MISERY DESPITE MEDICINE
Though deal brings more aid to Gaza, hostages, fighting intensifies in north amid rocket attacks from south
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian militants battled Israeli forces in devastated northern Gaza and launched a barrage of rockets from farther south on Tuesday in a show of force more than 100 days into Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against the tiny coastal enclave.
The fighting in the north, which was the first target of Israel’s offensive and where entire neighborhoods have been pulverized, showed how far Israel remains from achieving its goals of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.
In other developments, France and Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that helped mediate a previous cease-fire, said late Tuesday that they had brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages in Gaza, as well as additional aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory.
France said it had been working since October on the deal, which will provide three months’ worth of medication for 45 hostages with chronic illnesses, as well as other medicines and vitamins. The medicines are expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday.
It was the first known agreement between the warring sides since a weeklong truce in November.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is worsening, with 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians having fled their homes and U.N. agencies warning of mass starvation and disease. The conflict threatens to widen after the U.S. and Israel traded strikes with Iranian-backed groups across the region.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ military and governing capabilities to ensure that the Oct. 7 attack is never repeated. Militants stormed into Israel from Gaza that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250 people.
Nearly half of the hostages were released during the truce, but more than 100 remain in captivity. Hamas has said it will not release any others until Israel ends the war.
Strikes and counterstrikes across region
The longer the war goes on, the more it threatens to ignite other fronts across the region. Iran fired missiles late Monday at what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters” in an upscale neighborhood near the sprawling U.S. Consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Iraq and the U.S. condemned the strikes, which killed several civilians, and Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest.
Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have carried out dozens of attacks on bases housing U.S. forces, and a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad killed an Iranian-backed militia leader earlier this month.
Elsewhere, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea following a wave of U.S.-led strikes last week. The U.S. military carried out another strike Tuesday. Separately, it said two Navy SEALS are missing after a raid last week on a ship carrying Iranian-made missile parts and weapons bound for Yemen.
Heavy fighting in north
In Gaza, the Israeli military said its forces located some 100 rocket installations and 60 ready-to-use rockets in the area of Beit Lahiya, a town on the territory’s northern edge. Israeli forces killed dozens of militants during the operation, the military said, without providing evidence.
Hundreds of thousands of people fled northern Gaza, including Gaza City, following Israeli evacuation orders in October. Israel shut off water to the north in the opening days of the war, and hardly any aid has been allowed into the area, even as tens of thousands of people have remained there.
Residents reached by phone Tuesday described the heaviest fighting in weeks in Gaza City.
“The bombing never stopped,” said Faris Abu Abbas. “The resistance is here and didn’t leave.”
After weeks of heavy fighting across northern Gaza, Israeli officials said at the start of the year that they were scaling back operations there. The focus shifted to the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
But there too, they have encountered heavy resistance. The military said at least 25 rockets were fired into Israel on Tuesday, damaging a store in one of the strongest bombardments in more than a week. Israel’s Channel 12 television said the rockets were launched from the Bureij camp in central Gaza.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump shook his head in disgust Tuesday as the judge in his New York defamation trial told would-be jurors that another jury had already decided that the former president sexually abused a columnist in the 1990s. He left before opening statements where her lawyer accused him of using “the world’s biggest microphone” to destroy her reputation.
Fresh from a political win Monday in the Iowa caucuses, the Republican presidential frontrunner detoured for about four hours to a Manhattan courtroom for what amounts to the penalty phase of a civil defamation lawsuit stemming from E. Jean Carroll’s claims he sexually attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. Trump left just after a jury of nine people was selected to attend a political rally in New Hampshire.
During his time in the Manhattan federal courtroom, Trump’s lawyers first protested the trial itself, saying he wasn’t being given a fair shake by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan and claiming that it was inappropriate for the trial to occur before appeals were resolved over legal issues.
Then, Trump expressed his displeasure through his gestures. For purposes of this proceeding, it had already been determined at a trial last year that Trump “did sexually assault Ms. Carroll,” Kaplan said, prompting Trump to shake his head from side to side. The ex-president was sitting at the defense table, flanked by his lawyers, about a dozen feet from Carroll and her legal team. They didn’t appear to speak or make eye contact.
Later, when the judge asked during jury selection if anyone felt he had been treated unfairly by the court system, Trump raised his hand slyly. The gesture drew laughter from some prospective jurors and a comment from the judge, who told Trump: “We know how you stand.”
Almost all small and midsize businesses are now required to report more information to the U.S. government, in accordance with a federal law that took effect Jan. 1.
The Corporate Transparency Act of 2021 requires most companies doing business in the United States to file reports about the people who own them to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Department of Treasury.
“This will impact just about every small business in Chicago,” said Ryan Gardner, partner at Howard & Howard Attorneys. “This is a radical shift from what has been required in the past.”
The act’s aim is to curb money laundering and other illicit activity, such as drug trafficking and terrorism, by eliminating corporate anonymity.
“Dirty money has a corrosive effect on the U.S. economy, and corporate anonymity facilitates crime and disadvantages small businesses across America,” said a senior enforcement network official.
Up to 900,000 small and midsize businesses in Illinois may be impacted, Illinois Deputy Secretary of State Scott Burnham estimated.
To spread the word, the Department of Business Services will mail notices to all registered businesses throughout the year.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of Illinois communities across the state,” Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said. “It’s critical that we do everything we can to help them understand and comply with the new law.”
Many small-business owners in Illinois are confused and frustrated over the act’s rollout, Giannoulias said.
He said his office and the Department of Business Services is working on developing resources and fact sheets for business owners and will offer webinars and free training sessions.
“This is the right thing to do. We want transparency, but the instruction that we’ve received and, more importantly, small businesses have received has not been very clear,” he said. “It’s caused confusion and it’s been, unfortunately, very clunky.”
If you own a business in Illinois, here’s what you need to know to comply with the new law.
Who needs to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network?
The act applies to all domestic and foreign corporations, limited liability companies and other business entities, except those included in the enforcement network’s list of 23 exemptions. Some of the exempt entities include banks, public utilities, insurance companies and large businesses — defined as a company with more than 20 employees in the U.S. with more than $5 million in gross receipts or sales.
If your company was created or registered to operate in the U.S. by filing documents with a secretary of state, and it is not covered by an exemption, you are required to file.
How do I register?
Businesses will need to file a Beneficial Ownership Information Report with the enforcement network. The form, which asks for information about each beneficial owner, can be found on the agency’s website.
A beneficial owner is someone who owns at least 25% of the company or who has “substantial control” over it — meaning a senior officer, important decision-maker or someone who can appoint and remove officers.
For each person, you’ll be asked to enter their full name, date of birth, address and a valid form of ID, such as a driver’s license or passport. If your company was created on or after Jan. 1, 2024, you also will have to report information about the person, or people, who filed the documents to create the company.
The form only needs to be filed once, unless the information that was reported must be updated.
“If there’s any change for a beneficial owner of a business — like that owner moves their personal residence, they sell one house and move to a new house — that will require that they alert the federal government,” Gardner said.
Why should I follow the requirements?
If it feels cumbersome and frustrating, you’re not alone. Gardner said many small-business owners have expressed to him that it feels like “an intrusion into privacy.” But, he said, it’s still important to take the law seriously.
Owners who don’t comply could face serious fines and other penalties. People who knowingly violate the requirements may face civil penalties of up to $500 each day the offense persists, as well as criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000.
Giannoulias is concerned business owners may not be aware of the new requirements, but his office is working to spread the word.
“My fear, which is based on anecdotes and just talking to business owners who don’t even know about this, is it’s going to be a very, very low percentage” who file reports, Giannoulias said.
Here’s what you need to know about federal rules that could affect 900,000 small and midsized businesses in Illinois
It’s not yet clear how these penalties will be enforced, Gardner said, because proving that someone intentionally avoided compliance would be challenging.
“We don’t know for certain what the enforcement of these prescribed penalties will hold, but I don’t think anybody wants to find out and test the federal government to see what would happen if they did fail to comply,” he said.
When is the deadline to file?
If your company was created before Jan. 1, 2024, you have until Jan. 1, 2025 to file.
Any company created on or after Jan. 1 has 90 calendar days after receiving notice of its official creation.
Businesses created on or after Jan. 1, 2025, will have 30 days to file a report.
According to a senior official with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, thousands of companies have already filed their reports, exceeding the bureau’s expectations.
Who will be allowed access to the information reported?
Information in the report is confidential, but there are some exceptions that allow disclosure. Certain federal, state, local, tribal and foreign officials will be able to request access for purposes related to national security, intelligence and law enforcement. They will be required to provide specific reasons for why the information is necessary and relevant. With the permission of a company, financial institutions may also be able to access the information with the aim of helping customers comply with certain requirements.
Beware of scams
Gardner warned of a “big possibility for a massive scam movement.”
If you receive any emails, letters or phone calls asking you to share your information to comply with the new regulations, these are most likely fraudulent. You should not click any links or scan any QR codes. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network does not send unsolicited requests.
The Better Business Bureau issued a warning that scammers are exploiting the new law to persuade business owners to give up personal information. You might receive legitimate-seeming messages with personal details obtained from data leaks and official-looking seals and watermarks.
If you realize you’re dealing with scammers, do not engage and report your experience to the BBB’s Scam Tracker or the FBI.
“People just have to be very, very cognizant and on the lookout for scams and phishing and other internet hacks and mailing hacks,” Giannoulias said.