Pentagon urges Israel to protect civilians in Gaza as military chiefs meet
WASHINGTON — U.S. defense leaders pressed their Israeli counterparts Tuesday to ensure that any military operation in the southern city of Rafah unfold in phases to protect civilians and secure the delivery of aid, a senior Pentagon official said. Israel’s defense minister was receptive, the official said, but it’s not clear what impact the meeting will have on Israeli plans for Gaza or on growing tensions between the two nations.
U.S. leaders have consistently warned against a ground invasion of Rafah and pressed for an alternative, more precise operation. The senior defense official described the 90-minute meeting at the Pentagon as very productive and “really quite meaty,” but demurred when asked if Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to condition future U.S. military aid to Israel on an improvement of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Kennedy names his veep running mate
OAKLAND, Calif. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose Nicole Shanahan on Tuesday to be his vice presidential pick, adding a wealthy but nationally unknown figure to his independent White House bid that’s trying to appeal to voters disaffected by a rematch of the 2020 election.
Shanahan, 38, is a California lawyer and philanthropist who’s never held elected office. She leads Bia-Echo Foundation, an organization she founded to direct money toward issues including women’s reproductive science, criminal justice reform and environmental causes.
“Nicole and I both left the Democratic Party,” Kennedy said. “Our values didn’t change. The Democratic Party did.”
Judge issues gag order for Trump
NEW YORK — A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald
Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president’s history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” remarks about people involved in his legal cases.
Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision, echoing a gag order in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the defense’s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a former president.