U.S. Calls For Ceasefire & An Interpreter Strikes Out
March 22, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Friday! Today, we’re talking about the federal budget, the U.S. shifting views on Israel & Gaza, Russia & China’s deal with the Houthis, what’s going on in Sudan, Biden’s student loan forgiveness, Apple getting sued by the DOJ, & Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter.
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“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
Procrastination Nation
Early Thursday morning, Congressional leaders released a $1.2 trillion spending bill to keep the federal government fully funded through September. Unfortunately, Congress might have procrastinated a little too long – it’s currently unclear whether the bill will pass by the time current funding measures expire at midnight on Friday.
While Congress was successfully able to pass the last partial-funding bill by its March 8 deadline, this bill’s tight turnaround means that any political speedbump could decommission half of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and major health agencies.
Among the bill’s 1,000 pages is a provision that would cut U.S. funding to the UNRWA, the U.N. humanitarian agency that provides aid to Palestinians, through March 2025. The move comes after an Israeli report claiming that 12 agency employees were directly involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks. America’s intelligence community said that Israel’s claims were credible, though no part of the government actually conducted any independent analysis into the allegations.
An UN-Expected Switchup
On Thursday, the U.S. released a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, reflecting the White House’s growing pressure on Israel to end the conflict and increase the amount of aid allowed into the Palestinian enclave.
The resolution says that the Security Council wants a ceasefire to “protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering, and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.
According to one European diplomat, the text differs from previous U.S. calls for a ceasefire in two ways. First, it calls for an “immediate” ceasefire. Second, the phrase “towards that end” indicates, according to the diplomat, that “a ceasefire is not contingent on a specific deal” such as the release of hostages. That brings the U.S. closer to ceasefire calls coming out of Europe and the Middle East, which are more focused on getting a ceasefire in place even if hostages aren’t immediately released. The U.S. has been a major blocker for international ceasefire resolutions up until this point, objecting to Algeria calling for an “immediate” ceasefire as recently as February.
Red-y To Do A Deal
- Russia and China have reached an agreement with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Iran-backed militant group that has been attacking ships moving through the Red Sea since the conflict in Gaza broke out. The Houthis, who control the vast majority of Yemen’s population centers, have agreed to let Russian and Chinese ships pass through the area – in return, Moscow and Beijing have promised some “political support.”
- The deal is an interesting piece of diplomacy because it pits the two countries (and the Houthis) against much of the West. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the Houthis for their attacks in January (with Russia and China abstaining), and the U.S. and U.K. have orchestrated multiple strikes against the group in an attempt to re-establish their shipping routes.
Sounding The Alarm In Sudan
- Multiple humanitarian aid organizations are sounding the alarm over the ongoing civil war between state forces and a paramilitary group in Sudan, leading to “extensive damage, looting, and widespread destruction of critical infrastructure, including food and nutrition manufacturing facilities,” according to Edem Wosornu from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
- She also warned of a “fast-reaching and fast-deteriorating situation of food insecurity” which will only get worse as the conflict continues. “Sudan is on course to become the world’s worst hunger crisis. Already, 18 million people — more than one-third of the country’s population — are facing acute food insecurity,” she told the U.N. Security Council in a briefing on Thursday.
- “By all measures, the sheer scale of humanitarian needs, the numbers of people displaced and facing hunger, Sudan is one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.” Farmers in the country have been unable to tend their crops thanks to the fighting, and many basic foods and commodities have seen their prices increase by up to 300% over the past year.
More Mixed Nuts
- Weeping, weak and soaked, dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued after night on hull of capsized boat (AP)
- South Korea will take final steps to suspend licenses of striking junior doctors starting next week (AP)
- South Africa water crisis sees taps run dry across Johannesburg (CBS)
- Emmanuel Macron shows off his boxing skills, sparking mixed reaction in France (CNN)
- Iceland’s latest volcanic eruption will have an impact as far as Russia (CBS)
Middle East Mixed Nuts
- Gaza reaches ‘tipping point,’ doctors tell UN in plea for help (ABC)
- Canadian freeze on new arms export permits to Israel to stay (Reuters)
- ‘Unimpeachable, irrefutable’: US playwright Tony Kushner praises Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech (Guardian)
- Speaker Mike Johnson says he plans to invite Netanyahu to speak to Congress (NBC)
Look Under Your Chair, There’s $6 Billion In Loan Forgiveness
- President Biden announced yesterday that around 78,000 eligible public service workers, including teachers, nurses, and firefighters, will have their student debt wiped out. The White House approved nearly $6 billion in student loan forgiveness, the latest in a series of debt cancellations from Biden for those enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs.
- The White House has approved nearly $144 billion in federal loan forgiveness for about 4 million borrowers in total, despite the Supreme Court striking down Biden’s far-reaching debt relief plan. “From day one of my Administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in a statement.
Pruning The Monopoly Tree
- The Department of Justice sued Apple yesterday, the latest in a series of antitrust lawsuits being filed against Big Tech companies. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference that the suit lays out how “Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits but by violating federal antitrust law.”
- Apple warned that the lawsuit could result in allowing the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.” The tech giant has long faced criticism for its anticompetitive behavior, from restrictive terms and conditions and high fees in its app store to restrictions on how third parties work with its tech. For example, message quality between iPhones and Androids is degraded, and other smartwatches don’t work as well with iOS systems as the Apple Watch does.
More Nuts In America
- Angela Chao: Shipping billionaire intoxicated when she drowned in Tesla, police report shows (BBC)
- California voters approve Newsom’s mental health ballot measure (Politico)
- Trump eyes Sen. Marco Rubio as a potential VP pick (NBC)
- Georgia executes death row inmate Willie Pye for the 1993 murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough (CNN)
- DeSantis bans Florida’s unhoused people from sleeping in parks (Guardian)
- Manhattan DA tells judge not to further delay Trump trial: ‘Enough is enough’ (NBC)
It’s Sho-Time (Not In A Good Way)
- Shohei Ohtani is definitely putting on a show just one game into his stint with the Dodgers. Unfortunately, we’re not talking about his team’s 5-2 win over the San Diego Padres in the pre-season Seoul Series, where the generational talent racked up two hits and one RBI. Instead, the Shohei story that captured most of the headlines took place off the field.
- On Wednesday, Ohtani’s interpreter – who he’s worked with since coming to the MLB – was fired by the Dodgers after Ohtani’s attorneys accused him of “massive theft” related to gambling. The story here is a bit complicated, but the short of it is that Ohtani’s lawyers say that the interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen millions of dollars from Ohtani’s bank accounts in order to cover his own gambling debts that were owed to an operation that’s being federally investigated.
- Before the firing, Ohtani’s own spokesperson said the superstar was willingly covering his interpreter’s gambling debts, but in an interview with ESPN on Tuesday, Mizuhara claimed that transfers from Ohtani’s bank account to an alleged bookmaking operation were made with Ohtani’s knowledge to help the interpreter cover his losses, and that the superstar had no involvement in the betting. Then, Ohtani’s lawyers published the statement accusing Mizuhara of theft, after which the interpreter walked back his claims, instead saying that Ohtani had no knowledge of the betting (or his efforts to repay the debts) at all. No further comments have been made by any parties or the MLB, so we’re just as confused as you might be right now.
More Loose Nuts
- Their WWII mission was secret for decades. Now the Ghost Army will get the Congressional Gold Medal (AP)
- Pig kidney transplanted into living person for first time (CNN)
- The French bulldog sits, stays at the top of U.S. dog owners’ hearts (NPR)
- ‘Dirty Dozen’ 2024 list of foods with most pesticides (CNN)
- FBI: ‘Little rascals’ trio, ages 11, 12 and 16, arrested for robbing a Houston bank (ABC)
- Plan to recover “holy grail” of shipwrecks holding billions of dollars in treasure is approved over 3 centuries after ship sank (CBS)