Senate defeats effort led by Bernie Sanders to block planned US arms sales to Israel
CNN
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel.
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel. The failure of the long-shot effort highlights that despite criticism from the left that the Biden administration and Israel are not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza, there remains widespread bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for US military assistance to Israel. The Senate votes come as scrutiny over US support for Israel’s war against Hamas has intensified as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has grown worse amid Israel’s ongoing military campaign. The US is Israel’s biggest military supplier. The war, which was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack, has raged for more than a year, killing at least 43,000 people, according to the Gazan health ministry. Efforts to secure a ceasefire and release of the Israel hostages held by Hamas have floundered, but there is more optimism about securing an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “What is happening in Gaza today is unspeakable,” Sanders said at a press conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “What makes it even more painful is that much of what is happening there has been done with US weapons and with American taxpayer support. The United States of America is complicit in these atrocities. That complicity must end and that is what these resolutions are about.” Sanders, who is Jewish, said that “Israel clearly had a right to respond to the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7,” but criticized the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
The first week of testimony in Brian Walshe’s murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, has come to an end. The jury heard from about two dozen witnesses called by the commonwealth in its case against Walshe as prosecutors work to prove he killed his wife, Ana Walshe, around New Year’s Day in 2023.
The US Army officially stood up a new command on Friday to oversee the Army’s activities in the Western Hemisphere in the latest signal of increasing focus on homeland defense.
A former high-level Drug Enforcement agent was indicted on charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.
A federal judge in Florida ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and other records in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein granting the Justice Department’s request.
The Indiana House approved new congressional maps designed to hand Republicans all nine of the state’s US House seats on Friday, setting the stage for a showdown next week in the state Senate.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said last-minute interference from US President Donald Trump in the country’s closely fought election had damaged his chances of winning and left him trailing as vote counting dragged on.
Vice President JD Vance said he and second lady Usha Vance are largely amused by the online chatter dissecting their marriage, including a recent spate of headlines over photos of her without a wedding ring.
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?