Biden says feds should pay for Baltimore bridge collapse rebuild
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Washington — President Biden said Friday he plans to visit Baltimore next week following the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Mr. Biden confirmed the trip to reporters after arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after attending a star-studded fundraiser in New York City with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
The Biden administration said Thursday it approved $60 million in immediate federal aid to help clean up the wreckage that was caused by a cargo container ship colliding with the bridge early Tuesday, killing six people.
“The federal emergency funds we’re releasing today will help Maryland begin urgent work, to be followed by further resources as recovery and rebuilding efforts progress,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement Thursday.
Mr. Biden said earlier this week that he expects the federal government to pay for the full cost of reconstructing the bridge as officials stressed the economic impact of the Port of Baltimore’s closure. A massive effort is underway to reopen the port, a key shipping route that supports thousands of jobs.
“To the people of Baltimore, I want to say, we’re with you,” the president said Tuesday. “We’re going to stay with you as long as it takes.”
Caitlin Yilek
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
BALTIMORE — President Joe Biden on Friday told reporters that he plans to head next week to Baltimore, the site of a deadly bridge collapse.
Speaking to reporters as he deplaned Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews following several campaign stops on Thursday and Friday in New York, the president said, “I’m going to Baltimore next week.”
The Maryland city is the site of a major bridge collapse that happened in the early morning hours on Tuesday after the cargo ship Dali struck a support pillar on the Francis Scott Key bridge after losing power.
Six construction workers who were on the bridge as it was struck have died following the incident.
On Tuesday, Biden told reporters that he told Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other state officials that, “we’re going to send all the federal resources they need as we respond to this emergency, and I mean all the federal resources. And we’re going to rebuild that port together.”
He also called the incident a “terrible accident” and confirmed that there was no evidence that the ship intentionally struck the bridge.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was in Baltimore with Maryland officials on Tuesday. During a press briefing Wednesday at the White House told Buttigieg reporters, “From the very beginning [Biden] has been acting to make sure that we have a whole-of-government response to support the people of Baltimore.”
On Thursday, Moore spoke about the six victims, saying, “They were fathers, they were sons, they were husbands, They were people who their families relied on.”
“They had no idea that them going to work was gonna turn to a deadly occurrence,” he said.
If the official photos are anything to go by, Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip to Brazil has been more romantic getaway than international diplomacy.
The French president, who ended his tour of the South American country on Thursday with a state visit to the capital, Brasília, prompted online hilarity after the publication of photos showing him being particularly chummy with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Macron, 46, began his visit on Tuesday in Belém, the Amazonian city that will host the Cop30 climate conference next year, and the nearby Combu island.
In one photo released on 78-year-old Lula’s social media channels, the two beaming heads of state can be seen clasping hands on a boat while gazing out at the Guamá river. In another, they appear to be blithely skipping under the Amazon canopy.
Quick-witted internet users compared the images to engagement photoshoots or scenes from a romcom.
“Lula and Macron are doing a pre-wedding shoot, they will marry in the Amazon and honeymoon in Paris,” one X user wrote.
“I see a new Macron/Lula family Christmas card dropping,” tweeted Ian Bremmer, the founder of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
Memes circulating online depicted the former investment banker and former union leader clutching heart-shaped balloons.
Macron’s visit – his first as president – marks a rekindling of the Franco-Brazilian partnership after relations hit a low point under Lula’s far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who took issue with France’s concerns over Amazon deforestation.
Lula and Macron stressed their shared environmental objectives earlier this week while announcing a €1bn (£855m) investment programme to protect the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and French Guiana.
They also celebrated cooperation on defence technology during the launch near Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday of a diesel-powered submarine, built in Brazil with French technology.
“We are starting a new page of our relationship today,” Macron said on Thursday during a joint press conference following a closed-doors bilateral meeting and the signing of over 20 cooperation agreements.
Speaking to journalists, the two leaders emphasised their desire to work together on issues such as fighting poverty, tackling the climate crisis and global taxation at the G20 leaders’ summit in Rio later this year. Macron also hailed their shared vision regarding upcoming elections in Venezuela and the crisis in Haiti.
But they skirted issues upon which they do not see eye-to-eye, notably regarding the war in Ukraine and the future of a trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur bloc. Speaking to business leaders in São Paulo on Wednesday, Macron described the deal Brazil has said it is ready to sign as “very bad”.
An old news report about the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visiting Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people, has resurfaced in misleading online posts. The video of IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi — which featured a “breaking news” banner — was originally broadcast by a local news outlet in 2023. In response to the posts, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said he did not visit the South Asian country in March 2024.
“Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the IAEA visited Pakistan, discussing nuclear cooperation and climate change mitigation,” read a caption alongside this video on Facebook published on March 15, 2024.
Featuring a logo for local news outlet GNN, the “breaking news” report shows the head of the UN nuclear agency shaking hands with former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
The post continued: “Meetings with top officials focused on enhancing collaboration in peaceful nuclear technology. Grossi inaugurated various nuclear facilities and designated Pakistan as an IAEA Regional Center for cancer treatment.
“Highlighting nuclear energy’s role in combating climate change, his visit concluded with a dinner hosted by the Foreign Secretary.”
Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on March 21, 2024
The video was also shared elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here
A similar misleading claim was shared on social media platform X here and here.
In response to the misleading posts, Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry rebuffed suggestions Grossi visited the country in March this year.
“Any stories regarding the visit of a high-level IAEA delegation to Pakistan are fake news,” the ministry said in a statement on March 15, 2024 (archived link).
“No official from IAEA is currently visiting Pakistan, nor are any policy talks planned in the near future with IAEA. Director General IAEA visited Pakistan in February 2023.”
Old news clip
A keyword search on YouTube found the video shared in the posts was originally published here on GNN’s official channel on February 15, 2023 (archived link).
Its caption said: “FM Bilawal Bhutto Meets DG (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi | Breaking News | GNN”.
When Grossi visited Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was head of the South Asian country’s foreign ministry.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in one of the misleading posts (left) and the video published by GNN in 2023 (right):
A screenshots comparison of the misleading post (left) and the original video on YouTube (right):
According to the IAEA, Grossi discussed with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif how nuclear science could help mitigate the worsening effects of climate change in Pakistan. He also visited nuclear facilities across the country, the agency said in a press release on February 16, 2023 (archived link).
Grossi was in Japan the week of March 2024 when the misleading posts circulated, meeting with various leaders about the discharge of treated water from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, according to this IAEA report (archived link).
Shortly after the misleading posts circulated online, Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar — who has held the position since March 11, 2024 — met with Grossi on the sidelines of the Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported (archived links here and here).
UN Secretary General António Guterres on Saturday called for an immediate ceasefire in the months-long war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza during a visit to the Rafah border crossing.
“Now more than ever, it is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he said in a statement after inspecting the crossing on the Egyptian side.
“It is time to silence the guns. Palestinians in Gaza, children, women, men, remain stuck in a non-stop nightmare. Communities obliterated, homes demolished, entire families and generations wiped out,” Guterres added.
Rafah is the only border crossing into the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel.
Guterres earlier on Saturday met injured Palestinians at a hospital in the Egyptian Sinai city of al-Arish after they had been evacuated from the coastal strip.
“I was extremely moved by their stories, experiences and the hardships they endured,” he said.
Guterres’ visit is part of an annual trip during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“This Ramadan I come to the Rafah crossing to spotlight the hardships and pain of Palestinians in Gaza,” the UN chief said.
The visit came a day after the UN Security Council failed to pass a US-backed resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war after Russia and China vetoed it.
Fears have grown that a planned Israeli military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah near Egypt’s border would further exacerbate the humanitarian situation in the impoverished strip.
More than 1 million Palestinians have taken refuge in Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the coastal enclave.
Guterres’ visit to the Egyptian side of Rafah was his second since the Gaza war erupted in October last year.
Israel has been pursuing its military campaign in the Gaza Strip following the unprecedented massacre by Hamas militants in Israel on October 7.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have been mediating between Hamas and Israel for weeks to broker a ceasefire and facilitate the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
PHOENIX — President Joe Biden will announce a new national monument to preserve land around Grand Canyon National Park and limit it from mining, White House officials said Monday.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One that Biden will call for the designation during his visit to northern Arizona on Tuesday, making it his fifth national monument.
A dozen tribes “stepped up” and asked for this monument, Jean-Pierre added.
Advocates for limiting mining around Grand Canyon National Park had expressed hope that this would be the reason behind the presidential visit.
Biden’s new national monument designation would preserve about 1,562 square miles for future generations.
Representatives of various northern Arizona tribes have been invited to attend the president’s remarks. Among them are Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores, Navajo President Buu Nygren and Havasupai Tribal Councilwoman Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla. Uqualla is part of a group of tribal dancers who will perform a blessing.
“It’s really the uranium we don’t want coming out of the ground because it’s going to affect everything around us — the trees, the land, the animals, the people,” said Uqualla. “It’s not going to stop.”
Tribes in Arizona have been pushing Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create a new national monument called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. “Baaj Nwaavjo” means “where tribes roam,” for the Havasupai people, while “I’tah Kukveni” translates to “our footprints,” for the Hopi tribe.
Tribes and environmentalists for decades have been trying to safeguard the land north and south of Grand Canyon National Park, while Republican lawmakers and the mining industry tout the economic benefits and raise mining as a matter of national security.
The Interior Department, reacting to concerns over the risk of contaminating water, enacted a 20-year moratorium on the filing of new mining claims around the national park in 2012. Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva repeatedly has introduced legislation to create a national monument.
A U.S. Geological Survey in 2021 found most springs and wells in a vast region of northern Arizona known for its high-grade uranium ore meet federal drinking water standards despite decades of uranium mining.
In 2017, Democratic President Barack Obama backed off a full-on monument designation. The idea faced a hostile reception from Arizona’s Republican governor and two senators. Then-Gov. Doug Ducey threatened legal action, saying Arizona already has enough national monuments.
Opponents of establishing a monument have argued it won’t help combat a lingering drought and could prevent thinning of forests and stop hunters from keeping wildlife populations in check. Ranchers in Utah near the Arizona border say the monument designation would strip them of privately owned land.
The landscape of Arizona’s political delegation has since changed considerably. Gov. Katie Hobbs, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent, are all on board. Hobbs, a Democrat, has openly urged Biden to issue a designation. In a letter sent to Biden in May, Hobbs claimed that she heard from people across the political spectrum, including sporting groups and outdoor groups, in support of a monument.
Mining companies and the areas that would benefit from their business have been vehemently opposed. Buster Johnson, a Mohave County supervisor, said the monument proposal feels solely politically driven and there should have been another hearing on the matter. He doesn’t see the point of not tapping into uranium and making the country less dependent on Russia.
“We need uranium for the security of our country,” Johnson said. “We’re out of the game.”
No uranium mines are operating in Arizona, although the Pinyon Plain Mine just south of Grand Canyon National Park has been under development for years. Other claims are grandfathered in. The federal government has said nearly a dozen mines within the area that has been withdrawn from new mining claims could still potentially open, even with the monument designation, because their claims were established before 2012.
After Arizona, Biden will go on to Albuquerque on Wednesday, where he will talk about how fighting climate change has created new jobs. He’ll then visit Salt Lake City on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the PACT Act, which provides new benefits to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances. He’ll also hold a reelection fundraiser in each city.
(Bloomberg) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he will host President Xi Jinping on a state visit later this month, in what will be only the Chinese leader’s second trip abroad so far this year.
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The two will meet in the capital, Pretoria, on Aug. 22, Ramaphosa said in a brief statement on Monday. They’ll hold formal talks aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and sign a number of unspecified memorandums of agreement, according to a separate statement by the presidency.
Xi has spent only two days outside his country so far in 2023, as mounting domestic problems from a faltering economy to rare political scandals demand the Chinese leader’s attention at home. He visited Moscow in March for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Read More: Xi’s Spent Two Days Outside China in 2023 as Problems Mount
The meeting between Ramaphosa and Xi will take place on the first day of a BRICS summit that is scheduled to run through Aug. 24. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to attend that meeting in-person, while Putin is expected to participate virtually.
Read More: South Africa Says Putin Will Not Attend BRICs Summit in Person
(Updates with details of Xi’s travels abroad this year in third paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the date of the meeting.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two dozen Democrats of the U.S. House of Representatives will visit Israel and the occupied West Bank this week to discuss prospects for a two-state solution and Israel’s judicial reforms, among other issues.
Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and Representative Steny Hoyer will lead a group of 24 House Democrats, who will also discuss extremism and Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Jeffries’ office said in a statement on Sunday.
Democratic President Joe Biden has supported a two-state solution to the Israeli conflict with Palestinians.
Democrats are in the minority in the House and hold the majority in the U.S. Senate.
“While in Israel and the West Bank, the Members will hold high-level meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, meet with various activists and stakeholders and spend meaningful time in areas important to the security of the region,” the statement said.
The West Bank is among areas where Palestinians seek statehood. U.S.-mediated negotiations with Israel to that end stalled almost a decade ago, boosting hardliners on both sides.
The visit by the U.S. Democratic delegation comes amid worsening violence in the West Bank since last year, with more Israeli raids and Palestinian street attacks on Israelis.
The United States recently expressed frustration with the surging violence under Israel’s hard-right government.
Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinian militants in the West Bank on Sunday, Israeli police said, drawing threats of revenge by Palestinian militant factions.
Jeffries’ office said the Democratic delegation will also focus attention on the ongoing judicial reform debate in Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-right coalition have undertaken a judicial overhaul that will potentially curtail the Supreme Court’s powers, triggering nationwide protests and international criticism.
Proponents say the step will restore balance to the branches of government, while those against say it removes checks on government powers.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Türkiye this month, but the date has not yet been determined.
Source: Erdoğan in an interview with Anadolu
Quote: “The date is unclear, but the [Turkish] foreign minister and the intelligence head are holding talks. Within the framework of these talks, I think this visit will take place hopefully in August,” Erdoğan said.
The president of Türkiye added that he was “on the same page as Russia” regarding the need to continue grain exports.
Background:
On 17 July, Russia announced the termination of the grain deal and threatened “risks” to any parties attempting to continue the initiative without Russia’s involvement.
Afterwards, the president of Türkiye said he believed the Black Sea Grain Initiative could be resumed after his talks with Putin.
On 2 August, Erdoğan and Putin held a telephone conversation during which they discussed the grain deal and the visit of the Kremlin head to Türkiye.
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PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — Gunfire erupted again at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Friday as part of a reenactment by ballistics experts of the 2018 massacre that left 14 students and three staff members dead.
Two shots were heard by reporters sitting about 200 yards (180 meters) from the building about noon and then two more about an hour later. A few hours later, the fire alarm went off, just like it did during the Valentine’s Day 2018 attack, but no shots were heard underneath it. During the massacre, 139 shots were fired.
The reenactment is part of a lawsuit by the victims’ families and the wounded that accuses the Broward County deputy assigned to the school of failing in his duty to protect them and their loved ones.
David Brill, the attorney overseeing the reenactment on behalf of the families, did not return a call seeking comment Friday, so it was unknown if only four shots were needed for the test or if a problem developed and it had to be aborted.
The reenactment began shortly after nine members of Congress toured the blood-stained and bullet-pocked halls of the three-story classroom building where Nikolas Cruz carried out his six-minute attack. The building has been kept standing behind a locked chain-link fence to serve as evidence during Cruz’s trial last year.
The shooting sparked a nationwide movement for gun control and traumatized the South Florida community. Cruz, a 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, pleaded guilty in 2021 and was sentenced to life in prison.
The experts were firing with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle identical to the one Cruz used, and the bullets were to be caught by a safety device.
Brill said in earlier court hearings that the reenactment’s goal was to capture what deputy Scot Peterson heard during the attack.
Peterson, who worked for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and is named in the lawsuit, said he didn’t hear all the shots and could not pinpoint their origin because of echoes. He got within feet of the building’s door and drew his gun, but backed away and stood next to an adjoining building for 40 minutes, making radio calls. He has said he would have charged into the building if he had known the shooter’s location.
Families of the victims who filed the lawsuit contend Peterson knew Cruz’s location, but retreated out of cowardice and in violation of his duty to protect their loved ones.
Peterson, 60, was acquitted in June of felony child neglect and other criminal charges for failing to act, the first U.S. trial of a law enforcement officer for conduct during an on-campus shooting.
The burden of proof is lower in the civil lawsuit. Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips allowed the reenactment, but made clear she was not ruling on whether the recording will be played at trial. That will have to be argued later, she said. It is likely Peterson’s attorneys will oppose the attempt.
No trial date has been set. The families and wounded are seeking unspecified damages.
Earlier in the day, six Democrats and three Republicans from the House School Safety and Security Caucus toured the building for almost two hours — an experience few have had since the shooting. They called it a “time-capsule” of the attack’s devastation.
Broken glass still litters the floor, along with wilted roses, deflated balloons and discarded gifts. Opened textbooks and laptop computers remain on students’ desks — at least those that weren’t toppled during the chaos.
In one classroom, there is an unfinished chess game one of the slain students had been playing, the pieces unmoved. Reporters were barred from Friday’s tour, but The Associated Press was one of five media outlets allowed inside after Cruz’s jury went through last year.
“We just had a shared experience that will transform our lives for the rest of our lives. To see the blood of children on the floor in a school together, is going to change the way we interact and collaborate,” New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman said.
After the tour, the members traveled to a nearby hotel to discuss school safety issues with parents and wives who lost loved ones in the attack. The roundtable meeting was being held in the same ballroom where the families learned of their loved ones’ deaths.
The members said that while there is wide disagreement on issues such as gun control, there should be bipartisan support for providing federal funds for installing bullet-proof glass and panic buttons in classrooms, mental health assistance for students and better training for on-campus police officers.
Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Stoneman Douglas graduate whose district includes Parkland, said Congress owes it to the families who have lost children, parents and spouses in school shootings to pass such measures and make campuses safer. He said seeing the scene allowed the members to fully grasp what happened.
“You can read about it all day long, and debate it all day long, but it is not the same as walking through the school,” said Moskowitz, who organized the tour with Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami. Moskowitz pointed out that Parkland, an upscale suburb of Fort Lauderdale, is considered Florida’s safest city.
“It is now the home of the largest (high) school shooting in our history,” he said.
Diaz-Balart said that while touring the building, he was struck by how fast the lives were lost — all the fatalities happened within the attack’s first four minutes.
“The key is not just to come and see, the key is that we can put aside our differences, put aside the perfect and try to get some good things done. I am optimistic,” Diaz-Balart said.
The building is scheduled to be demolished soon, but the House members and families are hoping it can be kept up a bit longer so more state and federal legislators and White House advisors can also tour it.
Parent Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died in the shooting, suggested the tour and school safety roundtable to Moskowitz.
“We can come together and enact common-sense school safety solutions so this will never happen again,” said Schachter, a former insurance broker who is now a full-time campus safety advocate. “Safety has to come before education — you cannot teach dead kids.”
The school is closed for the summer and no students or teachers were on campus Friday.
