Victoria Fox's Blog, page 257
March 27, 2023
Vice President Harris pledges aid to Ghana amid security and economic concerns
Enlarge this image U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is welcomed by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo in Accra, Ghana, on Monday. Harris is on a seven-day African visit that will also take her to Tanzania and Zambia. Misper Apawu/AP
Misper Apawu/AP
ACCRA, Ghana — With fears of terrorism and Russian mercenaries rippling through West Africa, Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday opened her weeklong trip to the continent by vowing support for Ghana, a democratic pillar in the region that’s being squeezed by an economic crisis and security concerns.
The visit was a high-profile show of support for Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, who faces rising discontent over inflation after previously overseeing one of the world’s fast-growing economies.
“Under your leadership, Ghana has been a beacon of democracy and a contributor to global peace and security,” Harris said during a joint press conference at the Jubilee House, the presidential palace in Accra.
Harris announced $100 million in assistance for the region and pledged that the United States would be “strengthening our partnerships across the continent of Africa.” The administration also is requesting another $139 million from Congress to help Ghana reduce child labor, improve weather forecasting, support local musicians and defend against disease outbreaks.
The vice president is the most notable member of President Joe Biden’s administration to visit Africa this year, and she’ll be continuing on to Tanzania and Zambia later this week. The trip is part of a concerted effort to broaden U.S. outreach at a time when China and Russia have entrenched interests of their own in Africa.
Ghana and some other African countries are suffering ripple effects from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, such as higher costs for food and fuel.
The war has also become a dividing line at the United Nations, where some African leaders have condemned the invasion and others have refused. The situation has sparked alarm about the potential for a new Cold War dynamic, where global competition leaves Africa caught in the middle.
Harris was careful to emphasize that the U.S. outreach was independent of geopolitical rivalries.
“Yes, we are concerned with security. We are concerned with what is happening on the globe as a whole. We are clear-eyed about that,” she said. “But this trip is motivated by the importance of the direct relationship between the United States and Ghana, and as I travel the continent, with those countries as well.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat who has worked extensively on African issues and joined Harris for the trip to Ghana, said that it “would be a tragic error to disrespect the legitimate hopes and interests of African people.”
The United States has sent troops to train militaries from Ghana and other countries in the hopes of bolstering their defenses against local offshoots of al-Qaida and the Islamic State. However, other countries have turned to the Russian mercenary force known as Wagner, which has been on the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine but also has a presence in Africa.
Wagner began operating in Mali, which ousted French troops based there, and there are concerns that it will also deploy to Burkina Faso, where France also ended its military presence. Ghana recently accused Burkina Faso’s leaders, which took power in a coup last year, of already seeking help from Wagner.
Akufo-Addo called terrorism a “poison” and said “we’re spending a lot of sleepless nights trying to make sure we’re protected here.” Sporadic fighting has already increased in Ghana’s north, which borders Burkina Faso.
Akufo-Addo also expressed concern that Wagner could expand its footprint in the region.
“It raises the very real possibility that once again our continent is going to become the playground for a great power conflict,” he said.
Akufo-Addo’s desire for autonomy on the global stage was evident when he rebuffed a question about Chinese influence in Africa. His country reached a $2 billion deal a few years ago with a Chinese company to develop roads and other projects in return for access to a key mineral for producing aluminum.
“There may be an obsession in America about Chinese influence on the continent. But there’s no such obsession here,” Akufo-Addo said.
Russia’s outreach to Africa has alarmed the U.S.Although China has been a leading concern in U.S. foreign policy, Russia’s own attempts to make inroads in Africa have alarmed Washington as well. Some countries have longstanding ties dating back to the Soviet era.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has made multiple trips to the continent in an effort to show that the West has failed to isolate Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
“The Russians are continuing to make the first move in Africa, and the U.S. is continuing to play catch-up,” said Samuel Ramani, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense and security think tank.
“It’s really unclear how Russia will really be able to expand its influence in the long term,” he added. “But in the short term, they’re creating good will for themselves.”
Mucahid Durmaz, a senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk intelligence company, said that Moscow’s overall investments in Africa “are very modest” compared with Washington’s but he added that it has been able to leverage anti-Western sentiment in some areas of the continent.
“The Ukraine war has boosted Africa’s importance in international politics and increased geopolitical jostling among global powers for the support of its governments and nations,” he said.
U.S. officials have steered clear of framing their approach in terms of global rivalries, something that could swiftly sour Africans who are wary of being caught in the middle.
“They remain cautious about becoming collateral damage to geopolitical competition by repeating the same mistakes of the Cold War era,” Durmaz said.
Raphael Mechoulam, the ‘father of cannabis research’ who discovered THC, has died
Enlarge this image Raphael Mechoulam delivers a speech at a cannabis conference in Tel Aviv in 2016. JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli researcher whose work helped to broaden the scientific understanding of cannabis and the compounds that cause the drug’s distinctive high, has died.
Mechoulam, who was 92, died in Jerusalem early this month, according to American Friends of the Hebrew University.
Among Mechoulam’s contributions to the field of marijuana studies was the first isolation of the psychoactive compound of the cannabis plant — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. His work earned him the nickname “father of cannabis research.”
He was a “sharp-minded and charismatic pioneer,” said Asher Cohen, the president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where Mechoulam had long served on the faculty.
“Most of the human and scientific knowledge about cannabis was accumulated thanks to Prof. Mechoulam. He paved the way for groundbreaking studies and initiated scientific cooperation between researchers around the world,” said Cohen. “This is a sad day for the academic community and for the university.”
Mechoulam was born in 1930 in Bulgaria. He immigrated to Israel in 1949, and soon pursued an education in chemistry.
When Mechoulam entered the research field in the 1960s, morphine and cocaine had long been isolated from opium and coca, the plants in which the compounds naturally occur, Mechoulam said in a 2018 presentation at the university.
But the same could not be said for marijuana, or hashish, which prevented academic study of the drug in chemistry or pharmacology labs.
So, in 1962, Mechoulam and his research team, then at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, turned their focus to the drug right on the precipice of its explosion in popularity worldwide. (At first, his team acquired the marijuana needed for his research from the local police, he said.)
Over the course of his career, marijuana grew in both popularity and in controversy as debates unfolded over the safety of the drug. In 1970, the U.S. declared marijuana a “controlled substance.”
But Mechoulam, who moved to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1972, continued his studies for decades. He worked to isolate and synthesize other compounds in the drug, as well as to demonstrate the potential for uses in the medical field — including to treat epilepsy and autoimmune diseases.
And his work helped to show that, despite the controversy over its use in the second half of the 20th century, humans have been using cannabis for millennia.
In 1993, he and his team published a study in the journal Nature analyzing the ashes found in the 4th-century Roman tomb of a young woman who had died while giving birth.
“They obviously gave her something to ease the pain or to do something with the hemorrhage she was apparently undergoing. We thought that it might be cannabis,” he told NPR in an interview that year.
An analysis showed his hunch was correct, providing the first ever physical evidence of the drug’s use in the ancient Middle East. “We have no doubts about it,” he said.
Wizards of Waverly Place Producer Confirms Alex’s Sexuality
“We got as close as we could,” Peter said on the pod, hosted by Waverly Place alums Jennifer Stone and David DeLuise. “It was pretty much right there.”
While his show wasn’t able to peel back the layers of Alex and Stevie’s relationship, Peter acknowledged that the network has made more progressive strides in recent years.
“Disney Channel has had [queer] characters,” he noted. “They did it. At that time, it wasn’t a thing.”
In the 2016 series finale of the animated comedy Gravity Falls, Sheriff Blubs (Kevin Michael Richardson) and Deputy Durland (Keith Ferguson) confirmed they were in a relationship.
Additionally, shows like Star Wars Resistance, The Owl House and The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder have featured LGBTQ+ representation on Disney Channel since Wizards of Waverly Place left the airwaves.
Is it rare for a woman to commit a mass shooting?
Assailants in mass shootings across the United States — like the one that occurred Monday in Nashville — are extremely rare, according to the Violence Project, which maintains a national database of mass shootings dating back to 1966.
In a dataset of 172 mass shootings, defined as involving four or more victims and collected before Monday’s case, only four assailants were women or girls. In two cases, women acted alongside a man.
The scarcity of female assailants in mass shootings reflects a larger trend: Between 80 and 90 percent of all homicide perpetrators in any given year are male, according to the Violence Project.
“The women’s issue is incredibly rare,” said Robert Louden, a retired New York City police officer and professor emeritus of criminal justice at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, NJ.
Women offenders in homicide cases are often associated with domestic violence, Prof Louden said.
“Women kill someone who has been an abuser,” he said, adding, “Women don’t kill, shoot or hold as many hostages as men. It’s rare and space. “
The mass shooter archetype is young and masculine.
Six of the nine deadliest mass shootings in the United States since 2018 were committed by people 21 or younger, marking a change for mass shootings, which before 2000 were most often triggered by men in twenties, thirties and forties.
An FBI study of 160 “active shooter” episodes between 2000 and 2013 found that only six, or 3.8 percent, involved female attackers.
In recent years, there have been several high-profile outliers to the trend of mass shootings committed by young gunmen.
In May 2021, a sixth-grade girl brought a gun to her middle school in Idaho and injured two students and a guard before being disarmed by a teacher. The shooter, who has not been identified because she was a minor, was sentenced to a juvenile correction center.
In April 2018, Nasim Najafi Aghdam, who police say was in his late 30s, entered YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, on the northern edge of Silicon Valley, killing three people before suicide. Police said Ms Aghdam’s anger at what she believed to be unfair treatment by YouTube put her on an 800 mile drive from her home near San Diego to YouTube’s offices.
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The mystery of Beethoven’s skull remains unsolved
Good morning. It’s Monday. We will come back to the day when I saw what was presented as a fragment of the skull of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
There it was, suspended in a contraption that took up much of the floor space of a small, windowless room: a fragment of Ludwig van Beethoven’s skull.
The medical researcher who pointed a beam at him said that’s what it was. So did the Beethoven specialist who had brought it to New York from his base in California. The idea was to test him for lead, to confirm or debunk the lingering theory that lead poisoning had killed Beethoven.
The researcher, Dr. Andrew Todd of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, tracked the readings that appeared on his computer screen that morning in 2010. Dr. Todd said days later that his tests with X-ray fluorescence no longer revealed lead. in this skull than in the skull of an average person. “Beethoven had no long-term exposure to lead,” he said, “so I think we can stop seeing lead as a major factor in his life.”
I thought of Dr. Todd’s work last week when I read that the scientists who had analyzed the DNA from Beethoven’s hair had come to the same conclusion.
This might have been their least surprising finding. They also said that a famous lock of hair, one that featured in a bestselling book and documentary in the early 2000s, could not have come from Beethoven. It belonged to a woman, possibly the daughter-in-law of a disciple of Beethoven who cut off a lock of the composer’s hair as he lay dying.
Another unexpected finding: a family in Belgium named van Beethoven has no genetic connection to the man who wrote the “Moonlight” Sonata.
I was wondering if the skull fragment had come up in that search, so I called Dr. Todd. He sounded crestfallen as he described a communication he received a few years after I saw him work. It came from Beethoven specialist William Meredith, who transported the skull fragment to Mount Sinai in 2010.
Meredith “let me know that there were doubts about the provenance of the skull fragment I measured,” Dr Todd said. “Then he said there was new information, and it might not be Beethoven’s skull.”
Dr Todd said the revelation had been frustrating. “The manuscript that I had written three-quarters ‘for a medical journal’ was put away with a snarl,” he said. “If it’s not Beethoven’s skull fragment, there isn’t much to say.”
What had happened to cast such doubt?
“Alas, the bone fragments – according to world expert osteologists in California – had been misdescribed” in the 1980s by two Austrian researchers, Meredith told me last week. One fragment I remember seeing with Dr. Todd apparently came from someone else’s skull, not Beethoven. (Osteologists are skeletal and bone specialists.)
The day after Beethoven died in 1827, a doctor sawed off his skull during an autopsy. When Beethoven’s body was exhumed for reburial 36 years later, the official report noted that the pieces of the skull did not fit together as many shards had been lost.
Yet Gerhard von Breuning, who had known Beethoven, took the skull pieces home from the exhumation and lent them to a respected physician, Romeo Seligmann. Meredith said Seligmann returned the fragments and they were sealed in the coffin when he was reinterred.
Seligmann “was known as a collector of skulls,” Meredith said, and some Beethoven scholars believe he then put other fragments in the pear-shaped metal box he had used for Beethoven – apparently without change the label. And apparently among them was the fragment that Dr. Todd had tested in 2010 while I was watching.
Seligmann, who died in 1892, never mentioned having the skull fragments. The first time they were mentioned was in 1944, when his son, the painter Adalbert Seligmann, wrote a will stating that they were in the pear-shaped metal box. Adalbert Seligmann also stated that there was a document from an anatomy professor attesting to their authenticity. Meredith told me the papers were lost.
The fragments were eventually inherited by a great-grandnephew of Romeo Seligmann, who allowed Meredith, who was the founding director of San José State University’s Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, to get tested.
And tested again. And even.
That’s how the fragment I remember from Dr. Todd’s research was examined by bone scientists in California in 2012, who found that Viennese pathologists in the 1980s had misidentified it. It was not from the front of the skull, as the Viennese pathologists said, but from the top. And because it showed no signs of having been cut, as the frontal bone had been in the 1827 autopsy, it ‘cannot be by Beethoven’, wrote one of the California experts. .
The obvious question is, which skull did Dr. Todd analyze?
It was apparently not that of Franz Schubert, who had been buried in the same cemetery as Beethoven and whose body was also exhumed when Beethoven’s was. Schubert’s bones were “brownish-black in color” and noticeably darker than Beethoven’s, according to an 1863 account.
Meredith said the answer could come with even more testing. “Now that the genome is known from the five hair strands, the bone samples could be tested again and the DNA could be compared,” he said. “For me, it’s a pleasant, clear and scientific way of science.”
Time
Expect rain, with temperatures nearing the mid-50s. Rain will persist throughout the evening, with temperatures dropping around 30 degrees.
ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING
Valid until April 6 (Easter).
The latest news from New YorkDear Diary:
Shortly after graduating from high school, I moved to Manhattan to audition for Broadway shows. I had taken dance lessons in my hometown of Philadelphia and was a member of a dancing ensemble on a local television show.
A friend from high school and the TV show who had already moved to Manhattan invited me to be his roommate in a basement apartment on 86th Street and Central Park West. A few days after my arrival, I was hired as a waiter at a restaurant in Greenwich Village.
Three weeks later, my friend and I attended an audition for “Flower Drum Song” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. There were 250 other dancers there. We learned and rehearsed the choreography for an entire day, with dancers being phased out as we went on.
Finally, six dancers remained on stage. Each of us was assigned a number.
“If I call your number, please leave the stage,” the stage manager said. “Thank you for your efforts.”
After calling the last number, my friend and I realized we were the only two dancers left.
“Would you two boys come down to my office,” said the stage manager.
Once we got him, he received further instructions: “Please come to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s office in the morning to sign your contract,” he said.
My friend and I were amazed and hugged each other.
“Do you two boys know each other?” asked the manager.
Ny
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Meet the couple who opened up their 11-year marriage to a divorced father so they could grow emotionally and sexually
Vinson (left) joined Kim and Dustin’s relationship after opening their 11-year marriage last year.Courtesy of TLCKim, 37, and Dustin, 42, have been married for 11 years and opened their marriage last year.
In TLC’s upcoming series “Seeking Brother Husband,” they show their relationship with Vinson, who is dating Kim but not Dustin.
They said opening their relationship was difficult, mostly because others were judging their decision.
Kim loves Dustin, her husband, and Vinson, her boyfriend, and that’s exactly why she wants to find another partner.
A year ago, Kim and Dustin decided to open their marriage, including looking for another man. When Kim fell in love with Vinson, whom she met through a mutual friend, they and her husband decided to become a family unit. Their school-age children play together, and Dustin and Vinson have become friends. Kim has a sexual relationship with the two men.
Their story is featured on TLC’s “Seeking Brother Husband” series, where married women seek to date and marry men in addition to their first husbands. On the show, partners struggle with jealousy, confused and unsupportive family members, and plenty of uncomfortable conversations about polyamory.
During the first episode, Kim, a teacher, and Dustin, a massage therapist, already share a connection with Vinson. But Vinson is wary of introducing a third man into their dynamic, which they face on the show.
Insider caught up with Kim and Dustin, who said they were nervous but excited to go on the TLC series because they haven’t shared their open relationship publicly until now.
“We always wore our hearts on our sleeves, so we were like, ‘Hey, let’s do this thing,’” Kim told Insider.
She said she hopes showing her genuine relationships with Dustin and Vinson can help others considering non-monogamous relationships.
They opened their marriage to grow emotionally and sexuallyFrom the time Kim and Dustin started dating in their twenties, they were comfortable talking about attraction and how it can exist even outside of marriage, Kim said.
The story continues
When Kim pointed to another man she found hot, or Dustin did the same to a woman, neither felt resentment because they were confident in their bond with each other, a- she declared. Still, they didn’t discuss opening their marriage until they hit the 10-year mark.
“If you had told me at the beginning of our relationship that we would be here, I would have a hard time believing it,” Kim told Insider. She said that this founding period prepared them for the transition to polyamory.
Dustin said he and Kim have always been invested in each other’s individual spiritual growth, which for them includes sexual and emotional growth. Jumping into an open relationship seemed like a way to “grow and live life,” Dustin said.
Kim said opening up their relationship made their already great sex life even more alive.
“Feeling safe expressing our sensuality in any way we want helps us to be even more sensual with each other,” Kim told Insider.
Kim wants to date more men, but Vinson fears it will hurt their relationshipWhen Kim met Vinson a year ago, she said they had an “immediate” connection. On the show, Vinson, who is 36, said he met Kim after struggling with the shame of “two failed marriages”. She saw the best of him when he couldn’t, he said on the show.
According to Kim, the start of her relationship with Vinson was intense and overwhelming because of her long-standing religious guilt. Kim said she grew up in an evangelical Christian community and was taught that it was shameful to be with more than one partner.
During the show’s first episode, Vinson and Dustin both say they unexpectedly formed a close non-sexual bond over their true love for Kim. Dustin said he was open to Kim adding even more partners to their family unit, saying he wanted her to experience life as much as she could.
Currently, Kim and Dustin have a home where they are raising their 7-year-old son, while Vinson lives alone and has children from a previous marriage.
“I think on some level we’re all mirrors to each other, and to be able to learn more about who we are through other people, I think is an amazing opportunity,” said Dustin at Insider. He said he learned to have more self-compassion as he navigated this new stage of life.
But Vinson said he felt he was starting to pull out of the relationship because he wasn’t sure Kim was dating him and Dustin, as he was already struggling with being the second male partner in their dynamic.
“My biggest problem is accepting my place in this dynamic,” Vinson told Kim and Dustin during the first episode.
What are “husband brothers”?“Seeking Brother Husband” comes 13 years after TLC’s ground-breaking series that follows a husband with multiple wives called “Sister Wives,” which premiered in September 2010. While “Sister Wives” is about the Mormon religion, “Seeking Brother Husband” is not rooted in religious beliefs.
In the show, not all men are legally married to their female partner. That’s because bigamy, or marrying someone when they’re already married to someone else, is a federal crime, though some states have minimal implications for participation. In Utah, for example, a person practicing bigamy could be fined, but will not serve jail time.
During the first episode of “Seeking Brother Husband”, the focus is on Kim dating other partners. But Kim said she was open to Dustin dating other women and he has done so in the past.
“We’ve always been an equal partner relationship. It’s all 50/50. What I can do, he can do, so when I’m dating Dustin, too,” Kim told Insider.
One of the hardest parts of opening up was telling the familyIn preparation for the “Seeking Brother Husband” premiere, Kim and Dustin opened up to their family about their open marriage and started posting more on social media.
Until they joined the show, Kim and Dustin kept their lifestyle private, only telling close friends and other couples in open relationships, Dustin said. He said he has been keeping a low profile since filming for the show ended and is worried about what viewers will say on social media once the show airs.
Regardless of any outward comments, he said he was proud of himself and Kim. In fact, some of Dustin’s co-workers shared their own open relationships for the first time after seeing Dustin share his online, he said.
“I’ve been blessed to love myself on a deeper level and appreciate who I am and the courage that I have. I mean, once you do something like that, nothing bothers you. scared,” he said.
“Seeking Brother Husband” will premiere Sunday, March 26 at 10 p.m. EST on TLC and Discovery Plus.
Read the original Insider article
Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.
March 26, 2023
Myanmar army chief calls for decisive action to crush enemies
BANGKOK — As Myanmar’s military carried out an annual show of force on Monday, its supreme leader told its assembled ranks that they must take decisive action against those who fight the country’s military rule.
Chief General Min Aung Hlaing speaks at a military parade on Armed Forces Day. At sunrise, members of all service branches marched in mass formations on a huge parade ground in the capital, Naypyitaw, supported by armored vehicles, missiles and artillery as well as fighter jets and helicopters flying overhead.
Myanmar’s military has been accused of indiscriminate killings of civilians as it engages in major offensives to quell armed resistance to its takeover two years ago. Min Aung Hlaing said in his speech that those who condemned his military government showed indifference to the violence committed by his opponents.
Armed Forces Day marks the anniversary of the start of a 1945 uprising by a ragtag army against the occupying Japanese forces. The country then called Burma gained independence from British colonial power in 1948 and has been ruled by a succession of military governments for most years since.
On February 1, 2021, the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with bloody violence. The escalation of violence since then has been described by UN experts and others as a civil war.
Opposition to military rule is led by a so-called National Unity Government, or NUG, which was established by elected lawmakers who were denied their seats by the military and claim status as a legitimate government administration. country.
Its armed wing, the loosely organized People’s Defense Forces, or PDF, and their armed ethnic minority allies regularly strike military columns, bases and outposts. At the same time, the army and air force are hitting villages with artillery and airstrikes, often causing civilian casualties and presumably being accused of other brutal human rights violations. Their crimes have displaced more than a million people, causing a humanitarian crisis.
“The terrorist acts of the NUG and its so-called PDF lackeys must be fought for good and for all,” Min Aung Hlaing said in his speech. “The (military) and the government must also take action against this terrorist group. , trying to devastate the country and kill people.
His government has declared that the main resistance organizations are terrorist groups, and anyone associated with them faces severe penalties.
While Min Aung Hlaing has said his army’s actions are necessary to achieve peace, his government is keen to dismiss allegations of human rights abuses by pointing the finger at the violence perpetrated by his opponents.
After security forces arrested, tortured and killed militants in cities, urban guerrilla groups responded with bombings and assassinations of army-linked targets. On Friday, a veteran corporate lawyer accused of being a military crony was gunned down in the country’s biggest city, Yangon.
Scattered protests were reported against the celebration of the army.
Independent online media reported that bomb blasts took place in at least three districts of the country’s largest city, Yangon, on Monday morning.
Yangon Revolution Force, a pro-democracy activist group, announced that they protested Armed Forces Day by performing a ritual at a Buddhist pagoda casting a curse on Min Aung Hlaing. Military leaders, like many other people in Myanmar, are known to be very superstitious.
In the Sagaing region in the northwest, a stronghold of armed resistance, people staged small protests against Armed Forces Day.
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Find more AP Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific
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Mass protests erupt after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu fires his defense chief
Enlarge this image Israelis opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan set up bonfires and block a highway during a protest moments after the Israeli leader fired his defense minister, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 26, 2023. Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into the streets of cities across the country Sunday night in a spontaneous outburst of anger after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly fired his defense minister for challenging the Israeli leader’s judicial overhaul plan.
Protesters in Tel Aviv blocked a main highway and lit large bonfires, while police scuffled with protesters who gathered outside Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem.
The unrest deepened a monthslong crisis over Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, which has sparked mass protests, alarmed business leaders and former security chiefs and drawn concern from the United States and other close allies.
Netanyahu’s dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant signaled that the prime minister and his allies will barrel ahead this week with the overhaul plan. Gallant had been the first senior member of the ruling Likud party to speak out against it, saying the deep divisions were threatening to weaken the military.
But as droves of protesters flooded the streets late into the night, Likud ministers began indicating willingness to hit the brakes. Culture Minister Micky Zohar, a Netanyahu confidant, said the party would support him if he decided to pause the judicial overhaul.
Israeli media said leaders in Netanyahu’s coalition were to meet on Monday morning. Later in the day, the grassroots protest movement said it would hold another mass demonstration outside the Knesset, or parliament, in Jerusalem.
In a brief statement, Netanyahu’s office said late Sunday the prime minister had dismissed Gallant. Netanyahu later tweeted, “We must all stand strong against refusal.”
Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into the streets in protest after Netanyahu’s announcement, blocking Tel Aviv’s main artery, transforming the Ayalon highway into a sea of blue-and-white Israeli flags and lighting a large bonfire in the middle of the road.
Demonstrations took place in Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, where thousands of people gathered outside Netanyahu’s private residence. Police scuffled with protesters and sprayed the crowd with a water cannon. Thousands then marched from the residence to the Knesset.
Inon Aizik, 27, said he came to demonstrate outside Netanyahu’s private residence in central Jerusalem because “bad things are happening in this country.” He called the judicial overhaul “a quick legislative blitz.”
Netanyahu’s decision came less than a day after Gallant, a former senior general, called for a pause in the controversial legislation until after next month’s Independence Day holidays, citing the turmoil in the ranks of the military.
Gallant had voiced concerns that the divisions in society were hurting morale in the military and emboldening Israel’s enemies. “I see how the source of our strength is being eroded,” Gallant said.
While several other Likud members had indicated they might follow Gallant, the party quickly closed ranks Sunday, clearing the way for his dismissal.
Galit Distal Atbaryan, Netanyahu’s public diplomacy minister, said Netanyahu summoned Gallant to his office and told him “that he doesn’t have any faith in him anymore and therefore he is fired.”
Gallant tweeted shortly after the announcement that “the security of the state of Israel always was and will always remain my life mission.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Gallant’s dismissal “harms national security and ignores warnings of all defense officials.”
Israel’s consul general in New York City, Assaf Zamir, resigned in protest.
Avi Dichter, a former chief of the Shin Bet security agency, is expected to replace Gallant. Dichter had reportedly flirted with joining Gallant but instead announced Sunday he was backing the prime minister.
Netanyahu’s government is pushing ahead for a parliamentary vote this week on a centerpiece of the overhaul — a law that would give the governing coalition the final say over all judicial appointments. It also seeks to pass laws that would would grant parliament the authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions and limit judicial review of laws.
Netanyahu and his allies say the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies.
But critics say the laws will remove Israel’s system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the governing coalition. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets over the past three months to demonstrate against the plan in the largest demonstrations in the country’s 75-year history. The State Department dismissed as “completely false” claims repeated by Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, that the U.S. government was financing these protests.
Leaders of Israel’s vibrant high-tech industry have said the changes will scare away investors, former top security officials have spoken out against the plan and key allies, including the United States and Germany, have voiced concerns.
In recent weeks, discontent has surged from within Israel’s army — the most popular and respected institution among Israel’s Jewish majority. A growing number of Israeli reservists, including fighter pilots, have threatened to withdraw from voluntary duty if the laws are passed.
Israel’s military is facing an increase in fighting in the occupied West Bank, threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and concerns that archenemy Iran is close to developing a nuclear-weapons capability.
Manuel Trajtenberg, head of an influential Israeli think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies, said that “Netanyahu can dismiss his defense minister, he cannot dismiss the warnings he heard from Gallant.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli good governance group asked the country’s Supreme Court on Sunday to punish Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a fierce opponent of the overhaul, asked the court to force Netanyahu to obey the law and sanction him either with a fine or prison time for not doing so. It said he was not above the law.
The prime minister said the appeal should be dismissed and said that the Supreme Court didn’t have grounds to intervene.
Netanyahu is barred by the country’s attorney general from directly dealing with his government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, based on a conflict of interest agreement that the Supreme Court acknowledged in a ruling over Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption. Instead, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a close confidant of Netanyahu, is spearheading the overhaul.
But on Thursday, after Parliament passed a law making it harder to remove a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu said he was unshackled from the attorney general’s decision and vowed to wade into the crisis and “mend the rift” in the nation. That declaration prompted the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, to warn that Netanyahu was breaking his conflict of interest agreement.
The fast-paced legal and political developments have catapulted Israel into uncharted territory, said Guy Lurie, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
“We are at the start of a constitutional crisis in the sense that there is a disagreement over the source of authority and legitimacy of different governing bodies,” he said.
Ulta 24-Hour Flash Sale: 50% Off PÜR, BareMinerals, KVD Beauty & More
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Freeway crash kills 6 youths thrown from car in Tennessee
PLEASANT VIEW, Tenn. — A car crash killed six young people, including a 1-year-old infant, after they were ejected from their vehicle early Sunday on a freeway in middle Tennessee, authorities said. Two adults were injured, one of them critically.
Emergency crews found a car upside down with extensive damage when they responded at about 2 a.m. to the crash site in Robertson County, said Brent Dyer, chief of the county’s emergency management services office.
First responders found six females ranging in age from 1 to 18 who had been thrown from the car and could not be resuscitated, Dyer said in a news release.
A woman was hospitalized in critical condition after apparently being ejected from the car, officials said. A man suffered minor injuries, officials said,
A second vehicle whose driver was not hurt was found near the damaged car, officials said. Those who were killed and injured were not immediately identified. It was not immediately clear if they were related.
The crash took place on I-24 near Pleasant View and Springfield, and a section of the highway was closed for hours before reopening later Sunday. The Tennessee Highway Patrol is investigating the cause of the crash.
The county emergency management office is coordinating professional mental health and counseling services for crews that responded to the crash.
“Our office recognizes the incredible difficulty of this scene,” Dyer’s news release said.
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