardrail and into the water, but the driver escaped unharmed. 

The National Weather Service said there were multiple wetland fires in the region. Smoke from the fires mixed with fog to create a “superfog.” Visibility improved as the fog lifted, according to the agency, but similarly dangerous conditions could occur in coming days. 
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U.S. troops shot down two drones targeting American forces in southern Syria on Monday, the latest in a string of drone attacks targeting American bases and facilities in the Middle East as officials warn of a “significant threat” of escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters that Iranian-backed forces launched two one-way attack drones at al-Tanf garrison on Monday that were taken out by American defense systems, resulting in no injuries.

“We know that these groups are groups that are backed by Iran,” Ryder said. “We will ultimately hold Iran responsible.”

The attack marked at least the fifth drone or rocket attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East in a week, which the Pentagon has described as an “uptick.” Some of the attacks resulted in minor injuries and damage.

“There is a significant threat of escalation throughout the region, and that would be, that would include towards U.S. forces,” a senior military official told reporters.

Last week, two drones targeted al-Tanf in Syria. A drone targeted Al-Harir Air Base — formerly Bashur Air Base — in northern Iraq. Two drones targeted al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, and rockets targeted U.S. and coalition forces near Baghdad’s International Airport.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday placed an undisclosed number of troops on prepare-to-deploy orders and activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, as well as additional Patriot batteries to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces.

 

 

“What you see from this posture announcement … is that we are preparing for this escalation, both in terms of defending our forces and being prepared to respond decisively,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday.

These moves come after Austin had already placed more than 2,000 military personnel on heightened alert with a prepare-to-deploy order last Tuesday.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group is speeding to the Middle East region, and the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group remains in the eastern Mediterranean.

Three ships with the USS Bataan amphibious ready group are positioning thousands of Marines in waters near Israel. A squadron of A-10 attack aircraft has arrived in the Middle East, with another A-10 squadron’s deployment extended, and more F-15 and F-16 fighter jets also are rolling into the region.

The U.S. has said the increased military presence is intended to deter malign actors such as Hezbollah or Iran from expanding the conflict.

Last week, the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea, shot down four missiles and multiple drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, weapons that the Pentagon said were “heading along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel.”

Ryder had originally said on Thursday that three missiles were intercepted.

There were no casualties, and the ship did not appear to be the target of the attack, Ryder said.

Since Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack on Israel, at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed and at least 5,000 Palestinians have died.
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Students can expect to pay $40,000 to $80,000 per academic year to attend a four-year American college or university, but there are ways to drastically reduce costs if you are an international student set on studying in the U.S. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum, Saqib Ul Islam
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Republicans, whose party infighting has paralyzed the U.S. House of Representatives for three weeks, will begin again on Monday to try to pick a new speaker to lead the chamber and address funding needs for Israel, Ukraine and the federal government.

Factional strife between right-wing hardliners and more mainstream Republicans led to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3 and derailed leadership bids by two would-be successors: No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise and prominent conservative Jim Jordan.

The leadership vacuum has stymied congressional action as it faces a Nov. 17 deadline to avoid a government shutdown by extending federal agency funding, and a request from President Joe Biden to approve military aid for Israel and Ukraine.

“This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We’re essentially shut down as a government.”

The task of choosing a new Republican nominee for the job of House speaker begins again on Monday at 6:30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT), when nine declared candidates, including No. 3 House Republican Tom Emmer, will appear at a closed-door candidate forum.

McCarthy has endorsed Emmer, stressing his experience in working to marshal party votes on major legislation since January, when Republicans became the majority party in the House.

“This is not a moment in time to play around with learning on the job,” McCarthy told NBC’s “Meet the Press”, although he added: “It’s going to be an uphill battle.”

With a narrow majority of 221-212 in the House, it is not clear whether any Republican can get the 217 votes needed to claim the speaker’s gavel.

Any candidate nominated by the party conference can afford to lose no more than four Republicans when the full House votes, and the conference is split over spending cuts, Ukraine funding and other hot-button issues.

Matt Gaetz, the Republican who initiated McCarthy’s ouster, complained to reporters that Jordan was “knifed by secret ballot” after the conference voted late last week to end his bid for speaker.

Jordan tried and failed three times to win a floor vote inside the House. He had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who is a clear favorite to win the party’s nomination to run again as president in 2024.

Democrats described Jordan as a dangerous extremist and opponents inside his own party were angered by a pressure campaign from his supporters that resulted in death threats.

Sevenof the nine new candidates for speaker – Jack Bergman, Byron Donalds, Kevin Hern, Mike Johnson, Dan Meuser, Gary Palmer and Pete Sessions – voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden on the day that Trump supporters assaulted Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

The two remaining candidates, Emmer and Austin Scott, did not vote to block certification of the election results.

House Republicans have been embroiled in chaos all year. McCarthy needed an agonizing 15 votes to win the speaker’s gavel in January, and along the way had to made concessions that enabled a single member to force a vote for his removal.

That happened this month when eight Republicans forced him out after he passed legislation with Democratic support that averted a partial government shutdown. 

Investors say the tumult has contributed to market turbulence and Biden has urged Republicans to sort out their problems. 
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