First Thing: Congress passes $95bn aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
Good morning
The US Senate approved $95bn in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on Tuesday, as a bipartisan super-majority united to send the long-stalled package to Joe Biden’s desk. The vote was 79 to 18.
The bill cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier in the day. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to advance the measure – hailed by the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as “one of the greatest achievements the Senate has faced in years.”
“Today the Senate sends a unified message to the entire world: America will always defend democracy in its hour of need,” he said.
What took so long? A foreign aid bill passed the Democratic-held Senate in February. But the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, bowing to rightwing pressure, resisted further aid to Ukraine. Eventually he was persuaded to act. It may cost him his job.
How is the funding split? $60.8bn for Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion; $26.3bn for Israel and humanitarian relief; and $8.1bn for the Indo-Pacific region to bolster defenses against China.
What else is in the legislation? The Republican-controlled House added a provision that would result in TikTok being blocked in the US unless the platform’s Chinese-owned parent company divests within a year.
UN human rights chief ‘horrified’ by reports of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he was “horrified” by reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals.
Palestinian civil defense teams began exhuming bodies from a mass grave outside the Nasser hospital complex in Khan Younis last week after Israeli troops withdrew.
“We feel the need to raise the alarm because clearly there have been multiple bodies discovered,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights.
Meanwhile, about 300 Jewish anti-war demonstrators were arrested during a Passover seder that doubled as a protest in New York near Schumer’s Brooklyn residence. They shut down a main thoroughfare to pray for a ceasefire and urge the Senate majority leader, to end US military aid to Israel.
How many bodies have been found? Palestinian officials said a total of 310 bodies have been discovered in the last week. Officials said the bodies at Nasser were people who had died during the siege.
What did the UN human rights chief say about Rafah? Türk has again warned Israel against a full-scale incursion on the city, saying it could lead to “further atrocity crimes.”
What is the humanitarian cost of the war? The 7 October attack by Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel. Israel’s offensive has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including 13,000 children.
National Enquirer publisher says he was ‘eyes and ears’ of 2016 campaign, court hears
David Pecker, a former National Enquirer publisher, testified that he had promised to be the “eyes and ears” of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, had helped to suppress harmful stories and had arranged to purchase the silence of a doorman.
Prosecutors in the hush-money criminal trial for the former president allege Pecker, a longtime ally, was integral in so-called catch-and-kill efforts to prevent negative stories about Trump from going public.
On Tuesday, Pecker told the court he paid $30,000 to catch and kill a story from a doorman purporting that Trump had fathered a child with a woman who cleaned his New York penthouse.
What is “catch-and-kill”? A method to suppress embarrassing information. Prosecutors say a plan between Trump, the lawyer Michael Cohen and Pecker – that the sources of potentially damaging information would be paid off, and the information buried.
What’s an example alleged by prosecutors? They say the collusion came to include $150,000 payoff by Enquirers publisher AMI to the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had a affair with Trump.
Which Trump case is this one again? Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over an alleged hush-money scheme involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels and McDougal.
In other news …
The actor Anne Hathaway said that in the 2000s producers on a film she was starring in required her to kiss a succession of potential co-stars. She said the requirement for so-called chemistry auditions was “gross.”
Tuesday was a dark day for deaths on migration routes across the world. At least 21 people died off the coast of Djibouti, the UN said, and five people including a seven-year-old child died in the Channel trying to cross from France to the UK.
Supporters of Brazil’s former rightwing president Jair Bolsonaro are celebrating a new hero: Elon Musk. The tech mogul has in recent weeks taken to X to bash a Bolsonaro adversary, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes.
Russian forces have made significant advances in a narrow corridor in eastern Ukraine near Avdiivka, with Russia’s military advancing about 3 miles in 10 days.
Stat of the day: More than one-third of people in the US exposed to harmful air pollution
More than 131 million people in the US are exposed to harmful ozone and particle (PM 2.5) pollution, according to research by the American Lung Association. Four of the five most polluted cities are in California, where wildfires, drought and extreme heat are driving the rise in hazardous air quality.
Don’t miss this: inside the rap beef of the decade with Drake, Kendrick Lamar and more
Future, Rick Ross and Kanye West are among those being drawn into one of the fieriest disputes in rap history. But Pitchfork says the growing feud is more “a lot of rich guys arguing” rather than the fiery combat seen in the 1990s that led to the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Thomas Hobbs investigates whether the beef is good for the culture and could it depose Drake from the top.
Last Thing: The boy, 9, who won the European gull screeching championship
A nine-year-old boy screeched his way to victory at the European championships of a gull impersonation competition. Cooper Wallace, a gull enthusiast from the UK, competed in the fourth European gull screeching championship in Belgium on Sunday. He scored 92 out of 100. He was inspired after getting pecked by a gull. “But I like seagulls,” he said.
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