Author: CNN

CNN
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Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative deal with the unions representing 75,000 employees, following the largest-ever health care strike in US history.

“The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente,” the union coalition said on X. “We are thankful for the instrumental support of Acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su.”

The company also thanked Su its tweet about the deal.

“We are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with the frontline health care workers of the union coalition. We are thankful for the instrumental involvement of Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Su,” it said in its tweet.

The strike last week lasted only three days, the length of time it had been scheduled to run. But the coalition of unions was threatening an eight-day strike next month with even more workers walking out if a new deal was not reached by October 31.

While a full picture of the tentative deal was not immediately available, some details were released Friday. According to the coalition, Kaiser Permanente management agreed to raise wages by 21% over four years in all Kaiser locations and establish a new health care worker minimum wage: $25 per hour in California and $23 per hour in other states where Kaiser operates.

At a news briefing with Su and representatives from Kaiser Permanente and the coalition of unions, Kaiser Permanente said it had agreed to accelerate hiring, furthering its commitment to address a critical staffing shortage that some employees said contributed to feelings of burnout.

During the briefing, Dave Regan, the president of SEIU-UHW, the largest union in the coalition, said that the tentative agreement includes an annual bonus program for unionized workers tied to the success of two metrics: the number of patients who receive preventative vaccinations, like the flu vaccine, and the amount that total blood pressure is reduced among Kaiser Permanente patients.

The union coalition represents 40% of Kaiser Permanente’s non-physician workforce and includes a wide range of medical workers, including EMTs, X-ray technicians, nursing assistants and respiratory care practitioners. It also represents hospital support staff, including maintenance and janitorial staff as well as food services.

Rank-and-file members of the union will get to vote on the tentative labor agreement with their employer. If they vote “no,” another strike could still happen. It is not uncommon in recent years for rank-and-file union members to reject tentative deals reached between union negotiators and management. Nearly 4,000 members of the United Auto Workers union went on strike at Mack Trucks early Monday after membership there overwhelmingly rejected an 11th hour deal reached a week earlier.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health providers. Unlike a fee-for-service health care model, in which doctors and other providers are paid for each service performed, Kaiser Permanente patients or their employers pay a membership fee to access Kaiser Permanente’s wide range of health care services. According to its website, Kaiser Permanente has 12.7 million members and operates 39 hospitals and 622 medical offices.

The tentative agreement comes during heightened union activity in the United States. And the health care sector has seen much of the strike activity, with unions and their members complaining about pay and staffing shortages impacting the quality of care.

From the start of 2022 through August of this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has tracked 42 work stoppages of 1,000 or more strikers. Its count shows a third of those strikes were in the health care industry. That’s up from 24% of major strikes in 2019, the year before the pandemic. The increased number of health care strikes have happened despite health care workers making up only about 9% of private sector union members nationwide.

This is the second time this year that Su, who was nominated to be Labor Secretary in February but has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, has helped management and labor reach a deal after contentious negotiations. In June, she brokered a deal between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which operates 29 shipping ports up and down the West Coast. Those talks had dragged on for more than a year.

Su said she was involved in two all-night negotiating sessions between Kaiser Permanente and the coalition of unions.

CNN
 — 

Lauren Miller Rogen revealed this week that she had surgery to treat a brain aneurysm.

Miller Rogen, married to actor and producer Seth Rogen, shared her experience during a speech at the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery Visionary Ball in Los Angeles on Wednesday, according to People.

Because dementia runs in her family, Miller Rogen explained she had sought a full body MRI several years ago “to take a deeper look at anything that could possibly be lurking inside me that would affect my longevity.”

She revealed, “They found, of course, this sort of aneurysm in my head. So of course, this was terrifying information, and made me think of my great-grandmother, whose fate I certainly didn’t want to mimic.”

Initially, Miller Rogen said, the aneurysm “remained small.” She later underwent surgery at UCLA to address it when doctors noticed last year that it had grown in size.

“I’m truly endlessly grateful to Dr. Colby, his entire team, and the entire staff at UCLA who guided us through this scary experience that I’m truly grateful to have overcome,” Miller Rogen added.

She formed the nonprofit Hilarity for Charity in 2012 to raise money for dementia care and research.

CNN
 — 

An instructor at Stanford University has been removed from teaching duties as the school investigates reports that during a discussion on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the instructor downplayed the Holocaust and singled out students “based on their backgrounds and identities.”

“Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern. Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students,” Stanford said in a statement Wednesday.

“The instructor in this course is not currently teaching while the university works to ascertain the facts of the situation,” the statement continued.

The instructor, who is not a faculty member, has not been named. CNN has reached out to the instructor for comment.

The university’s action comes as fierce fighting this week between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza has increased tensions beyond the Middle East.

Some Jewish people in the US say they fear being targeted as the country contends with widespread reports of antisemitism. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic incidents, recorded nearly 3,700 incidents in the US, the highest amount since tracking began in 1979.

Rabbi Dov Greenberg, executive director of Rohr Chabad House, Stanford’s Jewish community center, told CNN the students were “shaken up.”

Greenberg, who said he spoke with the students involved in the incident, said they are “not doing well” and are afraid to face backlash or bullying on campus.

According to Greenberg, the students said the instructor tried to justify the actions of Hamas and asked the students how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

After one student answered “6 million,” the instructor then said more people have been killed by colonizers and said, “Israel is a colonizer.”

The instructor then illustrated his point by asking some students to physically go to the back of class. “That’s what Israel does to Palestinians,” the teacher said, according to Greenberg.

“That was the main exchange that made students feel marginalized, attacked, and isolated,” said Greenberg.

The students who spoke to Greenberg did not push back against the instructor at the time. “The students told me clearly they were traumatized, frightened. They could not believe this was happening to them,” Greenberg said.

“This is a classic case of young students, first time away from home, feeling traumatized,” Greenberg said of the college freshmen. “They did not feel like they had the capacity at this time to argue with a teacher at Stanford. They’re just kids.”

The Stanford instructor’s alleged comments came during two classes Tuesday, with a total of 18 students, during which the instructor announced the day’s lesson would focus on colonialism, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The outlet cited Jewish student leaders who spoke with students in the course called College 101, a required class for first-year students.

Nourya Cohen and Andrei Mandelshtam, co-presidents of the Stanford Israel Association, said the students told them the instructor asked Jewish students to raise their hands, separated those students from their belongings and said they were simulating what Jews were doing to Palestinians, the Chronicle reported.

The students with whom Cohen and Mandelshtam spoke asked to remain anonymous, the Chronicle said.

Cohen and Mandelshtam declined CNN’s request for comment.

Students told Cohen and Mandelshtam the instructor brought up the colonization of Congo by Belgium’s King Leopold II in the 19th century and said more people were killed then than during the Holocaust, and Israel had colonized Palestinians, the Chronicle reported.

Students from both classes told Cohen and Mandelshtam the instructor asked students where their ancestors were from and labeled them as a “colonizer” or “colonized,” according to the Chronicle.

“I feel absolutely dehumanized that someone in charge of students and developing minds could possibly try and justify the massacre of my people,” Cohen told the newspaper. “It’s like I’m reliving the justification of Nazis 80 years ago on today’s college campus.”

The instructor’s reported comments come months after Stanford’s campus police department opened a hate crime investigation into an antisemitic drawing discovered on a whiteboard attached to a Jewish student’s dorm room door.

And in February, multiple swastikas, the N-word and the letters “KKK” were scratched into a metal panel in a bathroom on campus, the university said.

“We have heard many expressions of concern regarding student safety. We have heard from Jewish students, faculty, and staff concerned about rising antisemitism. We have heard from Palestinian students who have received threatening emails and phone calls,” Stanford said in its Wednesday statement. “We want to make clear that Stanford stands unequivocally against hatred on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, and other categories.”

Washington
CNN
 — 

The US intelligence community produced at least two assessments based in part on intelligence provided by Israel warning the Biden administration of an increased risk for Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the weeks ahead of Saturday’s seismic attack on southern Israel, according to sources familiar with the intelligence.

One update from September 28 warned, based on multiple streams of intelligence, that the terror group Hamas was poised to escalate rocket-attacks across the border. An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas — indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent.

None of the American assessments offered any tactical details or indications of the overwhelming scope, scale and sheer brutality of the operation that Hamas carried out on October 7, sources say. It is unclear if any of these US assessments were shared with Israel, which provides much of the intelligence that the US bases its reports on.

Ex-CIA director has a warning about a potential ‘end result’ in Israel-Hamas conflict

Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are also on a “hot spots” list included in intelligence briefings for senior officials almost daily, a person who receives the briefings said.

Intelligence assessments are written by the intelligence community to inform policy makers and enable them to make decisions.

“The problem is that none of this is new,” said one of the sources familiar with the intelligence. “This is something that has historically been the norm between Hamas and Israel. I think what happened is everyone saw these reports and were like, ‘Yeah of course. But we know what this will look like.’”

But the assessments were among a wave of high-level warnings given to the Biden administration by both its own intelligence community and Middle Eastern allies over the past year, raising questions about whether the US and Israel were appropriately attuned to the risk.

A senior official from an Arab country in the region said their country repeatedly raised concerns with US and Israeli officials that Palestinian anger was reaching a dangerous pitch. “But they never listened every time we warned them,” the official said.

A Middle Eastern diplomat in Washington, DC, also told CNN that their government had repeatedly warned the White House and US intelligence officials of a buildup of Hamas weapons and anger among Palestinians that was set to explode.

“The arms that exist in Gaza is beyond the imagination of anybody’s thinking,” they warned, the diplomat said. “The arms that exist in the West Bank, via Hamas, are also becoming a real problem and Hamas control of the West Bank is a real issue.”

“This in every meeting, every meeting in the last year and a half,” the diplomat added.

And in February, CIA Director Bill Burns told an audience at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service that he was “quite concerned about the prospects for even greater fragility and even greater violence between Israelis and Palestinians.”

“I would not come to the conclusion that the intel community was not tracking this from a strategic level — in fact they were,” a US official told CNN.

Yet those strategic warnings did nothing to help US or Israeli officials predict the events of October 7, when more than 1,000 Hamas fighters poured across the border into Israel in an operation that would leave more than a thousand Israelis dead. For most US and Israeli officials who were tracking the intelligence, the expectation was that there would likely be just another round of small-scale violence by Hamas — perhaps some rocket fire that Israel’s Iron Dome would intercept, one source familiar with the intelligence explained.

“If we had known or if we know of a pending attack against an ally, we would clearly inform that ally,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Friday.

Senior Biden administration officials — as well as current and former intelligence officials — continue to say they remain focused on the crisis at hand and insist that is too soon to review how the planning for such a massive attack was missed.

Multiple current and former intelligence officials, as well as some lawmakers briefed on US intelligence, pushed back on the notion that the failure to provide tactical warning of the attack was the US’s responsibility — because so much of US intelligence reporting on Gaza originated with Israel in the first place.

Another source familiar with the intelligence sumbumed up the US view: “Israel missed this, not us. We have a level of confidence in Shin Bet, the IDF, Mossad and others.”

The New York Times also reported on the existence of some of the reports and that they were not briefed up to President Joe Biden.

“There was no information warning about the terrorist attack in advance,” a Biden administration official told CNN.

The Office of Director of National Intelligence and the CIA declined to comment.

Based on conversations with dozens of current and former intelligence, military and congressional officials, the view is coalescing among US officials and lawmakers that Israel’s failure to predict the explosion of simmering rage from Gaza was primarily due to a lack of imagination.

Hamas likely hid the planning of the operation through old-fashioned counterintelligence measures such as conducting planning meetings in person and staying off digital communications whose signals the Israelis can track. But US officials also believe that Israel had become complacent about the threat Hamas posed and failed to recognize key indicators that the group was planning for a large-scale operation.

For example, Israeli officials failed to recognize routine Hamas training exercises as a sign that the group was preparing an imminent attack. The militants trained for the onslaught in at least six sites across Gaza, a CNN investigation found, including at one site less than a mile from Israel’s border.

“There were numerous indicators of a change in posture generally by Hamas and then pivoting both in public rhetoric and posture more towards violence and attacks generally,” said one source familiar with US intelligence.

In general, the Biden administration’s public posture in the lead up to the attack also did not reflect a heightened sense of alarm about the potential for violence. The intelligence community’s annual assessment of worldwide threats, released in February, does not mention Hamas.

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at The Atlantic Festival on September 29.

“Challenges remain,” Sullivan said, citing “tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. “But the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”

Hamas had refrained from entering two smaller cross-border skirmishes within the last year between another Palestinian militant group and Israel. Israel believed that its policy of offering work permits to Gazans and allowed Qatari money into the country had given Hamas something to lose — and lulled the group into quiescence.

“Hamas is very, very restrained and understands the implications of further defiance,” Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s national security adviser, told an Israeli radio channel six days before the assault.

It’s also possible that the Hamas operation was more successful than the group anticipated, one former intelligence official and another source familiar with current intelligence said.

“I think that it’s very possible, if not probable, that Hamas vastly exceeded its own expectations,” the second person said. “They thought we would mount this assault and there would be a couple dozen killed but never did they think it would rise to the level it did.”

This story has been updated with a response from the Biden administration.

Washington
CNN
 — 

The European Commission sent a warning letter Friday to Google and its subsidiary YouTube over disinformation and graphic content linked to the Hamas-Israel conflict, in the European Union’s latest effort to scrutinize Big Tech’s handling of the war.

The letter from European Commissioner Thierry Breton, addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and also sent to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, reminded the company about its content moderation obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Breton shared the letter on X.

Breton highlighted legal requirements for Google to keep graphic content such as hostage videos away from underage users; to act swiftly when authorities flag content that violates European laws; and to mitigate disinformation.

“This brings me to a second area of pressing concern: tackling disinformation in the context of elections, a priority which we personally discussed when we met in Brussels in May,” Breton wrote, referencing upcoming elections in a number of EU countries.

It also warned of possible penalties if a future investigation were to find Google (GOOGL) is not complying with the DSA.

Breton’s warning comes after similar letters he sent this week to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, as well as Meta and TikTok.

Unlike some of those previous letters, however, Breton’s letter to Google does not directly suggest the company has spread misleading or illegal content. And where Breton had asked some of Google’s counterparts to respond to his letter within 24 hours, Friday’s letter to Google merely requests a report “in a prompt, accurate and complete manner.”

In response, YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi said the company has been actively working to take offensive videos down.

“Following the devastating attacks on civilians in Israel and the escalating conflict in Israel and Gaza, our teams have removed thousands of harmful videos, and our systems continue to connect people with high-quality news and information,” Choi said. “Our teams are working around the clock to monitor for harmful footage and remain vigilant to take action quickly across YouTube, including videos, Shorts and livestreams.”

YouTube previously told CNN its teams have removed thousands of videos since Hamas’ attacks on Israel began, and that it continues to monitor for hate speech, extremism, graphic imagery and other content that violates its policies.

According to CNN’s own review of the platform, YouTube is also surfacing almost entirely videos from mainstream news organizations in searches related to the war.

CNN
 — 

Security is being increased in some US cities Friday after a former Hamas leader called for protests amid the escalating war between Israel and Hamas militants, though officials in several cities said they have found no credible threats.

Rallies are expected across the country, some in support of Israel and some in support of Palestinians, following last weekend’s unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s declaration of war.

The security concerns come as former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal released a video message encouraging the Muslim world to “show anger” on Friday, though there was no specific call for violence.

The messaging in the video is consistent with former Hamas messages calling for demonstrations and the mobilization of the Arab and Islamic world in solidarity.

“There is currently no intelligence showing any active threats in New York – that is, the entire state of New York,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a Thursday night news conference.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams echoed her comments.

“I want every New Yorker, especially Jewish New Yorkers and other groups, to know there are currently no credible or specific threats against our city. But with large scale protests scheduled … we must remain vigilant,” Adams said.

Still, the NYPD said it is taking steps to increase its presence in some areas.

“We are aware of the concern that postings circulating online have caused, and we have increased our uniform deployments at large gathering and cultural sites to ensure public safety out of an abundance of caution,” the department said in a post on X Thursday night.

NYPD ordered all forces to show up in uniform regardless of rank and assignment as a precaution, according to an internal department memo obtained by CNN. The order was issued in case there’s a need to draw from units including the detective, narcotics, and intelligence bureaus for support for spontaneous events or demonstrations and marches.

A New York City Council member was arrested Friday morning on charges of criminal possession of a firearm after being photographed at a pro-Palestinian rally at Brooklyn College with a gun visible on her waist.

A spokesperson for the NYPD told CNN Inna Vernikov, a Republican council member who represents parts of Brooklyn, turned herself in at the 70th precinct and surrendered her black 9mm Smith & Wesson and gun license in the company of her attorney.

Police told CNN Vernikov eventually left the location of the rally and at “no point in time was anyone menaced or injured as a result of her possessing the firearm.”

Vernikov is Jewish and has been a vocal supporter of Israel. During the rally, Vernikov posted videos to X, saying, “If you’re here, standing today with these people, you’re nothing short of a terrorist without the bombs.”

CNN has reached out to Vernikov and the City Council for comment.

In Florida, Miami-Dade County partially activated its emergency operations center “out of an abundance of caution,” according to a statement from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

“The safety of all our residents and visitors is our top priority and as we monitor the escalating situation in the Middle East, the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) has heightened levels of security throughout our community,” she said, noting there were no individual threats in the area.

The Miami-Dade Police Department will also increase its presence at schools, synagogues, mosques, Jewish Community Centers, and critical infrastructure within the county, according to the statement, which also encouraged residents to remain vigilant.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools announced Thursday it will work with local, state and federal agencies in response to the events in the Middle East and said mental health professionals were available to support students and families.

On the West Coast, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a post on X it has “no information of any specific or credible threats,” but is “continuing to assess the situation for any local impact.”

“We are conducting extra patrol checks and reaching out to our local religious communities to reassure them during this tumultuous time,” the department said.

CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden on Friday announced the locations of seven regional hubs to manufacture hydrogen – a fuel cleaner than fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal – but one which can be derived from renewable energy, nuclear power or planet-warming methane gas.

Biden made the announcement alongside Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at the Tioga Marine Terminal in the Port of Philadelphia – which will eventually use hydrogen produced from renewable energy and nuclear power at a new Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub comprising parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Speaking in front of port workers on Friday, Biden touted the hydrogen hubs as a major part of his “Bidenomics” plan to create new jobs and new industries. “It’s all part of my plan to make things in America,” Biden said.

He also said the hydrogen initiative would make progress on his ambitious climate goals.

“I made it a goal for our country to get to net-zero emissions from pollutants no later than 2050,” Biden said, adding that hydrogen is an important supplement for renewables like wind and solar, especially to power heavy industry, heavy duty trucks and shipping.

“That’s where hydrogen comes in,” Biden said. Using “hydrogen, you can power industries like the production of steel and aluminum. It’s going to end up changing our transportation system. That lets us get to this place without putting more carbon in the atmosphere.”

Seven regional hubs will be awarded funding from a pot of $7 billion that was passed last year as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law. In addition to the Mid-Atlantic, the new hubs will include:

Biden administration officials said they are still determining exact locations for the hubs in each region.

The Biden administration hopes these hubs will spark a new US industry that senior administration officials estimated could catalyze around $50 billion in public and private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs.

“I think of hydrogen as the ultimate energy carrier,” a senior administration official told reporters on a Thursday press call. “It’s earned the nickname as the Swiss Army knife of clean energy.”

Senior administration officials estimated that together, the seven hubs will eventually produce 3 million tons of hydrogen per year – a third of the total national goal DOE has set for 10 million tons of hydrogen produced by 2030.

In addition to economic impacts, the Biden administration is betting big on hydrogen for its climate goals. Senior administration officials said the fuel will be used to clean up sectors of the economy like heavy duty trucking and industry, both of which are hard to wean off fossil fuels.

Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency has also made hydrogen as an integral part of its proposed regulation to cut emissions from power plants – another huge fossil fuel emitter in the US economy.

A senior administration official estimated the hubs would reduce the country’s planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution by roughly 25 million metric tons per year from end use, adding that is roughly equivalent to taking 5.5 million gasoline-powered cars off the road.

The hubs that use methane gas to generate hydrogen will be outfitted with carbon capture technology to reduce their carbon dioxide pollution, a senior administration official said. The official did not provide estimates for possible emissions of methane – a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the first two decades it’s in the atmosphere.

Politicians across the aisle representing the new hubs praised the announcement.

“We’re big beneficiaries of it,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press event. “Hundreds of thousands of jobs; we estimate over 200,000.”

West Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, also hailed the hubs, calling them a major economic boon for their state.

“Today is a major win for the ARCH2 team and for future economic development and energy production in West Virginia,” Capito said in a statement.

Manchin, who was a strong advocate for the hydrogen hubs in congressional negotiations, said West Virginia “will be the new epicenter of hydrogen in the United States of America.”

Still, some environmental groups criticized the announcement, saying it will lead to continued use of fossil fuels and extend the life of that industry.

So-called blue hydrogen, which is derived from methane gas, “is an invention of the oil and gas industry,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and faculty fellow at Cornell University. “It is extremely disappointing to see the Biden administration provide funds for hydrogen hubs which will be based on fossil fuels, even with the carbon capture.”

CNN
 — 

House Republicans have picked Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan as their new speaker nominee Friday, but more than 50 Republicans voted against supporting him on the House floor – leaving the party still in disarray as it has been unable to elect a speaker in the 10 days since the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy.

Jordan sent the conference home for the weekend following Friday’s party votes, and lawmakers said he planned to use the time to speak with his opponents and try to win them over.

Jordan is facing stiff resistance to be elected speaker on the floor thanks to the same math problem that doomed the bid of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who initially won the GOP speaker nomination but dropped out of the race abruptly Thursday evening after facing a hardened bloc of opposition.

By failing to coalesce behind a candidate, the GOP conference has plunged the House into uncharted territory and effectively frozen the chamber at a time when major international and domestic crises loom, from Israel’s war against Hamas to a potential government shutdown in mid-November.

Jordan or any other Republican speaker candidate can only afford to lose four GOP votes when the House votes for speaker, if all members are voting, because winning a speaker vote requires a majority of the full House.

Jordan’s backers expressed confidence he still could get there, but the Ohio Republican faces a major uphill climb.

The House GOP conference selected Jordan on Friday as its latest speaker-designee in a 124-81 vote over GOP Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia – who made a surprise last-minute bid. Jordan gained only 25 supporters compared to Wednesday’s vote when Scalise defeated Jordan, 113-99.

Jordan then called a second vote asking members if they would support him on the floor, in an effort to see if that could shrink his opposition. That vote, which was cast by secret ballot, was 152-55 – laying bare the long road ahead for Jordan’s speakership bid to succeed.

Jordan has made a name for himself as a staunch ally of Donald Trump and was endorsed by the former president in his bid for the speakership. The Ohio Republican serves as chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

On his way into an earlier House GOP conference meeting Friday morning, Jordan told CNN’s Manu Raju that he thinks he will be able to get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel, but refused to say if he would drop out if he can’t get there by the end of the day.

“I think we’ll get 217 votes,” Jordan said. “I think we’ll get 217 votes – that’s the quickest way to get unified and get to the floor.”

After Jordan secured his party’s speaker nomination Friday, McCarthy urged the conference to rally around the Ohio Republican, according to multiple lawmakers in the room – a far different tone from when Scalise won the nomination earlier this week.

“He went up and gave a speech and said, ‘Hey, Jim is gonna be our next speaker. So let’s everybody cool off, drop the emotions, lets go, come back Monday and take care of business,’” said one GOP member, who is backing Jordan. “And he went into some of the crises our country is facing.”

After the meeting, McCarthy told CNN that Jordan will “get there,” despite the fact that he fell far short of the votes needed to win the gavel. The former speaker also told CNN earlier that he thinks Jordan should take the speaker fight to the floor even if he doesn’t have the votes locked up yet.Jordan has been meeting and having calls with holdouts as he attempts to lock down the 217 votes he will need to secure the gavel, according to a GOP aide.

The problem for the House GOP is that it’s not clear anyone can lock down the 217 votes needed to win the gavel, raising questions over how and when the standoff over the speakership will last and at what cost. Republicans have been mired down in infighting that has left the House paralyzed with no clear path to elect a new speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

Tensions are boiling over among House Republicans frustrated at the impasse and concerned over the path forward.

Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri told reporters after Scalise’s exit from the race Thursday evening that one lawmaker had remarked: “‘You know, you could put Jesus Christ up for speaker of the House and he still wouldn’t get 217.’”

Rep. Don Bacon, when asked whether he is a “no” on Jordan, told CNN’s Manu Raju that he’s “chewing on it right now” and said many Republicans are reluctant to reward what they see as “bad behavior” by giving in to what a small group of holdouts have been pushing for, though he said that’s not Jordan’s fault.

“We had five individuals today who said they would only vote for Jim and not Steve. So many of us feel it’s rewarding bad behavior if we do that. The problem for me though is it’s not Jim’s fault so I’m just grappling with that,” he said. “There’s a great quote … if you give a 5-year-old who is misbehaving terribly more ice cream, they will be worse behaving, right? That’s what’s going to happen here if we reward that behavior. So a lot of us are resistant to that.”

McCarthy’s support for Jordan Friday marked a notably different posture than the one he took toward Scalise, his former top deputy who has long been seen as his potential rival. Sources said that the former speaker did not give a speech after Scalise secured his party’s nomination on Wednesday.

In an interview on Fox News Thursday, McCarthy talked about how difficult it was going to be for the House majority leader to prevail and cast doubt on whether Scalise could go as many rounds as he did on the floor in January.

“He’s got an uphill battle to go. His number was much lower coming out of the conference,” McCarthy said of Scalise. “If you take the three delegates out, he didn’t have the majority there. So, it’s going to be difficult for him.”

Scalise’s exit from the race and McCarthy’s historic removal as speaker have put a spotlight on the power of a small faction of conservatives to sideline the agenda of a majority of the conference. House Republicans control just a razor-thin majority and a speaker candidate can only afford to lose four defections and still win.

On Thursday the night before he hopped into challenge Jordan, Scott told CNN the GOP’s inability to elect a new speaker driven by small group of holdouts “makes us look like a bunch of idiots.”

“We’ve got a very small group of people that they have to have everything their way. We had a group that sabotaged Speaker McCarthy and now we’ve had a group that sabotaged Steve Scalise, both of them great people,” he said.

In a reminder of the fundraising prowess that McCarthy brought to the table, which Republicans will now be missing as they look to maintain control of the House in 2024, the ousted speaker’s political team announced Friday that he had raised a record-breaking $78 million for Republicans this cycle.

McHenry remains interim speaker

Before Scalise withdrew, Republicans were already considering whether they should try to expand the powers of interim Speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, so the House can pass legislation, like a resolution for Israel, multiple lawmakers told CNN.

“That is an option that we could pursue,” GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told reporters.

A group of more centrist Republicans are circulating a letter asserting that McHenry should have more temporary power, sources told CNN – a sign of desperation as the GOP scrambles to coalesce around a speaker.

Attempting to expand the powers of the interim speaker, a role that is extremely limited, would put House Republicans in untested legal territory though and could be complicated to pull off, and some in the party have already pushed back on the idea.

“I’m not willing to look at that at all,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida.

Jordan has been the face of key House GOP investigations as chair of the Judiciary committee.

The Ohio Republican has served in Congress since 2007 and has a longstanding reputation as a conservative agitator who helped found the hardline House Freedom Caucus.

In addition to chairing the Judiciary Committee, Jordan is also the chair of the select subcommittee on the “weaponization” of the federal government. When McCarthy announced a House GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, he said House Oversight Chairman James Comer would lead the effort in coordination with Jordan as Judiciary chair and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith.

While Republicans say their investigative work is critical to informing the American public and ensuring accountability, Democrats frequently criticize Jordan as a hyper-partisan Trump defender and have accused him of using his perch to shield the former president in the run up to the 2024 presidential election.

As Jordan oversees key House GOP investigations, Democrats also point to the fact that he stonewalled a subpoena for his testimony from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Jordan as well as Scalise both supported objections to Electoral College results when Congress met to certify Biden’s presidential win on January 6, 2021, the same day a pro-Trump mob attacked the US Capitol seeking to overturn the election.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

Gaza and Jerusalem
CNN
 — 

Israel’s military is telling 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate their homes immediately, as it appears to prepare to ramp up retaliation for Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks.

Israeli warplanes continued on Friday to bombard the cramped coastal enclave, which Hamas controls. Civilians in Gaza crammed possessions into cars, taxis and pickup trucks in a mass rush toward the south. Those without other options walked, carrying what they could.

Images on social media Friday showed the Israel Defense Forces dropping leaflets from planes telling Gazans to south or risk further danger.

“In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians,” the IDF warned. “Evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields.”

Israeli forces also conducted local raids in Gaza in search of clues to the locations of some 150 hostages held by Hamas in the area.

The United Nations and several humanitarian groups have sharply criticized Israel’s evacuation order.

“After days of airstrikes, the Israeli Defense Forces have ordered the Palestinians in Gaza City and its surroundings to move to the south of the territory,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Friday, ahead of a Security Council meeting about the conflict.

“Moving more than one million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible,” he said.

Alongside the UN, humanitarian organizations including the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International have called for Israel to rescind its order.

Forcing Gaza civilians to relocate amounts “to the war crime of forcible transfer,” the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

UN officials were initially told on Thursday that the relocation should take place within 24 hours. However, Israel since acknowledged that the mass migration order will take time, with IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner telling CNN Friday that any deadline “may slip.”

Some Gazans have stayed put regardless, telling CNN they felt nowhere was safe.

Refaat Alareer, 44, a literature professor in Gaza City, told CNN he and his family see no choice but to remain in the north – despite Israel’s warning.

“We’re hanging in there,” said Alareer, who has six children.

“Many are not evacuating because it’s impossible to do so. Because we have nowhere else to go. Because Israel bombs (are) every where.”

The past six days of airstrikes on Gaza are only “the beginning,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, signalling more retaliation to come.

“I’m telling you it’s only the beginning, I’m not going to give you additional details, but it is only the beginning,” he said in a short press conference.

Israel has been massing hundreds of thousands of troops, reservists and military equipment at the border while it ramps up its siege and aerial bombardment of the enclave. It is unclear however if or when Israel plans to launch a potential ground incursion into Gaza.

Israel has also stopped essential supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel from entering Gaza, prompting UN experts to warn that residents are at risk of starvation, and to call for the opening of a humanitarian corridor for basic supplies.

Jordanian and Egyptian officials are applying “diplomatic and political pressure on the Israeli government to allow for the safe passage of aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing” which connects Gaza to Egypt, a senior Jordanian official told CNN Thursday.

While the Egyptian side of the Rafah border is open, the source told CNN that the Palestinian side of the border is “non-functional” following multiple Israeli airstrikes, and that Jordanians and Egyptians are waiting for security clearance from Israel to allow trucks to cross without threat of strikes.

A senior US State Department official also said Friday that the US is pressing Egypt and Israel to allow US citizens and foreign nationals trapped in Gaza to eventually use the crossing to flee.

The United Arab Emirates have sent a plane carrying urgent medical aid to the Egyptian city of Al-Arish to be brought into Gaza, state run news agency WAM reported. However it is unclear how the aid will cross the border.

The UN has warned that targeting innocent civilians and withholding of essential supplies is prohibited under international law.

Israel has stood firm in its response.

IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told CNN: “We are at war with Hamas and we will not allow anything into the Gaza strip that supports the fighting ability of Hamas. If it comes to the price of inconvenience for the population, so be it.”

On Thursday, Israel’s energy minister Israel Katz said supplies to Gaza will remain cut off until all hostages captured by Hamas are freed.

Atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel last weekend sparked international revulsion and escalated the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Hamas militants breached the heavily-fortified border in a coordinated assault, indiscriminately killing men, women and children, and taking as many as 150 hostages back to Gaza.

More than 1,300 people were killed in Israel and thousands more injured.

Israel’s response has been swift and relentless, sending warplanes to pound streets and homes in Gaza to rubble.

More than 1,900 people, including over 600 children have been killed by Israel’s bombing campaign, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

“The killing of children must stop,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said in a statement.

“The images and stories are clear: children with horrendous burns, mortar wounds, and lost limbs. And hospitals are utterly overwhelmed to treat them.”

The Vatican’s top diplomat, secretary of state Pietro Parolin, has called on Israel to show “proportionality.”

Parolin told Vatican News that the Hamas attack on Israel was “inhuman” but the “legitimate defense should not harm civilians,” according to a transcript of the interview.

More than 432,000 Palestinians have also been displaced by the conflict and airstrikes have hit at least 88 education facilities, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency.

Evidence of that war footing could be seen just outside the blockaded enclave, where a massive mobilization of Israeli troops, armored vehicles, trucks of ammunition, and other military equipment are being prepared for the next phase of Israel’s response to Hamas’s terrorist attacks.

Past Israeli ground offensives in 2008 and 2014 have resulted in high casualties of Israeli soldiers and one major difference this time is that Hamas fighters have captured such a large number of hostages.

Saturday’s bloody attack also displayed a level of military capability and barbarity by Hamas beyond what they have previously displayed.

CNN analysis of videos released by Hamas and its affiliates reveals that militants trained for the onslaught for months and across at least six sites in Gaza.

More evidence has emerged of the attack’s brutality, with the Israeli Prime Minister’s office releasing three photos showing two babies whose bodies had been burned beyond recognition and a third bloodstained infant’s body.

Hamas on Thursday however “firmly” denied its involvement in killing children, saying the allegations were “unethically and unprofessionally” adopted by media outlets.

Testimonies from multiple survivors and eyewitnesses have detailed the scale and nature of atrocities committed by Hamas as well as the staggering number of dead and captured.

CNN
 — 

A survivor of the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting that left 11 worshippers dead said the attack on Israel “feels familiar,” and brought back the trauma.

Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, posted Thursday on the congregation’s website in support of Israel, calling the events of the last week a “retraumatization.”

“That familiar hurt returned, the one deep in the pit of my stomach, but this time I recognized it for what it was. Trauma. I was experiencing retraumatization,” Myers wrote.

Myers narrowly escaped the gunman, Robert Bowers, who entered the synagogue armed with three handguns and an AR-15 rifle and killed 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. He was sentenced to death by a federal jury in August for those murders.

“I thought about the history of my people, how we’ve been persecuted and hunted and slaughtered for centuries, and how all of them must have felt at the moments before their death,” Myers testified in the trial.

Myers attended a Sunday evening rally at the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh to support Israel, in the wake of the attack by Hamas terrorists that began on Saturday and have left more than 1,200 people dead.

The first person Myers saw at the rally was one of the patrolmen who responded to the synagogue shooting. “We embraced and I thanked him for being here. His response of ‘Of course I would be here,’ was so uplifting,” Myers wrote.

Myers said he recognized even more similarities in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting almost five years ago and the attacks over the weekend.

He was in the same room they gathered in after the shooting in 2018 and was surrounded by “some of the same people” again.

“That’s when it hit me, like a ton of bricks. Déjà vu,” he wrote. “The words that flashed through my mind were staggering: horror; shock; disbelief; anger; evil; pain.”

“Before, during, and after the rally, I recognized the signs in everyone I saw. Pittsburgh has been through this before,” he wrote.

Myers offered a prayer for the hostages and families who’ve suffered the losses of loved ones, and for peace in Israel.

“My trauma is nothing compared to my brothers and sisters in the State of Israel,” he wrote.