More turns in Trump's handling of Epstein case
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Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
White House seeks fines from other universities after Columbia deal
Harvard University. File photo: Getty Images The White House is seeking fines from several universities it says failed to stop antisemitism on campus, including Harvard University, in exchange for restoring federal funding, a Trump administration official said on Friday. The administration is in talks with several universities, including Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and Brown, the source said, confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration is close to striking deals with Northwestern and Brown and potentially Cornell. A deal with Harvard, the country's oldest and richest university, is a key target for the White House, the official added. A spokesperson for Cornell declined to comment. Other universities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump and his team have undertaken a broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at U.S. universities, which the Republican president says are gripped by antisemitic and "radical left" ideologies. Trump has targeted several universities since returning to office in January over the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled college campuses last year. Columbia University said on Wednesday it will pay more than $200 million to the U.S. government in a settlement with the administration to resolve federal probes and have most of its suspended federal funding restored. The Trump administration has welcomed the Columbia deal, with officials believing the university set the standard on how to reach an agreement, the official said. Harvard has taken a different approach, suing the federal government in a bid to get suspended federal grants restored.
Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Israel, US abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump appeared on Friday to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, both saying it had become clear that the Palestinian militants did not want a deal. Netanyahu said Israel was now mulling "alternative" options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending Hamas rule in the enclave, where starvation is spreading and most of the population is homeless amid widespread ruin. Trump said he believed Hamas leaders would now be "hunted down", telling reporters: "Hamas really didn't want to make a deal. I think they want to die. And it's very bad. And it got to be to a point where you're going to have to finish the job." The remarks appeared to leave little to no room, at least in the short term, to resume negotiations for a break in the fighting, at a time when international concern is mounting over worsening hunger in war-shattered Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron, responding to the deteriorating humanitarian situation, announced that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognise an independent Palestinian state. Britain and Germany said they were not yet ready to do so but later joined France in calling for an immediate ceasefire. British Prime Minister Keith Starmer said his government would recognize a Palestinian state only as part of a negotiated peace deal. Trump dismissed Macron's move. "What he says doesn't matter," he said. "He's a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn't carry weight." Israel and the United States withdrew their delegations on Thursday from the ceasefire talks in Qatar, hours after Hamas submitted its response to a truce proposal. Sources initially said on Thursday that the Israeli withdrawal was only for consultations and did not necessarily mean the talks had reached a crisis. But Netanyahu's remarks suggested Israel's position had hardened overnight. US envoy Steve Witkoff said Hamas was to blame for the impasse, and Netanyahu said Witkoff had got it right. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Facebook that the talks had been constructive, and criticised Witkoff's remarks as aimed at exerting pressure on Israel's behalf. "What we have presented - with full awareness and understanding of the complexity of the situation - we believe could lead to a deal if the enemy had the will to reach one," he said. Mediators Qatar and Egypt said there had been some progress in the latest round of talks. They said suspensions were a normal part of the process and they were committed to continuing to try to reach a ceasefire in partnership with the US The proposed ceasefire would suspend fighting for 60 days, allow more aid into Gaza, and free some of the 50 remaining hostages held by militants in return for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. It has been held up by disagreement over how far Israel should withdraw its troops and the future beyond the 60 days if no permanent agreement is reached. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister in Netanyahu's coalition, welcomed Netanyahu's step, calling for a total halt of aid to Gaza and complete conquest of the enclave, adding in a post on X: "Total annihilation of Hamas, encourage emigration, (Jewish) settlement." MASS HUNGER International aid organisations say mass hunger has now arrived among Gaza's 2.2 million people, with stocks running out after Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, then reopened it in May but with new restrictions. The Israeli military said on Friday it had agreed to let countries airdrop aid into Gaza. Hamas dismissed this as a stunt. 'The Gaza Strip does not need flying aerobatics, it needs an open humanitarian corridor and a steady daily flow of aid trucks to save what remains of the lives of besieged, starving civilians,' Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters. Gaza medical authorities said nine more Palestinians had died over the past 24 hours from malnutrition or starvation. Dozens have died in the past few weeks as hunger worsens. Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to distribute it, in what the Israeli foreign ministry called on Friday "a deliberate ploy to defame Israel". The United Nations says it is operating as effectively as possible under Israeli restrictions. United Nations agencies said on Friday that supplies were running out in Gaza of specialised therapeutic food to save the lives of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher also has demanded that Israel provide evidence for its accusations that staff with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs were affiliated with Hamas, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The ceasefire talks have been accompanied by continuing Israeli offensives. Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes and gunfire had killed at least 21 people across the enclave on Friday, including five killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City. In the city, residents carried the body of journalist Adam Abu Harbid through the streets wrapped in a white shroud, his blue flak jacket marked PRESS draped across his body. He was killed overnight in a strike on tents housing displaced people. Mahmoud Awadia, another journalist attending the funeral, said the Israelis were deliberately trying to kill reporters. Israel denies intentionally targeting journalists. Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed Israeli towns near the border, killing some 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages on October 7, 2023. Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 people in Gaza, health officials there say, and reduced much of the enclave to ruins.
NZ Herald
8 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Trade on agenda as Trump lands in Scotland for diplomacy and golf
Trump is also due to meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip. US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One bound for Scotland. Photo / Getty Images He said the meeting would be 'more of a celebration than a workout', appearing to row back on previous comments that a bilateral trade deal struck in May needed 'fine tuning'. 'The deal is concluded,' he told reporters on the tarmac at Prestwick. But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK request for reduced steel and aluminium tariffs. Trump has exempted British exports from blanket 50% tariffs on both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear. 'If I do it for one, I have to do it for all,' Trump said in Washington before embarking on his flight, when asked if he had any 'wiggle room' for the UK on the issue. The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognise a Palestinian state. Protests Trump is due to return to the UK in September for a state visit – his second – at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish. During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18. 'He's original, he does things the way he wants to. I think a lot of our politicians could take a good leaf out of his book,' 45-year-old Trump fan Lisa Hart told AFP as she waited to see his plane touch down. But the affection between Trump and Scotland is not always mutual. In this photo from February 2000, Donald Trump (left) – a real estate developer at the time – and his future wife, former model Melania Knauss, financier Jeffrey Epstein (now deceased) and Ghislaine Maxwell pose at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Epstein and Maxwell were in later years convicted of sex trafficking offences. Photo / Getty Images Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family's construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday. Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump's golf courses, have said there will be a 'significant operation across the country over many days'. Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation 'shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries'. Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland's oil industry. In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should 'stop with the costly and unsightly windmills' as he urged incentivising drilling for oil in the North Sea. US discontent The trip to Scotland puts physical distance between Trump and the latest twists in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier accused of sex trafficking who died in prison in 2019 before facing trial. In his heyday, Epstein was friends with Trump and others in the New York jet-set, but the President is now facing backlash from his own Maga supporters who demand access to the Epstein case files. Many support a conspiracy theory under which 'deep state' elites protected rich and famous people who took part in an Epstein sex ring. But Trump is urging his supporters to move on from the case. The Wall Street Journal, which published an article detailing longstanding links between Trump and the sex offender, is being punished by the White House. Its reporting team plan to travel to Scotland on their own and join the White House press pool but it has now been denied a seat on Air Force One for the flight home. While Trump's family has undertaken many development projects worldwide, the President no longer legally controls the family holdings. However, opponents and watchdog groups have accused him of having many conflicts of interest and using his position as US President to promote private family investments, especially abroad. – Agence France-Presse
