Nation & world news – at a glance – for Sunday, October 22, 2023

Will the Middle East war change voters’ views of Biden?

When President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office this past week, he presented himself as a world leader during a moment of peril amid wars in Ukraine and Israel. Biden’s forceful proclamation has given Democrats hope that he can persuade skeptical voters to view him in a new light. But strategists from both parties said that even if Biden successfully steers his country through the latest international crisis, any political lift that he might enjoy could be short-lived. Perceptions of a bad economy have continued to drag down his reelection prospects, and domestic concerns historically supersede foreign policy in American presidential contests.

One Jew, one Muslim and a friendship tested by war

On Oct. 15, the war between Israel and Hamas was well underway as Aziza Hasan, a devout Muslim, and Andrea Hodos, a devout Jew, sat at a park 6 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. A circle of Jews and Muslims surrounded them. Everyone on hand was part of NewGround, a nonprofit fellowship program that has helped more than 500 local Muslims and Jews learn to listen, disagree, empathize with one another — and become friends. Hasan and Hodos’ close friendship signals that the ties that bind adherents of Judaism and Islam can remain strong, even as the war pitting people of their faiths against one another rages.

After Jordan fralls, House Republicans ask who, and what, is next

Rep. Jim Jordan was brought down by the revolt of the rule followers. Withstanding intense pressure, a solid bloc of more mainstream Republicans with a desire to legislate rather than blow things up pulled the party in their direction. They believed installing Jordan, a hard-right Ohioan and political brawler, would reward colleagues who had played dirty in unseating Speaker Kevin McCarthy and undermining the candidacy of Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. But the decision to clean the slate and start anew by trying again to choose a speaker beginning Monday has not stemmed the Republican chaos. There are deep ideological differences among House Republicans that must be bridged somehow.

Kenneth Chesebro’s long, strange trip

In January 2001, Kenneth Chesebro was a mild-mannered Harvard lawyer toiling for Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount battle. Two decades later, on Jan. 6, 2021, he joined the mob outside the Capitol, reborn as a MAGA-hatted kingpin. On Friday, Chesebro’s journey took another turn, when he pleaded guilty in a criminal racketeering indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, and agreed to testify against former President Donald Trump. Some former colleagues say Chesebro’s 180-degree turn came after a lucrative 2014 investment in Bitcoin and a subsequent posh, itinerant lifestyle. Others see Chesebro as a “moral chameleon” and his story an old one about the seduction of power.

How Ron DeSantis lost the internet

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hyperonline strategy, once viewed as a potential strength, quickly became a glaring weakness on the presidential trail, with a series of gaffes, unforced errors and blown opportunities, according to former staff members, influencers with ties to the campaign and right-wing commentators. Even after a recent concerted effort to reboot, the campaign has had trouble shaking off a reputation for being thin-skinned and mean-spirited online, repeatedly insulting Donald Trump’s supporters and alienating potential allies. Polling in a distant second place, DeSantis’ bid highlights how losing the virtual race can drag down an in-real-life campaign.

A mother in aine rallied for her son’s emotional support chickens

Amy Martin stepped to the lectern this month and spoke to city officials in Bangor, Maine. The emotional support chickens she kept at home, she told them, had brought comfort to her 25-year-old son, C-Jay Martin, who is blind, has epilepsy and autism, and has struggled with depression and anxiety ever since the pandemic began. A city ordinance, however, prevented residents from keeping fowl. Board members voted that Martin and her son could have chickens at home in a decision that has resounded far beyond the city of about 30,000 residents, earning her praise from advocates for people with disabilities, and her neighbors.

The multimillion-dollar machines at the center of the U.S.-China rivalry

Smooth white boxes roughly the size of large cargo vans are at the heart of the U.S.-Chinese technology conflict. As the United States tries to slow China’s progress toward technological advances that could help its military, the lithography machines that print intricate circuitry on computer chips are a key chokepoint. The machines are central to China’s efforts to develop its own chipmaking industry, but China does not yet have the technology to make them. This week, U.S. officials took steps to curb China’s progress toward that goal by barring companies globally from sending additional types of chipmaking machines to China, unless they obtain a special license from the U.S. government.

Prospect of prolonged Israel-Gaza war adds economic havoc to human toll

As the fighting between Israel and Hamas risks bursting into regionwide chaos, the prospect of a long and potentially widening war could pile economic havoc atop a devastating human toll. For the Gaza Strip, a broader conflict would almost certainly deepen the already worsening humanitarian conditions in the territory. And Israel faces a fresh blow to a resilient economy that until recently had been hailed as an entrepreneurial powerhouse. The outlook for the Palestinian economy was already dire before Israel declared a siege of Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks, creating what the World Health Organization called a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Halloween is tricky for actors on strike

Barbie, Ken and Wednesday Addams costumes are out. Ghosts and zombies are in. Halloween this year is tricky for actors on strike, under new union guidelines that tell them how to avoid crossing the virtual picket line: Don’t dress as characters from major studio productions or post photographs of the costumes online. “Let’s use our collective power to send a loud and clear message to our struck employers that we will not promote their content without a fair contract,” the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said in a statement Thursday. The union urged its members to “celebrate Halloween this year while also staying in solidarity.”

Biden, aides advise Israel to avoid widening war with Hezbollah strike

President Joe Biden and his top aides have been urging Israeli leaders against carrying out any major strike against Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, that could draw it into the Israel-Hamas war, U.S. and Israeli officials say. U.S. officials are concerned that some hawkish members of Israel’s war Cabinet have wanted to take on Hezbollah even as Israel begins a long conflict against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks. The Americans are conveying to Israelis the difficulties of battling both Hamas in the south and a much more powerful Hezbollah force in the north.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise amid the war

Advocacy groups are reporting a sharp rise in the number of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in the United States and Europe since the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, escalating a trend that had taken root before the war. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, reported 153 antisemitic incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States from Oct. 7 through Wednesday, an almost 55% increase from the 99 such incidents recorded over the same period last year. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based group, said the number of reports of anti-Muslim incidents it had received had spiked in the past week.

New evidence found of rape and torture by Russian forces in Ukraine

A United Nations commission has found new evidence that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, according to a report released Friday. Drawing on more than 450 interviews with victims and witnesses in areas liberated by Ukrainian troops or who have fled Russian-held territory, the report documents the use of electric shocks against prisoners accused of supporting Ukrainian forces, the rape of women and the transfer of unaccompanied Ukrainian children to Russian territory. The report, by a panel commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council, focused on the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces quickly seized territory at the start of their full-scale invasion last year.

Women testify that fashion mogul lured Them to bedroom

The five women testifying that Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard sexually assaulted them described for jurors over the past four weeks how they ended up in the hidden bedroom suite at his office. Decades ago, they said, they each accepted Nygard’s invitation to visit the Toronto headquarters of Nygard International. He was an eager tour guide, but he was most excited about bringing guests to the bedroom suite. It was behind the doors of that room that each woman said he sexually assaulted them. “I was a prisoner in that room,” said one woman, the last of five complainants to conclude her testimony at a Toronto courthouse as prosecutors prepare to close their case.

By wire sources