ЦІКАВЕ

Harvard University’s governing board faced mounting pressure on Monday to publicly declare support for or oust the university president after remarks she made last week at a congressional hearing on antisemitism.

The Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, has not yet addressed the public backlash Harvard President Claudine Gay received after her testimony. 

Prominent alumni and members of Congress have called for her to resign as her fellow Ivy League leader at University of Pennsylvania, who also testified to Congress last week, did on Saturday. But many faculty and other alumni have rushed to defend Gay and asked the governing body to do the same.

The 13-member governing body was due to hold a regular meeting on Monday, according to media reports. A representative for Harvard did not respond to a request for comment. 

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has donated millions to Harvard, wrote in an open letter to Harvard’s board on Sunday that Gay had “quelched speech she disfavors while defending and thereby amplifying vile and threatening hate speech.” 

A petition urging her removal claimed over 1,100 alumni signatures as of midday Monday.

But the Harvard Alumni Association Executive Committee on Monday asked the Harvard Corporation to back Gay, the Harvard Crimson reported. Nearly 700 faculty members signed a petition supporting Gay as of Monday afternoon, while Black alumni and allies said on social media that they had gathered nearly 800 signatures on another petition supporting the president. 

At a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Tuesday, three university presidents — Gay, Liz Magill of Penn and Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology — declined to answer “yes” or “no” when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews would violate school codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment.

The trio said they had to take free speech into consideration. Gay on Thursday apologized for her remarks at the hearing in an interview with Harvard’s student newspaper. 

The hearing increased public outcry over how U.S. colleges are handling campus protests since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Jewish communities have claimed universities are tolerating antisemitism. Pro-Palestinian groups have accused the schools of being neutral or antagonistic toward their cause.

On Friday, 74 members of Congress, in a letter to the boards of all three schools, called for leadership changes. 

Magill and the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees chair Scott Bok resigned from their posts on Saturday. The Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation said in a statement after Kornbluth’s testimony that she still had its full support.

Free speech debate

Many on the political right have accused the university presidents of hypocrisy, saying they defended free speech at the congressional hearing but police speech when it offends causes they prefer. 

At the hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled the presidents over their schools’ diversity efforts and accused them of being inhospitable to conservative viewpoints.

Ackman also called for closing Harvard’s office of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and alleged that the committee that appointed Gay, a Black woman, to the presidency had discriminated against “non-DEI eligible candidates.”

Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton said Ackman’s letter was a further assault on efforts to expand inclusion months after the Supreme Court, in a case that involved Harvard, struck down race-conscious college admissions programs.

At other U.S. universities, teachers have been suspended or banned from campus as the debate over violence in the Middle East roils. The University of Arizona on Dec. 1 reinstated two educators who were suspended in November.

The University of Southern California on Dec. 2 lifted restrictions on an economics professor who last month was directed to teach online. 

 
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The U.S. Air Force took disciplinary action against 15 airmen, charging that a lack of supervision and a failure to take action contributed to the so-called ‘Discord intelligence leaks’ that rattled the U.S. intelligence community.

A 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, was arrested this past April, shortly after the leaks were discovered, and is facing multiple charges for removing documents from a secured work environment, and then posting the information or photos for a small group on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers.

At the time, a top Pentagon official said the leaks, which revealed information about Russia’s war in Ukraine and about U.S. allies, posed “a very serious risk” to national security.

In a statement Monday, the Air Force said the commander of Teixeira’s Air National Guard unit, the 102nd Intelligence Wing, was relieved of command.

Another 14 individuals where subjected to non-judicial punishment under the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The Air Force defended the actions, saying officials in Teixeira’s unit could have and should have taken action that could have mitigated the improper disclosure of intelligence.

“Individuals in Teixeira’s unit failed to take proper action after becoming aware of his intelligence-seeking activities,’ the Air Force said, citing a report by its inspector general.

“Leadership was not vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who were placed under their command,” the Air Force said.

The statement also said the intelligence leaks were further enabled by “inconsistent guidance for reporting security incidents” and “ineffective processes for administering disciplinary actions.”

“However, the investigation did not find evidence that members of Teixeira’s supervisory chain were aware of his alleged unauthorized disclosures,” the Air Force said.

According to the Air Force inspector general, evidence indicated that members of the 102nd Intelligence Wing had information on at least four incidents involving questionable activity by Teixeira, and that a smaller number of individuals “had a more complete picture” of Teixeira’s activities but “failed to report the full details of these security concerns/incidents.”

“Had any of these members come forward, security officials would likely have facilitated restricting systems/facility access and alerted the appropriate authorities, reducing the length and depth of the unauthorized and unlawful disclosures by several months,” the report said.

The inspector general’s report further found that a routine background check flagged concerns about Teixeira, but that the military granted him top secret clearance anyway.

Additionally, the report found those concerns were never shared with Teixeira’s unit.

“The details learned in background checks are not routinely shared with a member’s unit,” it said.  “Had the unit been made aware of potential security concerns identified during the clearance adjudication process, they may have acted more quickly.”

The Pentagon Monday said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been made aware of the Air Force’s findings and actions, adding Austin is confident officials are “taking the necessary steps.”

This past July, the Pentagon released the results of its own review into the leaks, calling for a tightening of existing security measures.  But it rejected the need for any sweeping overhaul.

“There was no single point of failure,” a senior defense official said at the time, speaking to reporters about the review’s findings on the condition of anonymity.

“What we see here is we have a growing ecosystem of classified facilities and a body of personnel who are cleared,” the official said. “Within that we have opportunities to clarify policy … they are not the clearest documents always.”

Still, Defense Department officials have taken steps to reduce the number of people with access to classified information.

According to a 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, approximately 4 million people have U.S. security clearances, with 1.3 million cleared to access top secret information.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a standing ovation at the National Defense University in Washington Monday after he addressed U.S. military officers, kicking off a visit to Washington aimed at persuading Congress to provide more military aid to Ukraine before funding runs out.

In his speech, Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of defeating Russia in Ukraine because he said, if Russia wins in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop there.

“His [Putin’s] weapon against you right now is propaganda and disinformation. But if he sees a chance, he’ll go further,” he said. “Now he’s shifting Russia’s economy and society on[to’ what he calls ‘war tracks.’”

Zelenskyy said freedom must prevail when challenged and thanked Americans for the support.

“The whole world is watching us. … Ukraine hasn’t given up and won’t give up. We know what to do, and you can count on Ukraine. And we hope, just as much to be able to count on you,” he said.

The Ukrainian president said that, so far, Ukrainian forces have taken back 50% of the territory they lost to Russia, and he pointed to the perseverance of Ukrainian “warriors” on the battleground.

“Right now, amid fierce battles, our soldiers are holding positions on the front and preparing for further actions, and we haven’t let Russia score any victory this year.” But he stressed “we have to win in the sky.”

In his remarks at the National Defense University, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin maintained that U.S. support in Ukraine is unshakeable and warned, “If we do not stand up [to] the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos.”

“Now despite his crimes, and despite his isolation, Putin still believes that he can outlast Ukraine, and that he can outlast America. But he is wrong,” Austin said.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Monday, an IMF spokesperson said, as the fund’s executive board prepared to release more funds from the country’s $15.6 billion loan program.

The IMF last month announced a staff-level agreement with Ukraine on updated economic and financial policies, paving the way for a $900 million disbursement once it is finalized by the board.

At the time, the IMF said the Ukrainian economy continued to show “remarkable resilience” despite Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with recent developments pointing to a stronger-than-expected economic recovery in 2023 and continued growth in 2024.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy is expected to go to Capitol Hill and to meet with Biden at the White House.

Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. Ukraine would get over $61 billion of the money.

But Republicans in the U.S. Senate have balked at the legislation, saying major U.S. border security changes are needed.

Some Republicans are asking for the immediate deportation of illegal migrants, stripping them of a chance to seek U.S. asylum. They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden administration programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. lawfully.

The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion for its fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Zelenskyy’s visit is intended “to underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal invasion,” the White House said in a statement Sunday.

The stakes are especially high for Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during television interviews Sunday, given that “we are running out of funding” for the Ukrainians.

He also pointed out that 90% of the money that goes to Ukraine’s assistance is invested in the U.S.

“In terms of the production of materials and munitions and weapons that go to the Ukrainians, it’s right here, in America,” he said.

Russian submarines

Putin inspected two nuclear submarines, the Krasnoyarsk and Emperor Alexander III, at the Sevmash shipbuilding yard at the arctic port of Severodvinsk, in a televised ceremony Monday.

The Emperor Alexander III is part of Russia’s new Borei (Arctic Wind) class of nuclear submarines, the first new generation Russia has launched since the Cold War.

Last month, the defense ministry said the vessel had successfully tested a nuclear-capable Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile.

Security analysts say nuclear arms have assumed a greater importance in Putin’s thinking and rhetoric since the start of the Ukraine conflict, where his conventional forces are locked in a grinding war of attrition with no end in sight.

Polish protests

Meanwhile, a month-long blockade by protesting Polish truck drivers has been partially lifted at one border crossing between Ukraine and Poland, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Facebook Monday.

So far, 15 trucks had passed into Ukraine through the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing while 25 trucks were being cleared to head the other way toward Poland, said Kubrakov.

Blockades continued to stop traffic on three other crossings.

Polish truckers have been pushing to stop Ukrainian drivers from getting permit-free access to the EU, accusing their Ukrainian counterparts of using their permit-free access to undercut prices.

They said the protest had not ended and they were just waiting temporarily for details of a reported local order against one stoppage.

The Polish protest, which started in early November, has blocked four main land routes between the two neighbors, pushed up prices of fuel and some food items in Ukraine and delayed drone deliveries to Ukrainian troops fighting invading Russian forces.

Ukraine’s customs service said Monday 1,000 trucks were waiting to get into Ukraine from Poland and 100 trucks would go in the opposite direction.

Also, Slovak truckers resumed a partial blockade of the country’s sole freight road crossing with Ukraine Monday afternoon, the Ukrainian border service said, while Hungarian haulers are also blocking crossings to Ukraine to protest Ukrainian truckers’ EU permit-free access to Hungary.

VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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 Jury selection got underway on Monday in the federal case that will determine how how much Rudy Giuliani might have to pay two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of fraud while pushing Donald Trump’s baseless claims after the 2020 election.

The former New York City mayor has already been found liable in the defamation lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who endured threats and harassment after they became the target of a conspiracy theory spread by Trump and his allies. The only issue to be determined at the trial is the amount of damages, if any, Giuliani must pay.

Giuliani did not speak to reporters as he entered Washington’s federal courthouse — the same building where Trump is set to stand trial in March on criminal charges accusing the former president of scheming to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden.

The defamation case is among many legal and financial woes mounting for Giuliani, who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack and became one of the most ardent promoters of Trump’s election lies.

Giuliani is also criminally charged alongside Trump and others in the Georgia case accusing them of trying to illegally overturn the results of the election in the state. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and maintains he had every right to raise questions about what he believed to be election fraud.

He was sued in September by a former lawyer who alleged Giuliani only paid a fraction of roughly $1.6 million in legal fees stemming from investigations into his efforts to keep Trump in the White House. And the judge overseeing the election workers’ lawsuit has already ordered Giuliani and his business entities to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees.

Overseeing the defamation case is District Judge Beryl Howell, who is well-versed in handling matters related to Trump, having served as chief judge of Washington’s federal court for the entirety of Trump’s presidency.

In that role, the appointee of former President Barack Obama has made several significant rulings, including determining in 2020 that the House of Representatives was entitled to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and, more recently, issuing a sealed opinion requiring a lawyer for Trump to testify before the grand jury over his objections in an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.

Moss had worked for the Fulton County elections department since 2012 and supervised the absentee ballot operation during the 2020 election. Freeman was a temporary election worker, verifying signatures on absentee ballots and preparing them to be counted and processed.

Giuliani and other Trump allies seized on surveillance footage to push a conspiracy theory that the election workers pulled fraudulent ballots out of suitcases. The claims were quickly debunked by Georgia election officials, who found no improper counting of ballots.

The women have said the false claims led to a barrage of violent threats and harassment that at one point led Freeman to leave her home for more than two months. In emotional testimony before the U.S. House Committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol attack, Moss recounted receiving an onslaught of threatening and racist messages.

In an August decision holding Giuliani liable in the case, Howell said the Trump adviser gave “only lip service” to complying with his legal obligations and had failed to turn over information requested by the mother and daughter. The judge in October said that Giuliani had flagrantly disregarded an order to provide documents concerning his personal and business assets. She said that jurors deciding the amount of damages would be told they must infer that Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide financial documents in the hopes of “artificially deflating his net worth.”

Giuliani conceded in July that he made public comments falsely claiming Freeman and Moss committed fraud while counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. But Giuliani argued that the statements were protected by the First Amendment.
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After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many Ukrainian refugees found themselves in the American state of Colorado, thanks to the Uniting for Ukraine government program. For some families, educating their children in the U.S. proved to be a challenge, but they’re getting some extra help from a local nonprofit. Svitlana Prystynska has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. (Camera: Volodymur Petruniv)
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A U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashed in South Korea on Monday while on a routine training flight and the pilot was rescued after ejecting when the

aircraft experienced an “in-flight emergency,” the U.S. Air Force unit stationed in the country said.

The pilot was rescued in the Yellow Sea by the South Korean coast guard and returned to the Kunsan Air Base, the 8th Fighter Wing said in a statement.

The cause of the emergency was being investigated, it said.

The unit commander, Colonel Matthew Gaetke, said he was grateful for the pilot’s recovery and that he was in good condition, the statement said.

The air base located in the South Korean west coast city of Gunsan is one of the two main air bases used by the U.S. military in the country.
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Gregory Golodoff spent most of his years on a quiet Alaska island, living an ordinary life, managing a co-op store, fishing for crab and serving as the village council president. But Golodoff’s recent death at the age of 84 has reopened a chapter of American history and stirred up memories of a long-forgotten Japanese invasion that prompted the only World War II battle on North American soil.

Golodoff was the last survivor among 41 residents imprisoned in Japan after Japanese troops captured remote Attu Island during World War II. He was 3 when the island was taken. He died Nov. 17 in Anchorage, his family said. His sister, Elizabeth “Liz” Golodoff Kudrin, the second-to-last surviving Attuan, died in February at 82. Three of their siblings died in captivity.

“The eldest generation has passed away to the other side,” said Helena Schmitz, the great-granddaughter of the last Attu chief, who died in Japan along with his son.

Attu is a desolate, mountainous slab of tundra, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide by 56 kilometers (35 miles) long and sits between the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea on the volcanic Ring of Fire. It’s the most westerly island in the Aleutian chain — closer to Russia than mainland Alaska — and was one of just a few U.S. territories, along with Guam, the Philippines and the nearby island of Kiska, taken by enemy forces during the war.

The American effort to reclaim Attu in 1943 amid frigid rain, dense fog and hurricane-force winds became known as World War II’s “forgotten battle.” About 2,500 Japanese soldiers perished, many in hand-to-hand combat or by suicide; 28 survived. Roughly 550 U.S. soldiers died. Initially trained and equipped to fight in the North African desert, many suffered from frostbite and exposure due to inadequate gear.

Even after the surviving captives were freed at the close of the war, they were not allowed to return to Attu because the U.S. military decided it would be too expensive to rebuild the community. Most were sent to the island of Atka, about 322 kilometers (200 miles) away.

With the loss of their homeland, the Attuans’ language, Sakinam Tunuu, is now all but gone, spoken only by members of Schmitz’s immediate family. The distinctive basket-weaving style of the island is practiced by just three or four weavers, and not all are of Attuan descent. Schmitz runs a nonprofit named Atux Forever to revive the cultural heritage.

Much of what is known about the Alaska Natives’ time in Japan is chronicled in the book “Attu Boy,” written by Golodoff’s older brother, Nick, with assistance from his editor, Rachel Mason, a cultural anthropologist with the National Park Service in Anchorage.

Mason knew the three siblings. Gregory and Liz had little memory of Attu or Japan, and neither liked to talk about it, she said.

Nick Golodoff, who was 6 when he was captured, had a childlike innocence about his time as a prisoner, Mason noted. The cover of his book featured a photograph of him riding on the back of a Japanese soldier, both smiling.

That experience was far from typical. Of the Attu residents interned in Japan, 22 died from malnutrition, starvation or tuberculosis. Schmitz’s great-grandfather, Mike Hodikoff, died with his son of food poisoning from eating rotten garbage while in Japanese captivity, the book noted.

Japanese soldiers landed on Attu Island on June 7, 1942, when residents were attending services at the Russian Orthodox church. Some ran for their rifles, but Hodikoff told them, “Do not shoot, maybe the Americans can save us yet,” according to the book.

Instead, the village radio operator, Charles Foster Jones, was shot and killed before he could alert authorities, becoming the only U.S. civilian killed by the invading forces in North America, according to a tribute to Jones by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The other residents — all Alaska Natives except for Jones’ wife, a white teacher from New Jersey named Etta Jones — were kept captive in their homes for three months before being told to pack up and bring what food they could for the journey to Japan.

They first went to Kiska, another Alaska island; one Attu resident died on the way. Stuffed in the cargo hold of a ship, the others embarked on a two-week voyage to Sapporo, the largest city on Japan’s Hokkaido Island, where they were kept in four rooms in an abandoned dormitory. Only Etta Jones was separated from them and taken in a different boat to an internment facility in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

One Japanese guard complained the Attuans ate better than the Japanese, but conditions worsened when the Alaskans ran out of the food they brought.

The Golodoffs’ mother, Olean, and others were forced to work long hours in a clay mine. As their numbers dwindled, she also became the cook for the surviving POWs, though there was little to make. She was reduced to gathering orange peels off the street and cooking them on top of a heater, said George Kudrin, who married Olean’s daughter Liz in Atka after he returned from the Vietnam War.

“I fed them to my children, and only then would they stop crying for a while,” Olean once told an interviewer.

Her husband, Lawrence, and three of their seven children died in Japan. Nick Golodoff lived until 2013. Another son who survived captivity, John, died in 2009.

Kudrin said Olean didn’t speak of her experiences in Japan, and his wife, Liz, was too young to remember anything.

“She always knew that she was part of the history of World War II and she always said, ‘I am a survivor with my mama,’” he said.

American forces reclaimed Attu on May 30, 1943, after a brutal 19-day campaign. Much of the fighting was waged in dense fog amid winds of more than 190 kph (120 mph). Attu Island today is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and known more for being one of the top destinations in North America for groups dedicated to viewing birds, especially those from Asia.

Greg Golodoff’s wife of 50 years, Pauline, said he never spoke with her about his experience in Japan or about being the last living resident of Attu. “I tried to ask him, but he didn’t want to talk about it,” she said.
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Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided against testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial, posting on social media that he “VERY SUCCESSFULLY & CONCLUSIVELY” testified last month and saw no need to appear again.

Trump had been expected to return to the witness stand Monday as the last big defense witness in the trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit. The case threatens Trump’s real estate empire and cuts to the heart of his image as a successful businessman.

Trump announced he was canceling his testimony in an all-capital letters, multipart statement on his Truth Social platform, writing: “I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY.”

“I HAVE ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY,” Trump wrote, adding his oft-repeated claim that James and other Democrats have weaponized the legal system to hinder his chances at retaking the White House.

Trump was often defiant and combative when he testified on Nov. 6. Along with defending his wealth and denying wrongdoing, he repeatedly sparred with the judge, whom he criticized as an “extremely hostile judge,” and slammed James as “a political hack.”

Trump answered questions from state lawyers for about 3½ hours, often responding with lengthy diatribes. His verbose answers irked the judge, Arthur Engoron, who admonished: “This is not a political rally.”

Had Trump returned to the stand Monday, it would’ve been his defense lawyers leading the questioning, but state lawyers could have cross-examined him.

James sued Trump last year over what she claimed was his pattern of duping banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements.

Engoron ruled before the trial that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud. He ordered that a receiver take control of some Trump properties, but an appeals court has paused that.

The judge is now considering six other claims, including allegations of conspiracy and insurance fraud. James seeks penalties of more than $300 million and wants Trump banned from doing business in New York.

In recent days, Trump had been insistent on testifying again, one of his lawyers said, even though some of his previous visits to the courthouse as a spectator have resulted in him getting fined for disparaging the judge’s law clerk.

The lawyer, Alina Habba, said she had discouraged Trump from taking the stand because of the gag order that is in place. The same gag order was also in effect when he testified in November.

“He still wants to take the stand, even though my advice is, at this point, you should never take the stand with a gag order,” Habba, told reporters last week. “But he is so firmly against what is happening in this court and so firmly for the old America that we know, not this America, that he will take that stand on Monday.”
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For many years, a recycling company in Los Angeles, California, has been giving a free Christmas tree to anyone who brings trash or recycling in exchange. In doing so, the company hopes to promote the proper way to dispose of trash and to eliminate illegal dumping in the city. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian.
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For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki’s latest enchantment, “The Boy and the Heron,” debuted with $12.8 million, according to studio estimates.

“The Boy and the Heron,” the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro” and other cherished anime classics, is only the third anime to ever top the box office in U.S. and Canadian theaters and the first original anime to do so. The film, which is playing in both subtitled and dubbed versions, is also the first fully foreign film to land atop the domestic box office this year.

Though Miyazaki’s movies have often been enormous hits in Japan and Asia, they’ve traditionally made less of a mark in North American cinemas. The director’s previous best performer was his last movie, 2013’s “The Wind Rises,” which grossed $5.2 million in its entire domestic run.

“The Boy and the Heron,” which earlier collected $56 million in Japan, for years was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song. But just as it was making its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Junichi Nishioka, Studio Ghibli vice president, said the previously retired Miyazaki is still working toward another film.

“The Boy and the Heron,” has been hailed as one of the best films of the year. The film, featuring an English dub voice cast including Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Dave Bautista and Mark Hamill, follows a boy who, after his mother perishes in World War II bombing, is led by a mysterious heron to a portal that takes him to a fantastical realm. In Japan, its title translates to “How Do You Live?”

Last week’s top film, “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” dropped steeply in its second weekend. The concert film, the second pop star release distributed by AMC Theatres following Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” collected $5 million in its second weekend, a decline of 76% from its $21 million opening.
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Central Tennessee residents and emergency workers cleaned up Sunday from severe weekend storms and tornadoes that killed six people and sent more to the hospital while damaging buildings, turning over vehicles and knocking out power to tens of thousands.

Officials confirmed that three people, including a toddler, died after a tornado struck Montgomery County 80 kilometers northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky state line on Saturday afternoon. Some 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in the county, officials said in a news release.

In a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville, three people were killed Saturday as a result of tornadoes, the city’s Emergency Operation Center said in a social media post.

National Weather Service meteorologists said in a posting on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, said the destructive tornadoes were spawned in the Clarksville and Nashville areas.

In Nashville, the roof of a church north of downtown collapsed during the storm, resulting in 13 people being treated at hospitals, Nashville emergency officials said in a news release. They were later listed in stable condition.

Photos posted by the Clarksville fire department on social media showed damaged houses with debris strewn in the lawns, a tractor-trailer flipped on its side on a highway and insulation ripped out of building walls. Video footage from the Tennessee storms showed a ball of fire rising from behind a row of homes into the sky.

A curfew was in effect both Saturday night and Sunday night in Clarksville, where officials on Sunday urged motorists to keep away from the damaged areas so as not to impede the work of first responders and utility crews.

“We are praying for those who are injured, lost loved ones, and lost their homes,” Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden said in a news release. “This community pulls together like no other and we will be here until the end.”

Residents in the region are familiar with severe weather in late fall. Saturday’s storm came nearly two years to the day after the National Weather Service recorded 41 tornadoes through a handful of states, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky. A total of 81 people died in Kentucky alone.

At least six tornado tracks were reported Saturday in central Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service. Agency meteorologist Cory Mueller in Nashville said it was sending out tornado tracking teams on Sunday to attempt to confirm these potential tornadoes and calculate their severity.

Mueller said it wasn’t uncommon for tornadoes to be generated during this time of year.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the victims killed north of downtown as Joseph Dalton, 37; Floridema Gabriel Perez, 31; and her son, Anthony Elmer Mendez, 2. Dalton was inside his mobile home when the storm tossed it on top of Perez’s residence. Two other children, one in each home, were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, the department said in a statement.

Montgomery County and Clarksville officials didn’t immediately respond early Sunday to requests for information about the three deaths in their area and the injuries.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he and his wife, Maria, were praying for all Tennesseans who had been affected by the storms.

“We mourn the lives lost and ask that everyone continue to follow guidance from local and state officials,” Lee said in a statement.

About 45,000 electricity customers were without power in Tennessee early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us., down from more than 80,000 on Saturday night.

The National Weather Service issued on Saturday multiple tornado warnings in Tennessee, and said it planned to survey an area where an apparent tornado hit in Kentucky.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said a tornado touched down around 2 p.m. Saturday.

Shanika Washington said that as soon as she heard the storm sirens going off in her Clarksville neighborhood, she took her children, ages 5 and 10, to a windowless bathroom in the basement of her townhouse. During their 20 harrowing minutes in the bathroom, Washington hovered over her children as a protective shield.

“The back door absolutely did fly open, and you just heard a bunch of wind,” she said. “The blinds and stuff were like shaking really bad. I could tell that we were dead smack in the middle of a storm.”

When she came out of the bathroom, she looked out of a window and saw the destruction: Debris swept onto cars that had their windows broken out. Shutters ripped from homes. Some roofs were ripped off townhouses. Air conditioning units and backyard grills were tossed like toys, and wooden dividers between townhouses were missing.

Because the power in the area was out, Washington took her children to a hotel for the night.

“I’m still trying to just kind of like process it all,” she said.
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The United States, Israel’s staunchest supporter in its war against Hamas militants, said Sunday that the Israeli military is failing in its announced intention to protect as many Palestinian civilians as possible who are trying to flee Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.

“It’s imperative that civilians be protected,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. He said Israel had fallen short in protecting Palestinian civilians as it continues its offensive against the militants in the narrow enclave along the Mediterranean Sea.

The top U.S. diplomat said, “What we’re not seeing are deconfliction times so [more humanitarian] aid can be brought in” to Gaza and “clarity of demarcation” lines for areas where Israel will not attack so civilians can find safe refuge.

“We think there’s a need for increased effort to protect civilians,” Blinken said, so “the gap” between what Israel has promised, to protect civilians, and the reality, that thousands have been killed, “is as narrow as possible.”

As it stands, he told ABC’s “This Week” show, “There is a gap between their intent and results.”

The Hamas-run health ministry says that more than 17,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israeli air and ground offensive in the last seven weeks, after Hamas militants invaded southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7 and killed about 1,200 people and captured about 240 hostages. Hamas is still holding about 140 people.

Blinken said, “Everyone wants to see [the war] end as quickly possible,” but that it was up to Israel to decide when to call off its attack. He said Hamas could also end its attacks on Israel and free the remaining hostages.

But he said, “When the major military campaign ends, this is not over.” He said there would not be a lasting peace for Israel “unless Palestinian aspirations are met.”

Israel continued to pound Gaza targets on Sunday, with the military saying it had struck more than 250 targets in the past 24 hours, including some in the south near Khan Younis, but also the Shajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City in the north.

Palestinians were told to evacuate to southern Gaza to avoid the fighting in the north but often have been unable to find a safe territory to avoid the Israeli attacks. Israel says Hamas fighters have embedded themselves among the civilians to act as shields from the Israeli attacks, a charge Hamas has rejected.

The humanitarian crisis has worsened, with nine out of 10 people in Gaza unable to eat every day, according to Carl Skau, deputy director of the World Food Program.

The Israeli military says its offensive must go forward to erase Hamas control of Gaza and that it is expanding its operations in the southern Gaza Strip.

“Any death and pain to a civilian is painful, but we don’t have an alternative,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told the BBC Saturday.

Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, has said Israeli forces have killed at least 7,000 Hamas militants so far, but did not say how that estimate was reached.

The World Health Organization’s executive board was meeting Sunday to discuss the health situation in Gaza.

The United States is supplying Israel with ammunition for its fight against Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group.

The U.S. State Department has approved the emergency sale of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel for about $106.5 million, the Biden administration said Saturday.

The State Department said it had notified Congress of the sale late Friday after Blinken determined “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale” of the munitions in the U.S. national security interest.

The purchase will bypass congressional review, which is usually a requirement for foreign military sales. The action is rare, though not unheard of, when U.S. administrations see an urgent need for weapons to be delivered without waiting for lawmakers’ approval. At least four administrations have used the authority since 1979.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the State Department said in a statement. The ammunition would come from U.S. inventory.

The sale will be from U.S. Army inventory and consist of 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer tank cartridges and related equipment, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The move comes as President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security interests is languishing in Congress, caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and security along the southwestern border with Mexico.

US veto

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his appreciation Saturday for the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council, blocking a demand for a cease-fire in Gaza.

“Other countries must also understand that it’s impossible to support the elimination of Hamas on one side, and on the other to call for the end of the war, which will prevent the elimination of Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, Israel will continue our just war to eliminate Hamas and achieve the war’s other objectives that we set.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Saturday for the Security Council to be reformed, decrying the fact that the United States could veto a cease-fire proposal for Gaza despite huge support from other countries.

“The United Nations Security Council demand for cease-fire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?” Erdogan said at a human rights conference in Istanbul.

Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, also disagreed with the U.S. veto, calling it “morally indefensible and a dereliction of the U.S. duty to prevent atrocity crimes and uphold international law.”

The U.S. reasoning against a cease-fire is that it would allow Hamas to regroup and carry out new incursions. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by the militants during the October attack on Israel.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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