Chris Hedges's Blog, page 604

Body of Slain Hamas Commander Is Returned to Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip—The body of a Hamas scientist who was gunned down in Malaysia last week was returned to the Gaza Strip on Thursday for burial.

Relatives, Hamas leaders and other political faction chiefs greeted the body of Fadi al-Batsh as it entered Gaza through Egypt.

Al-Batsh’s family said he would be buried later on Thursday, after Hamas officials had earlier said they would hold a large public funeral on Friday. It was not immediately clear why the timing of the funeral was changed.

Al-Batsh, a lecturer in electrical engineering at a Malaysian university, was killed by a pair of assailants on a motorcycle as he was walking to pray at a mosque on Saturday. Hamas has accused Israel’s Mossad spy agency of being behind the killing.

“You are returning back to us … paving the way for our return to Palestine,” said Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas leader, at a small ceremony at the border crossing. The coffin lay on a table, wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

“To the occupation, we say the debt to us has become heavy,” he said. “The day of punishment is coming.”

Hamas has identified al-Batsh as a commander in its military wing, but said little else about his activities. Israeli media have reported that he was involved in Hamas’ military drone program.

Israel has a long history of assassinating wanted militants, though it rarely acknowledges responsibility. But in a published interview Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel did not do it.

“We did not assassinate him,” Lieberman told the Arabic news site Elaph. When asked who killed al-Batsh, the minister said: “Ask James Bond … maybe James Bond killed him like in the movies.”

Israel and Hamas, a militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, are bitter enemies that have fought three wars since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Tensions have heightened recently as Hamas has organized mass protests next to the Israeli border.

Earlier on Thursday in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians took part in the funeral of a Gaza journalist who died after being shot by Israeli troops while covering a protest on April 13.

Ahmed Abu Hussein, 24, died from his wounds on Wednesday at an Israeli hospital, where he had been transferred.

Amateur video taken at the time shows him wearing a blue vest and helmet with the word “TV” on it. He appeared to be standing far from the Israeli border in a group of bystanders when he was shot.

In a statement Thursday, the Israeli military said “the circumstances regarding the injury of Ahmed Abu Hussein will be examined.”

Thirty-five protesters, including two journalists, have been killed by Israeli live fire during the weekly demonstrations.

Rights groups, the U.N. and the European Union have all criticized Israel’s use of live fire against unarmed protesters.

Israel says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas of using the demonstrations as cover to plan and carry out attacks.

Senate Panel Advances Bill to Protect Mueller

WASHINGTON—The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s job, putting the matter in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said he won’t let the bill reach Senate floor.

Republicans have split amid President Donald Trump’s repeatedly criticism of Mueller’s Russia investigation. The vote was 14-7 with four Republicans in favor. The move is largely symbolic, given McConnell’s opposition, but it reveals the complexity of Trump’s support among Republicans in Congress.

Nearly all GOP senators say Trump shouldn’t fire Mueller, but Republican lawmakers who support the legislation to protect the special counsel say more needs to be done to protect against prosecutorial overreach.

A key supporter is committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who voted for the measure and argued that McConnell should change his mind.

“While my constitutional concerns remain, I believe this bill should be considered by the full Senate,” Grassley said.

Two Republicans and two Democrats introduced the bill earlier this month as Trump ramped up criticism of the special counsel. Mueller is investigating potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign as well as possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Trump appeared to suggest Thursday he has no intention of trying to fire Mueller, for now. But he left open the possibility he could change his mind.

“I am very disappointed in my Justice Department. But because of the fact that it’s going on, and I think you’ll understand this, I have decided that I won’t be involved,” Trump said in a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends.” ”I may change my mind at some point, because what’s going on is a disgrace.”

The measure under consideration would give any special counsel a 10-day window to seek expedited judicial review of a firing and would put into law existing Justice Department regulations that a special counsel can only be fired for good cause. A handful of Republicans supported the bill, but most have opposed it, arguing that it is unconstitutional or unnecessary.

McConnell, R-Ky., has argued that Trump won’t move to fire Mueller and has insisted he will not hold a full Senate vote on the legislation.

Republicans who supported the bill could be at risk of angering Trump and some of his supporters they represent. But the four lawmakers who wrote the legislation — GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey — had hoped to win enough bipartisan support to move it out of committee. After it’s passage, they say, they could try and find enough support in the full Senate to persuade McConnell to change his mind.

With most Democrats on board, the bipartisan group had been working in recent days to gather additional Republican votes. That included negotiating with Grassley, who had floated an amendment that included increased reporting to Congress by the special counsel.

Democrats had initially opposed Grassley’s amendment, saying it could undermine the investigation if the special counsel had to reveal too much to Congress during the investigation.

Trump’s legislative director, Marc Short, said in a broadcast interview Sunday that “as far as I know, the president has no intention of firing” either Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller’s investigation. Short said he couldn’t rule it out in the long term, though, because it’s not known “how far off this investigation is going to veer.”

The bipartisan group of four senators introduced two separate bills last August when Trump first started to criticize Mueller publicly. That legislation stalled for months, but was revived and the two bills were combined two weeks ago as Trump fumed about a raid of his personal lawyer’s office, in an investigation overseen by federal prosecutors in New York.

After the raid, Trump said the Mueller investigation is “an attack on our country” and is “corrupt.”

North Korea’s Kim Will Walk Across Border for Summit in South

SEOUL, South Korea—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will plant a commemorative tree and inspect an honor guard together after Kim walks across the border Friday for their historic summit, Seoul officials said Thursday.

The talks on the southern side of the border village of Panmunjom are expected to focus on North Korea’s nuclear program, but there will be plenty of symbolism when Kim becomes the first North Korean leader to be in the southern section of the border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Moon will receive Kim after he crosses the concrete slabs that form the rivals’ military demarcation line Friday morning. They will then walk together for about 10 minutes to a plaza where they’ll inspect a South Korean honor guard, Moon’s chief of staff Im Jong-seok told reporters.

After signing the guestbook and taking a photo together at Peace House, the venue for Friday’s summit, the two leaders will start formal talks at 10:30 a.m. (0130 GMT). They will later plant a pine tree on the border using a mixture of soil from both counties’ mountains and water from their respective rivers. The tree, which is beloved by both Koreas, dates to 1953, the year the war ended, Im said.

Engraved on the stone plaque for the tree will be the phrase, “Peace and Prosperity Are Planted,” as well as the signatures of the leaders. After the tree-planting, the two plan to stroll together to a footbridge where a signpost for the military demarcation line stands, Im said.

The leaders will meet again in the afternoon and later attend a banquet, Im said.

Im said Kim is to be accompanied by nine top North Korean officials, including his influential sister, Kim Yo Jong. Im said South Korea hopes Kim’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, will attend parts of Friday’s summit, but Ri’s attendance hasn’t been agreed to yet.

It’s also not clear how the leaders will announce the results of the summit. The most difficult part, Im said, centers on North Korea’s level of denuclearization commitment.

Friday’s summit and Kim’s planned meeting with President Donald Trump in May or early June were arranged after Kim recently expressed a wiliness to put his nuclear program up for negotiation after a year of nuclear and missile tests.

Journalist Killed While Covering Nicaraguan Protests

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for Nicaraguan authorities to investigate the death of journalist Ángel Eduardo Gahona, who was shot Saturday while covering pension reform protests in which 24 people died, according to local news reports.

Gahona was conducting a Facebook Live feed of the protests in the eastern port city of Bluefields when he was killed. A video from the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa shows Gahona approaching an ATM and describing damage to the glass doors before being shot and collapsing.

“Nicaraguan authorities must immediately conduct a transparent investigation into the killing of Ángel Eduardo Gahona,” said CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Independent journalists in Nicaragua should not pay the ultimate price for informing people about issues of national importance.”

Ileana Lacayo Ortíz, a journalist and activist in Bluefields who helped organize the protest and was close by when Gahona was shot, told CPJ it was difficult to tell who fired at him, but she believes it was the police. “I didn’t see any of the youth with a gun,” Lacayo told CPJ. “It had to come from the police or riot police.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists continues:

Gahona’s wife Migueliuth Sandoval, who worked with him as a reporter for El Meridiano, told CPJ that her husband left home around 5:00 p.m. on April 21 to cover protests that continued after an anti-government march organized by local activists ended.

Sandoval said that she and her husband decided he should broadcast the police and protester confrontations via Facebook Live because local television channels were being censored or disconnected by the government. Nicaraguan authorities have cracked down on coverage of the protests and independent media outlets, censoring news broadcasts and blocking television broadcasts, as multiple journalists have been injured while covering the protests, CPJ has documented.

Truthdig columnist Sonali Kolhatkar reported on the Nicaraguan protests in a video post Monday:

Cohen Vows to Take the Fifth in Stormy Daniels Case

LOS ANGELES—President Donald Trump’s personal attorney said Wednesday he will assert his constitutional right against self-incrimination in a civil case brought by a porn actress who said she had an affair with Trump.

Michael Cohen has been asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to delay Stormy Daniels’ case after FBI agents raided his home and office earlier this month, seeking records about a nondisclosure agreement Daniels signed days before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and has sued to invalidate the confidentiality agreement that prevents her discussing it. She’s also suing Cohen, alleging defamation.

Cohen sought to delay the civil case 90 days after the raid, arguing that his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination may be jeopardized if legal proceedings aren’t stayed.

But last week, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero said there were “gaping holes” in Cohen’s request for a delay.

Cohen’s lawyer argued in court last week that because the criminal investigation overlaps with issues in the lawsuit, his client’s right against self-incrimination could be adversely impacted because he won’t be able to respond and defend himself.

In a court filing on Wednesday, Cohen said that FBI agents had seized “various electronic devices and documents in my possession” which contain information about the $130,000 Daniels was paid as part of the agreement. Agents also seized communications with his lawyer, Brent Blakely, about the civil case, Cohen said.

Daniels has offered to return the $130,000 and argues the agreement is legally invalid because it was only signed by her and Cohen, not by Trump.

Cohen will assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination “in connection with all proceedings in this case,” he wrote.

Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Cohen’s filing was a “stunning development.”

“Never before in our nation’s history has the attorney for the sitting President invoked the 5th Amend in connection with issues surrounding the President,” he tweeted.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.

New Museum Confronts America’s History of Racism

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens to the public in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday, is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to enslaved black people, the victims of lynching, racial segregation and Jim Crow laws.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a Montgomery nonprofit that focuses on racial injustice and criminal justice reform and works to help marginalized communities, is responsible for bringing the memorial to fruition, The New York Times reports. EJI founder Bryan Stevenson told the paper that the idea for the memorial was inspired by the fact that nothing like it existed—despite the thousands of black people who died during decades of racial terror in America.

“Our nation’s history of racial injustice casts a shadow across the American landscape,” Stevenson said in a statement. “This shadow cannot be lifted until we shine the light of truth on the destructive violence that shaped our nation, [traumatized] people of [color] and compromised our commitment to the rule of law and to equal justice.”

The New York Times describes the effect of the memorial:

At the center is a grim cloister, a walkway with 800 weathered steel columns, all hanging from a roof. Etched on each column is the name of an American county and the people who were lynched there, most listed by name, many simply as “unknown.” The columns meet you first at eye level, like the headstones that lynching victims were rarely given. But as you walk, the floor steadily descends; by the end, the columns are all dangling above, leaving you in the position of the callous spectators in old photographs of public lynchings.

The magnitude of the killing is harrowing, all the more so when paired with the circumstances of individual lynchings, some described in brief summaries along the walk: Parks Banks, lynched in Mississippi in 1922 for carrying a photograph of a white woman; Caleb Gadly, hanged in Kentucky in 1894 for “walking behind the wife of his white employer”; Mary Turner, who after denouncing her husband’s lynching by a rampaging white mob, was hung upside down, burned and then sliced open so that her unborn child fell to the ground.

The memorial encourages counties where violence took place to make reparations. For each steel column, which includes the name of a county and the names of the people lynched there, there is a duplicate copy on the memorial grounds. If the listed county submits documentation of its efforts to address its local history of racial terror, it can claim its column and display it locally.

“I’m not interested in talking about America’s history because I want to punish America,” Stevenson said. “I want to liberate America.”

Thursday’s opening will be followed by several days of educational events featuring nationally known figures and musical performances. Tickets to the memorial are now available.

Is GOP Losing Its Grip on the Senate?

Republicans have known for months that their House majority is in genuine peril. But after another bruising showing in a special election, some in the party are reconsidering the once inconceivable notion of losing the Senate.

It’s a sobering possibility, particularly given Republican’ confidence not long ago that they probably would increase their Senate edge after the November vote. Far more Democratic senators are facing re-election in states favorable to Republicans than the other way around. That’s why the GOP held out hope of expanding its ranks and easing the path for President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Yet a Republican congressional victory Tuesday in the Phoenix suburbs has set off new alarm bells.

Republican Debbie Lesko won the special House election by 6 percentage points, though Trump captured the district by 21 percentage points in 2016. GOP turnout dropped off, and unlike Republicans’ shocking losses in a Pittsburgh-area House race and an Alabama Senate contest, there was no weak GOP nominee to blame in Arizona.

The only explanation was the most worrisome for the GOP: Trump’s presidency is activating Democrats and demoralizing some Republicans and if that trend continues, trouble is ahead.

“The larger issue is if Democrats can take the undeniably stronger turnout in most of these special elections … and replicate that in the fall,” said Steven Law, a Republican operative running the Senate Leadership Fund, a political action committee at the forefront of Republicans’ November strategy. “My guess is they will.”

Democrats certainly have a steep climb and must do more than play defense to win the Senate majority. Even if they successfully protect all 26 incumbents — 24 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them — they still would have to pick up two seats. Arizona and Nevada are the most likely.

For every Democratic loss among the 10 incumbents running in states where Trump won two years ago, Democrats would need to add another Republican pickup. That could leave them dependent on knocking off Republican Ted Cruz in Texas or winning in GOP-dominated Tennessee.

Still, there are signs that seizing the Senate is no longer a pipe dream.

Democratic incumbents are outpacing Republicans in fundraising. Of the 10 Democratic senators running in Trump-won states, nine are among the top 20 campaign fundraisers across all Senate candidates this election cycle. None of their potential Republican opponents has made that cut.

The lone Democratic exclusion, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, ranks 31st, but that still puts him ahead of his potential GOP rivals. In fact, the top Republican Senate fundraisers for the cycle are Roy Moore and Luther Strange, the two Alabama Republicans who vied for the seat now held by Democrat Doug Jones.

Cruz, the Texas senator, tops his Republican colleagues with $9.1 million for his re-election bid. But Democrat Beto O’Rourke, even with his underdog status, has taken in more than $13 million.

In Missouri, where Claire McCaskill has been viewed as among the most vulnerable Democratic senators, the two-term incumbent had more than $11 million in her campaign account this month. That compares with $2 million for the Republican state attorney general, Josh Hawley.

Republicans will have plenty of resources with independent groups and their wealthiest backers paying for advertising and voter outreach. But Democrats’ performance among rank-and-file donors is just one more measure of voter enthusiasm.

The Arizona race, in a conservative district northwest of downtown Phoenix, highlighted other Republican concerns.

Republicans tried to turn the tax law into a shield. But the Democratic nominee, Hiral Tipirneni, didn’t shy away from hammering Lesko as a lackey for national Republican leaders she said are intent on cutting health care services and Social Security.

The GOP arguments apparently worked well enough for the party to hit its early voting targets in Arizona. But doing that and still winning by only 6 percentage points suggested that the rest of the electorate, including independents, broke solidly for Democrats.

All 10 of the Democratic senators in Trump-carried states who are running for re-election voted against the GOP tax law.

“It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans declared that the tax bill was going to solve most or all of their problems,” said Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. “Now, even in ruby red Republican area, it’s only exacerbated Republican problems, and they’re just limping across the finish line in a district like this.”

Increasingly bitter Republican primaries also magnify Democrats’ early advantages. And beyond being forced to spend precious money now, several Republican primaries have become divisive and could leave the GOP base wounded in November.

In Wisconsin, conservative businessman Kevin Nicholson is accusing his GOP opponent, state Sen. Leah Vukmir, of cuddling up to the party establishment and Gov. Scott Walker. The line of attack may work in a primary, but risks alienating Walker supporters later.

In West Virginia, Republicans are mounting attacks on coal company CEO Don Blankenship, vying to face Manchin, for his role in the deadliest mine disaster in decades.

In Nevada, where Democrat Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential race, Republican Dean Heller has been considered the most vulnerable GOP Senate incumbent. Heller’s initial primary challenger, Danny Tarkanian, blasted him for defying Trump on trying to repeal the 2010 health care law and for resisting admitting he voted for Trump. Tarkanian has since left the Senate race to run for a House district, but Democrats argue Heller will bear the scars of the attacks as he also worked to mend fences with Trump, instead of reach out to swing voters.

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Barrow reported from Atlanta and Beaumont from Des Moines, Iowa.

Toronto Attack Illustrates Dangers of Misogyny

TORONTO—The deadly van rampage in Toronto is training attention on an online world of sexual loneliness, rage and misogyny after the suspect invoked an uprising by “involuntary celibates” and gave a shout-out to a California killer who seethed at women for rejecting him.

The world of self-described “incels,” where sexual frustrations boil over into talk of violent revenge against women, has become a virtual home for some socially isolated men like the 25-year-old computer science student charged in Monday’s carnage on Toronto’s busiest thoroughfare.

Minutes before plowing a rented van into a crowd of mostly women, killing 10 people and injuring 14, suspect Alek Minassian posted a Facebook message that seemed to offer one of the few clues so far to what was on his mind. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” it read.

Police confirmed Minassian posted the message but have declined so far to discuss a motive for the attack as they continue investigating. But the post has revived concerns about the anti-woman vitriol embraced by California mass killer Elliot Rodger and invoked by Minassian in his post.

Incel forums and sites are “one of the most violent areas of the internet,” said Heidi Beirich, who tracks hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It may seem to some people that this is kind of a group of pathetic, victimized white males who just are lonely. It’s not. It’s ugly.”

Yet some incel sites insist they don’t condone violence or misogyny. And Judith Taylor, a University of Toronto professor who focuses on social movements, notes that some participants in incel discussions simply feel forsaken, while others “can become very graphic and very toxic.”

Until Monday, Minassian had a life that never attracted authorities’ attention.

Living with his family in suburban Toronto, he studied at nearby Seneca College, where some fellow students told news media he had a way with computers. He briefly joined the military last year but asked to leave recruit training after just 16 days, according to Canada’s Department of National Defence.

As a teen, he had an awkward personality, those who knew him then said.

“He was known to meow like a cat and try to bite people,” though he never was violent, wrote Alexander Alexandrovitch, who said in a Facebook post that he went to high school with Minassian.

Others said Minassian had struggled socially, especially with women.

He’d intone, “I’m afraid of girls,” former high school classmate, Ari Blaff, told news media. Another classmate, Josh Kirstein, told The New York Times that Minassian “would cower and avoid eye contact when he saw a girl. … He would shut down completely.”

Aman Enshai, who manages a pizzeria near Minassian’s home, said he came in a couple nights of a week to order a slice of pizza but spoke very little.

Minassian’s family hasn’t commented on him or the murder and attempted murder charges against him. His father, Vahe Minassian, looking distraught, said only “I’m sorry” as he left a courthouse Tuesday. It’s not clear whether Minassian has a lawyer who will represent him as the case progresses.

Whatever emerges about his mindset and alleged motivations, his mention of an “incel rebellion” immediately put the virtual community under scrutiny. Discussion forums buzzed with reactions — some celebratory, some shocked, many wary of the attention.

The “involuntary celibate” identity dates to the 1990s, coined by a Canadian woman aiming to launch a supportive exchange about sexual solitude, according to Taylor.

But over time, “incel” has become a buzzword for certain men infuriated at being rejected by women and prone to float ideas for violent payback, according to sociologists and others who follow incel circles.

Participants “see feminism, and women in general, as a reason their lives are so difficult,” said Maxime Fiset, a self-described former neo-Nazi who now tracks extremist websites for the Montreal-based Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence.

Forums are laced with suggestions that at least some of the discussions are merely satire or a way of blowing off steam.

But the site Reddit shut down one popular incel forum last year, after announcing a ban on content that calls for violence or physical harm.

Bailey Poland, the author of a 2016 book about online misogyny, says the talk of brutality is risky, whatever the posters’ intentions.

It’s “contributing to an environment where that kind of violence is seen as normal and acceptable. So even if you have no actual intent to do that, someone who does is going to see those posts and think they’re not alone,” said Poland, a doctoral student in rhetoric at Bowling Green State University.

Rodger, a 22-year-old community college student, killed six people and wounded more than a dozen others in shooting and stabbing attacks near the University of California, Santa Barbara before killing himself in 2014. He had railed in a manifesto and online videos about women who shunned him and called for an incel “overthrow” of what he saw as feminist domination.

To be sure, Rodger wasn’t the first killer with a misogynistic mindset. A man who killed three women and wounded nine others in a Pennsylvania dance-aerobics class in 2009 left behind a vitriolic diary about his lack of a love life. In 1989, a 25-year-old man who blamed feminists for ruining his life killed 14 women at a Montreal engineering college in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting.

While violence against women extends beyond any online discussion, “this is a discourse that promotes a wider, broader misogynistic culture,” said Ross Haenfler, a Grinnell College sociologist who studies subcultures. “We should take it very seriously.”

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Peltz reported from New York. Associated Press video journalist David Martin and writer Charmaine Noronha in Toronto; writer Ben Fox in Miami; and researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

High Court Indicates Trump Travel Ban May Be Upheld

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to uphold President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. by visitors from several Muslim-majority countries, giving the president a major victory on a signature and controversial policy.

In the court’s first full-blown consideration of a Trump order, the conservative justices who make up the court’s majority seemed unwilling to hem in a president who has invoked national security to justify restrictions on who can or cannot step on U.S. soil.

The justices in December allowed the ban to take full effect even as the legal fight over it continued, but Wednesday was the first time they took it up in open court. Trump’s tough stance on immigration was a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and he rolled out the first version of the ban just a week after taking office, sparking chaos and protests at a number of airports.

The ban’s challengers almost certainly need either Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Anthony Kennedy on their side if the court is to strike down the policy that its opponents have labeled a Muslim ban.

But neither appeared receptive to arguments made by lawyer Neal Katyal, representing the ban’s opponents, that Trump’s rule stems from his campaign pledge to keep Muslims out of the country and is unlike immigration orders issued by any other president.

The room was packed for the court’s final arguments until October, and people waited in line for seats for days. “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was in the audience. Demonstrators protesting the ban filled the area outside the building.

Some who oppose the ban have said courts should treat Trump differently from his predecessors. But that issue was raised only obliquely from the bench when Justice Elena Kagan talked about a hypothetical president who campaigned on an anti-Semitic platform and then tried to ban visitors from Israel.

When Solicitor General Noel Francisco, defending the ban, started to answer that such a turn of events was extremely unlikely because of the two countries’ close relationship, Kagan stopped him. “This is an out-of-the-box kind of president in my hypothetical,” she said, to laughter.

“We don’t have those, Your Honor,” Francisco replied.

While there was discussion about Trump’s statements both as a candidate and as president, no justice specifically referenced his tweets on the subject, despite Katyal’s attempt to get them to focus on last fall’s retweets of inflammatory videos that stoked anti-Islam sentiment.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the most aggressive questioner of Francisco.

She told him she doubted that the president has “the authority to do more than Congress has already decided is adequate” under immigration law. She and Kagan also questioned Francisco closely about whether the ban discriminates against Muslims.

From the other side, Kennedy challenged Katyal about whether the ban would be unending. He said the policy’s call for a report every six months “indicates there’ll be a reassessment” from time to time.

“You want the president to say, ‘I’m convinced that in six months we’re going to have a safe world,'” Kennedy said, seemingly rejecting Katyal’s argument.

His only question that seemed to favor the challengers came early in the arguments, when he asked Solicitor General Francisco whether Trump’s campaign statements should be considered in evaluating the administration’s ban. Francisco told the justices they shouldn’t look at those campaign statements.

Kennedy pressed on that point. Speaking of a hypothetical candidate for mayor, he asked if what was said during that candidate’s campaign was irrelevant if on “day two” of his administration the new mayor acted on those statements.

Francisco held his ground saying the presidential oath of office “marks a fundamental transformation.”

With Katyal at the lectern, Justice Samuel Alito said it seemed wrong to call the travel policy a Muslim ban when it applies to just five of 50 mostly Muslim countries, 8 percent of the world’s Muslim population and only one country — Iran — among the 10 largest with Muslim majorities. “Would a reasonable observer think this is a Muslim ban?” Alito asked.

Outside the court, opponents of the ban held signs that read “No Muslim Ban. Ever” and “Refugees Welcome.” In another indication of heightened public interest, the court released an audio recording after arguments ended. The last time the court did that was for gay marriage arguments in 2015.

The justices are looking at the third version of a policy that Trump brought out shortly after taking office. That brought immediate turmoil as travelers were stopped at airports and some were detained for hours. The first version was blocked by courts and withdrawn. Its replacement was allowed to take partial effect, but expired in September.

The current version is indefinite and now applies to travelers from five countries with overwhelmingly Muslim populations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It also affects two non-Muslim countries, blocking travelers from North Korea and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. A sixth majority-Muslim country, Chad, was removed from the list this month after improving “its identity-management and information sharing practices,” Trump said in a proclamation.

The administration has argued that courts have no role to play because the president has broad powers over immigration and national security, and foreigners have no right to enter the country. Francisco also has said in written arguments that Trump’s September proclamation laying out the current policy comports with immigration law and does not violate the Constitution because it does not single out Muslims.

The challengers have said that Trump is flouting immigration law by trying to keep more than 150 million people, the vast majority of them Muslim, from entering the country. They also argue that his policy amounts to the Muslim ban that he called for as a candidate, violating the Constitution’s prohibition against religious bias.

The case is Trump v. Hawaii, 17-965.

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Associated Press writer Jessica Gresko contributed to this report.

Former Police Officer Linked to California Serial Killings

SACRAMENTO—A DNA match in the past six days tied a former police officer to some of the crimes committed by a California serial killer behind at least 12 homicides and 45 rapes throughout the state in the 1970s and ’80s, police officials announced Wednesday.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was fired from the Auburn Police Department, was arrested after a DNA sample came back as a match to the Golden State Killer, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.

Officials said DeAngelo had been arrested on suspicion of committing four killings in Sacramento and Ventura counties and charged with two counts of murder in the Ventura case.

“We knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack, but we also knew that needle was there,” Schubert said. “We found the needle in the haystack and it was right here in Sacramento.”

“The answer was always going to be in the DNA,” she said.

Armed with a gun, the masked attacker terrorized communities by breaking into homes while single women or couples were sleeping. He sometimes tied up the man and piled dishes on his back, then raped the woman while threatening to kill them both if the dishes tumbled.

He often took souvenirs, notably coins and jewelry, from his victims, who ranged in age from 13 to 41.

DeAngelo was fired from the Auburn Police Department in 1979 after he was arrested for stealing a can of dog repellant and a hammer from a drug store, according to Auburn Journal articles from the time.

The FBI says it had a team gathering evidence at a Sacramento-area home linked to DeAngelo.

Jane Carson-Sandler, who was sexually assaulted in California in 1976 by a man believed to be the so-called “East Area Rapist,” said she received an email Wednesday from a retired detective who worked on the case telling her they have identified the rapist and he’s in custody.

“I have just been overjoyed, ecstatic. It’s an emotional roller-coaster right now,” Carson-Sandler, who now lives near Hilton Head, South Carolina, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I feel like I’m in the middle of a dream and I’m going to wake up and it’s not going to be true. It’s just so nice to have closure and to know he’s in jail.”

Carson-Sandler was attacked in her home in Citrus Heights, California.

FBI and California officials in 2016 renewed their search for the East Area Rapist and announced a $50,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. He has been linked to a total of more than 175 crimes between 1976 and 1986.

As he committed crimes across the state, authorities called him by different names. He was dubbed the East Area Rapist after his start in Northern California, the Original Night Stalker after a series of Southern California slayings, and the Diamond Knot Killer for using an elaborate binding method on two of his victims.

He was most recently called the Golden State Killer.

Authorities decided to publicize the case again in 2016 in advance of the 40th anniversary of his first known assault in Sacramento County.

Neighbor Kevin Tapia, 36, said when he was a teenager, DeAngelo falsely accused him of throwing things over their shared fence, prompting a heated exchange between DeAngelo and Tapia’s father. He said DeAngelo could often be heard cursing in frustration in his backyard.

“No one thinks they live next door to a serial killer,” Tapia said. “But at the same time I’m just like, he was a weird guy. He kept to himself. When you start to think about it you’re like, I could see him doing something like that but I would never suspect it.”

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Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper contributed to this report from Citrus Heights, California.