Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the U.S. Congress.
Israel carries out new raids in Gaza as Netanyahu visits US
Relatives of Israeli hostages want cease-fire deal from Netanyahu speech
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Some family members of hostages still held in Gaza are set to be in the audience when Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday afternoon.
“What we're all hoping to hear is that a deal has been completed,” Efrat Moshkoviz told NPR. She is the aunt of Naama Levy, who turned 20 in captivity last month. Footage of Levy being dragged from the back of a truck, bound and with blood on the seat of her pants, became a symbol of the violence women faced while being kidnapped by Hamas-led militants last October.
Christopher Dunn remains in prison after Missouri Supreme Court puts his release on hold
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Christopher Dunn will remain in prison after the Missouri Supreme Court entered a last-minute stay Wednesday evening, essentially pausing a St. Louis circuit court ruling that overturned his conviction on Monday.
The ruling, made by St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser, was put on hold after Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Wednesday obtained assistance from the higher court in halting Dunn’s release.
Dunn has been in custody for more than 33 years after he was convicted of murder and assault in 1991. In Sengheiser's ruling, he found the evidence was lacking and that Dunn was innocent of the charges.
But Dunn remained in custody at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking two days after the circuit judge ordered his immediate release. In a virtual emergency hearing Wednesday afternoon, Sengheiser gave South Central's warden until 6 p.m. to release Dunn or face being held in contempt. He noted that defiance of a court order would not be tolerated.
A Jewish couple were rejected as foster parents because of their religion. This is the future Project 2025 envisions
![Jewish couple denied foster child](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fde96284b77ef2f9f76db6745a1e29266adfcc56/0_4_2865_1718/master/2865.jpg?width=1140&dpr=2&s=none)
But their plans quickly fell apart when the Christian state-funded foster care placement agency informed them by email that they “only provide adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief system”. The Rutan-Rams, who are Jewish, were out of luck.
“There’s already emotions playing into wanting to be a parent, and then to have us attacked personally just made it that much harder,” Liz Rutan-Ram told the Guardian.
The Rutan-Rams sued the Tennessee department of children’s services, arguing that a state law permitting private agencies to refuse to work with prospective parents on religious grounds violates the Tennessee constitution’s equal protection and religious freedom guarantees. The case will soon go to trial.
‘Cynical and manipulative’: thousands at DC rally denounce Netanyahu speech
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Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday.
With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.
Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.
“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection, adding “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!” Capitol police deployed pepper spray at protesters they claimed had crossed the police line.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib Protests Netanyahu Speech With 'War Criminal' Sign
![Rep. Rashida Tlaib](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/66a14eec220000b004ff06d1.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) proudly brandished a sign calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” as he addressed Congress on Wednesday.
The opposite side of her sign read: “Guilty of Genocide.”
In his speech, Netanyahu lauded Israel’s war on Gaza, thanked both Biden and Trump for their support of Israel, condemned the assassination attempt on Trump and slammed pro-Palestine protesters.
Tlaib is the only Palestinian American in Congress. In addition to her protest, Tlaib put out a strongly worded statement on Tuesday ahead of Netanyahu’s speech, also calling him a “war criminal.”
'A beautiful soul': Arizona college student falls to death from Yosemite's Half Dome cables
Grace Rohloff, an Arizona State University student, was descending the cables on Half Dome with her father on July 13 when she slipped off, according to SFGate and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rohloff's father, Jonathan Rohloff, told SFGate that he and his daughter had made their way to the peak of Half Dome when a storm suddenly hit. While trying to descend the precarious 400-foot cable section before rain made the granite peak slippery, Grace Rohloff lost her balance and tumbled down the mountain, the Chronicle reported.
"A black cloud was rolling in like gangbusters," Jonathan Rohloff told SFGate. "I was like, 'We have got to get down now, because we don’t want to be up here with any rain.' It rolled in literally out of nowhere."
NASA releases eye-popping, never-before-seen images of nebulae, galaxies in space
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Dozens of never-before-seen images of cosmic objects from the corners of the universe captured by the world's most powerful X-ray telescope were released on Tuesday.
The breathtaking images, taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, were released by NASA in honor of the 25th anniversary of the telescope's launch into space.
Taken with X-Ray data collected by Chandra, the pictures show a stunning range of phenomena, from the remnants of a supernova, to a nebula thousands of light years from Earth, to the center of the Milky Way galaxy, according to a NASA news release. The recently released images are part of nearly 25,000 collected by Chandra over its time in space.
Chandra observed the cosmic objects for up to thousands of hours, according to the photo gallery released by NASA. For instance, it took the telescope 64 days of observation time and 370 observations over the course of 20 years to capture an image of the Milky Way's center, which is about 26,000 light-years away from Earth.
EU ‘ready’ to negotiate as Hungary-Ukraine oil row boils over
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Kyiv last month adopted sanctions blocking the transit of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, to Central Europe, sparking fears of supply shortages in Budapest and Bratislava.
On Monday, Hungary and Slovakia sent a letter to the European Commission asking the EU’s executive to begin talks with Ukraine, a precursor to legal action, arguing the measure violated a 2014 association agreement between Brussels and Kyiv.
Commission spokesperson Olof Gill told POLITICO that the EU executive was “currently studying the contents of this letter,” while adding that it “stands ready to support the impact of [EU] member states in finding a solution together with Ukraine.”
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