North Dakota lawmakers are scrambling to fill a giant hole in state government operations left by a surprising state Supreme Court ruling that voided a major budget bill, leaving uncertainty until a resolution is reached.
Lawmakers might be back at the state Capitol as soon as the week of Oct. 23 for a three- to five-day session, Republican Senate Majority Leader David Hogue told The Associated Press.
The court’s surprising Sept. 28 decision put funding for parts of the state government in jeopardy, with a session likely to pull Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, who is running for president, off the campaign trail to focus on the legislation.
The court on Thursday issued a subsequent opinion denying the Republican-controlled Legislature’s requested delay of the court’s decision. The court also rescinded a previous stay that a majority of the justices had apparently granted until Oct. 28 — a move the state’s attorney general decried on Friday.
“They reverse themselves from two weeks ago — now it’s going to be done the painful way with a lot of anxiety for state employees and people throughout the government,” North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley told the AP.
Burgum has directed state agencies not to retrieve previously spent or transferred money in the bill unless further directed, and to pause work on any of its expenditures, transfers or policies not yet implemented “until a resolution is reached.” It wasn’t immediately clear what is affected.
North Dakota’s Legislature is part-time, usually meeting for four months every two years. Lawmakers are now figuring out scheduling conflicts with crop harvests, scheduled surgeries, weddings and overseas vacations, Hogue said.
Burgum in a statement expressed confidence in the Legislature resolving the situation before Nov. 1 “to avoid any interruptions to state government operations.”
He also told state agency leaders that he and Republican legislative majority leaders don’t expect interruptions to state employees’ pay or operations or impacts to previously approved pay raises.
The North Dakota state Capitol is seen in Bismarck, June 14, 2023.(AP Photo/Jack Dura, File)
The Supreme Court invalidated the funding bill for the state Office of Management and Budget, which is usually the last one passed in the biennial session, and often used as a catchall or cleanup bill for various items.
The court ruled the budget bill was “unconstitutionally enacted and is void” because it goes against a provision limiting bills to just one subject. The justices couldn’t tell which provisions of the bill were primary or secondary, or whether the bill would have passed without any of its 68 sections, Justice Daniel Crothers wrote.
The Legislature afterward asked the court to clarify the date that the decision is effective, and for a delay on the ruling’s effective date until Dec. 18, for time for the Legislature to meet.
The Legislature could reconvene using the five days remaining from its constitutional limit of 80 days every two years to meet in session. Otherwise, Burgum could call a special session, as he did in 2021 for redistricting and allocating federal coronavirus aid.
No decision has been made as to a reconvened or special session, Hogue said.
“There is a lot of uncertainty, but we’re going to remove the uncertainty before the end of this month,” he said.
Funding in the voided bill totaled about $322 million for the state’s 2023-25 budget cycle, according to Legislative Budget Analyst and Auditor Allen Knudson. Items included salary raises for state employees, snow removal grants and numerous transfers from state government funds.
Many of those transfers have already been made or committed, said Republican state Treasurer Thomas Beadle, whose office is documenting where all the money has gone if funds have to be reconciled or “clawed back.”
Not everything in the final bill passed. Burgum in May vetoed some items, including major policy changes for the state’s $9 billion oil tax savings.
The Legislature may be able to include all of the voided bill’s provisions into 14 bills, Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said Friday.
The court ruled on the bill because of a lawsuit brought by the board that oversees the state’s government retirement plans. The board argued it’s unconstitutional for state lawmakers to sit on the board, and targeted a section of the bill that increased legislative membership from two to four. The board cited separation of powers and single-subject violations among points in its argument.
An all-Republican House-Senate panel that included legislative leaders and top budget writers negotiated the final version of the bill, which passed before 3 a.m. on a weekend, ending the session after four months.
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Egypt is facing mounting pressure to act as neighboring Gaza gets pummeled by Israeli airstrikes after last weekend’s brutal assault on Israel by Hamas.
In the wake of the Hamas attacks, Israel closed its two border crossings with Gaza and imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, blocking supplies of fuel, electricity and water.
That has left the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as the only viable outlet to get people out of the enclave and supplies into it. But it’s unclear if even that crossing is operational.
The Egyptian side of the crossing is open, but the Palestinian side is “non-functional” following multiple Israeli airstrikes earlier this week, a senior Jordanian official told CNN Thursday, adding that “the Jordanians and Egyptians are waiting for security clearance from the Israelis to allow (aid) trucks to cross without threat of another airstrike.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry on Thursday denied reports of the crossing being closed, saying it has sustained damage due to repeated Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian side. CNN could not independently verify whether the crossing is open.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the Biden administration is in talks with Israel and Egypt about creating a humanitarian corridor through which civilians can cross.
But Egypt is uneasy about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees crossing into its territory. More than two million Palestinians live in the densely packed coastal enclave that is under intense Israeli bombardment.
Israel’s military overnight Thursday called for residents of northern Gaza to evacuate their homes and move southwards as it amassed 300,000 reservists on the border in apparent preparation for a ground incursion. That would amount to the mass displacement of 1.1 million people, the UN said, adding that it would be “impossible” to do in 24 hours.
Saturday’s attack on Israel killed 1,300 people, prompting retaliation against Hamas that has killed 1,799 in Gaza. As attacks intensify, rights groups have raised concerns about a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
Speaking at a military graduation ceremony Thursday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi compared the situation in his country to a lone house in a neighborhood that’s on fire. He said that rumors about Egypt not seeking to help its Palestinian neighbors are not true.
“We are making sure that aid, whether medical or humanitarian, at this difficult time, makes it to the strip,” Sisi said, adding that “we sympathize.”
But he warned that Egypt’s ability to help has limits.
“Of course we sympathize. But be careful, while we sympathize, we must always be using our minds in order to reach peace and safety in a manner that doesn’t cost us much,” he said, adding that Egypt hosts 9 million migrants already. The largest groups in the country’s migrant population are from Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Libya, according to a 2022 report by the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Egypt’s foreign ministry warned Friday against Israel’s call for evacuation, calling it “a grave violation of international humanitarian law” that would put the lives of more than 1 million Palestinians in danger.
The Jordanian official told CNN Thursday that 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.”
A plane carrying medical aid for Gaza from Jordan arrived Thursday in the Egyptian city of Arish, approximately 45 kilometers (23 miles) away from Rafah, and aid was loaded onto Egyptian Red Crescent trucks that have not yet been able to advance towards the border, the official said.
But Egyptian media outlets have sounded alarms about the prospect of allowing Palestinian refugees into the country, warning that it may forcefully displace Gazans into Sinai.
Sisi echoed those sentiments on Thursday. “There is a danger” when it comes to Gaza, he said – “a danger so big because it means an end to this (Palestinian) cause… It is important that (Gaza’s) people remain standing and on their land.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah, who met with Blinken Friday, warned against “any attempt to displace Palestinians from any Palestinian territories or to cause their displacement.”
The vast majority of Gaza’s residents today are Palestinian refugees from areas that fell under Israeli control in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. That war marked Israel’s creation, but it is also lamented by Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” as more than 700,000 Palestinians were either expelled or forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians took refuge in Gaza, which fell under Egyptian control after the war. Israel captured the territory from Egypt in the 1967 war and began settling Jews there, but it withdrew its troops and settlements in 2005.
Additional reporting by CNN’s Celine Alkhaldi and Caroline Faraj
A woman walks near a Walgreens pharmacy on March 09, 2023 in New York City.
Leonardo Munoz | Corbis News | Getty Images
Pharmacy staff from Walgreens are laying the groundwork for a nationwide walkout and multiple rallies at the end of October to protest unsatisfactory working conditions, and are in talks with employees from other retail pharmacies about joining them, CNBC has learned.
Those efforts, which are still in the planning stages, reflect the growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who have complained for years about having to grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management. The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.
Those frustrations came to a head in recent weeks, as some pharmacy staff from Walgreens locations around the country and CVS stores in the Kansas City area engaged in separate walkouts. Those demonstrations – and the planning for a broader work stoppage – add to what has been one of the most active years for the labor movement in recent U.S. history.
A Walgreens organizer, an employee of the chainwho asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the walkouts are scheduled for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Another organizer named Shane Jerominski, an independent pharmacist who used to work for Walgreens, confirmed those dates. Jerominski is a pharmacy labor advocate who has been actively involved in organizing recent walkouts.
The Walgreens organizer said they havebeen in talks with pharmacy staff from other retail chains about participating in the group walkout. The personsees nationwide walkouts across several retail pharmacy chains as the “next step” in the fight against current working conditions.
A Walgreens spokesperson redirected CNBC to the company’s earlier statement in response to the walkouts pharmacy staff held this week. A CVS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
The Walgreens spokesperson touted the company’s pharmacy teams in that statement, noting that they work “tirelessly to serve our communities” at nearly 9,000 store locations across the U.S. The spokesperson also acknowledged that the “last few years have required an unprecedented effort from our team members.”
Walgreens is engaged and listening to the concerns of pharmacy staff, the spokesperson said in the statement. In particular, the company said it has been making significant investments in wages and hiring bonuses in order to retain pharmacists in hard-to-staff locations.
Walgreens pharmacists make $57.45 an hour on average, according to employment website Indeed. The company has more than 86,000 health-care service providers, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other health-related professionals.
Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians work under the company’s U.S. retail pharmacy segment. That division contributes the most sales by far of its business segments, raking in $110 billion in fiscal year 2023.
A CVS employee, who was the main organizer of the Kansas City area walkouts, confirmed that they have been in contact with the Walgreens organizer about getting the CVS pharmacy staff they represent to join the nationwide effort. That employee, who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, represents CVS pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the Kansas City area.
But the CVS employee said whether those employees join will depend on the outcome of a meeting the person has with Prem Shah, the company’s chief pharmacy officer and president of pharmacy and consumer wellness, on Friday.
During that meeting, the employee will assess what CVS has done so far to execute a series of changes it committed to – including adding staff and paid overtime – after the Kansas City area walkouts ended last month.
The CVS employee said if the meeting goes poorly, the personwill reach out to the Walgreens organizer and tell them that the pharmacy staff they represent will be “100% behind” the nationwide walkout effort.
Pharmacy staff participating in the nationwide effort would also hold demonstrations outside the stores that workers walk out of, according to the people who spoke to CNBC.
Jerominksi said organizers are planning to hold rallies in areas that will see the “largest scale” of participation in the walkout, but no specific store locations have been finalized. He added that rallies were the biggest thing that was missing from the recent Walgreens and CVS walkouts.
In addition to those rallies and the walkouts, Jerominski and the Walgreens organizer said they are considering pushing for unionization for pharmacy staff not currently represented by one. The vast majority of pharmacists and technicians from Walgreens and CVS have no union representation, while pharmacy staff from a handful of grocery retailers such as Kroger do, according to Jerominski.
Organizers are in talks with multiple existing unions, but there is no concrete agreement yet, according to Jerominski. He said the organizations include IAM Healthcare, a union representing thousands of professionals in the health-care industry, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents food, retail and health-care workers across the U.S. and Canada.
IAM Healthcare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UFCW directed CNBC to a statement released Thursday in support of the recent walkouts staged by Walgreens and CVS pharmacy staff.
Main concerns of pharmacy staff
Retail pharmacy staff are concerned that companies like Walgreens and CVS are placing unreasonable demands on employees, without providing enough staffing or resources for them to safely and responsibly execute tasks such as filling prescriptions. The staff believes those working conditionsultimately put patients at risk of serious harm.
“What we’re doing in our stores is not safe for our customers,” the CVS employee told CNBC. “Improve our working conditions so we can improve the safety and the confidence of our customers that come into our stores.”
In addition to filling and verifying prescriptions, pharmacy employees often have to juggle patient phone calls, administer a growing number of vaccines, work with insurance companies on issues such as copays and reimbursements, perform rapid Covid and flu testing and deal with frustrated customers who are seeing longer wait times due to understaffing.
New vaccine COMIRNATY® (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) by Pfizer, available at CVS Pharmacy in Eagle Rock, CA.
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
One Walgreens pharmacy technician in Minnesota, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, likened work shifts to running a marathon. They told CNBC that pharmacy staff always go home “completely overworked and exhausted” after a day of juggling dozens of different tasks.
Walgreens pharmacy employees are asking the company to offer more transparency around how staff hours are assigned to stores, dedicate training time for each new hire and allocate job tasks in a way that matches the staffing levels of a given store location, according to the Walgreens organizer.
Currently, the company sets task expectations based on the number of team members each pharmacy should have instead of how much staff the locations actually have, the organizer said.
Pharmacy staff across different chains are also hoping that company management can address their concerns in a more timely fashion, Jerominski said.
“Pharmacists are kind of on an island where you don’t feel much support,” Jerominski said. “It feels like yelling into the void. You might call a supervisor or a district manager, but you might get a response a week later.”
A survey from last year shows that pharmacy workers who bring complaints to management sometimes get little response. The survey, conducted by the American Pharmacists Association andthe National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations, noted that there are “no open mechanisms” for pharmacists and other pharmacy staff to discuss workplace issues with supervisors and management.
Vaccine appointments, tensions with customers
Some Walgreens pharmacy staff told CNBC that the rollout of new vaccines this fall, including shots for Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, has made their workload heavier than usual.
One pharmacist, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said it is difficult to handle the recent influx of vaccine appointments, especially since those respiratory virus shots all arrived in the U.S. around the same time. The pharmacist described having appointments every 10 minutes, with some patients getting several shots at once.
The pharmacist also described a recent work shift where they were the only immunizer on staff, which made it nearly impossible for them to fill prescriptions and complete other tasks.
Jerominski, the organizer and pharmacy labor advocate, claimed that immunizations have become a priority for Walgreens and CVS since the margins on vaccines are significantly higher than the average prescription.
A sign advertises COVID-19 (coronavirus) vaccine shots at a Walgreens Pharmacy in Somerville, Massachusetts, August 14, 2023.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
One Walgreens pharmacist from Colorado, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, also highlighted how staff increasingly have to deal with frustrated customers.
That pharmacist said the lack of staffing and resources at some locations can lead to medication delays and errors or longer wait times for appointments, which sets employees up for negative interactions with patients.
The Colorado pharmacist said patients are “rightfully upset” when they can’t pick up critical medications in a quick and seamless way. But it can get emotionally taxing for employees when patients target all of their anger and frustration on staff, the pharmacist said.
Patients can get aggressive or even violent in rare cases, and it’s a “very long process” to get those customers banned from a store to protect employees, the Colorado pharmacist said.
Crypto’s role in the Israel-Hamas war comes under scrutiny: CNBC Crypto World
CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. James Koutoulas, CEO of Typhon Capital Management, weighs in on reports that Hamas militants behind the surprise attacks in Israel raised millions in crypto. He discusses how blockchain technology can help track this kind of illicit activity.
Healthcare workers strike in front of Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, as more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers go on strike from October 4 to 7 across the United States, in Los Angeles, California, October 4, 2023.
Aude Guerrucci | Reuters
More than 85,000 health workers reached a tentative labor agreement with Kaiser Permanente on Friday that will avoid more strikes after the Biden administration intervened in the negotiations.
President Joe Biden praised the health workers and reiterated his support for organized labor in a statement Friday.
“Health care workers and support staff kept our hospitals – and our nation– going during the dark months of the pandemic,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “They had our backs during one of our nation’s toughest times. We must continue to have theirs.”
“I always say that collective bargaining works,” Biden said. “It works for UPS drivers and dock workers, writers, and millions of American workers who exercise their right to participate in a union.”
Biden has touted himself as the most pro-union president in American history. He recently joined the picket line in Detroit to support the United Auto Workers in their strike against Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis.
Tens of thousands of health workers walked out of Kaiser hospitals and facilities last week to protest short staffing and demand better pay. The strike lasted three days in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state. The walkout was said to be the largest health-care worker strike in U.S. history.
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions had threatened additional strikes if management did not meet their demands, particularly over short staffing and the outsourcing of jobs.
Julie Su, acting labor secretary, arrives to testify during the House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing titled “Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Department of Labor,” in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The union coalition and Kaiser executives met for bargaining sessions this week. The sides reached a tentative labor contract to avoid further strikes after the intervention of acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.
The agreement includes a 21% pay hike over four years, a minimum wage of $25 in California and $23 in other states, protections against outsourcing, and numerous investments to address short staffing.
Su flew to California on Thursday evening to help facilitate the deal, according to the union coalition. Sarah Levesque, secretary-treasurer of OPEIU Local 2, said Su was instrumental in brokering the deal.
“We’re incredibly grateful to acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su and the Biden administration for supporting workers’ right to collective bargaining,” Levesque said.
Biden also praised Su’s role, “She continues to play an integral role helping my administration and workers across this country build an economy that works for everyone,” the president said.
Amazon ‘s (AMZN) strong execution at its fall sales event this week again showed the deep value of the Prime subscription model and suggested the ecommerce giant should see a robust holiday shopping season, driving retail revenue through the rest of the year. Amazon’s two-day Prime Big Deal Days on Tuesday and Wednesday “outpaced” last year’s inaugural “holiday kickoff” event , the company said Thursday. The event is a follow-up to Amazon’s main Prime Day sale held in July. The Club holding said Prime members, who pay $139 per year for a subscription that includes fast shipping, ordered more than 150 million items from third-party sellers during the 48-hour event, up from about 100 million items in 2022. “Another solid Amazon shopping event shows the power of the Prime subscription and the market share gains it has over its retail competition,” said Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis at the Investing Club. Moreover, the “deals and savings Amazon offers is a reason we think the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce giant is misguided and won’t have a material impact,” he added. The average spend per order during this week’s event was $53.47, down from Amazon’s July Prime Day sale, but up slightly from last year’s fall sale, according to market research firm Numerator . Amazon currently maintains about a 39% share in the overall ecommerce retail market, according to Andrew Lipsman, a retail analyst at market research firm Insider Intelligence. So while the company’s Prime growth has matured, there’s significant room for Amazon to gain further share, Lipsman argued. “Amazon has consistently gained share year-in and year-out until the last couple of years. In the last two years, however, its market share has flatlined,” Lipsman said. That’s largely because Amazon has heavy exposure to electronics, an underperforming category that has “become a drag on overall gains,” according to Lipsman. Still, Amazon’s latest Prime event is “a strong indicator of consumer demand heading into the holiday season,” he said. In September, Amazon announced plans to hire 250,000 workers in preparation for the holiday season, a 100,000 increase on the company’s holiday hires in 2022. And that “incremental hiring could be a positive read-across on Amazon’s internal demand forecast into the holidays,” according to Goldman Sachs. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMZN. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
An Amazon worker moves boxes on Amazon Prime Day in the East Village of New York City, July 11, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Amazon‘s (AMZN) strong execution at its fall sales event this week again showed the deep value of the Prime subscription model and suggested the ecommerce giant should see a robust holiday shopping season, driving retail revenue through the rest of the year.
Palestinians with their belongings flee to safer areas in Gaza City after Israeli air strikes, on October 13, 2023.
Mohammed Abed | AFP | Getty Images
How do you run from bombs when all your borders are sealed off?
In the Gaza Strip, a small stretch of land blockaded off with concrete walls and barbed wire fences and whose last remaining border crossings have been shut, survival is increasingly a game of chance.
“It’s insane and brutal — I can’t believe they’re doing this to the whole population. The amount of airstrikes are massive,” Omar, a Gazan development worker with two young children, told CNBC via voice note. “We’re OK for now but it’s very scary, and with each bomb we feel it’s going to be our turn.” Omar asked that only his first name be used out of concern for his family.
Without bomb shelters, people try to hide in hallways, away from windows, in schools, or even in the street alongside piles of rubble. But those spots aren’t safe either, Palestinians in Gaza say.
The Gaza Strip is under its sixth day of bombings by the Israeli air force since Oct. 7, when members of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza, launched an unprecedented terror attack on southern Israel. The highly coordinated assault killed more than 1,200 people, wounded 2,800, and saw Hamas take some 150 hostages, both civilians and soldiers, in what has been called “Israel’s 9/11.”
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Threat of escalation is not only in Gaza Strip but also in Lebanon, analyst says
Since that day, Israeli officials have vowed to obliterate Hamas using any means necessary as the group continues firing rockets at Israel. But the tactics, which are incurring an already dramatic civilian cost, could be classified as war crimes, human rights groups warn. The Israeli hostages are meanwhile still trapped in Gaza, an act by Hamas that the U.N. has also condemned as a war crime. The organization has also strongly condemned the horrific crimes committed by Hamas, and the deliberate and widespread killing of innocent civilians.
Smoke rises as Israeli airstrikes continue on the sixth day in Rafah, Gaza on October 12, 2023.
Abed Rahim Khatib | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Israel on Monday ordered a total siege of Gaza, cutting off the water, food and electricity for its 2.2 million residents. On Wednesday, its only power plant ran out of fuel.
At the time of writing, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports that more than 1,500 people in Gaza have been killed with 6,600 injured.
‘A living hell’
The public water supply has completely run out, Omar said. “We have one tank which we’re consuming from. We will run out of water at some point but we’re minimizing the consumption to the very minimum.”
Earlier in the week, his father got an automated call from the Israel Defense Forces giving him a five-minute warning to leave his home as the building was about to be bombed.
“Five minutes to leave your house. You can have a final look and that’s it,” Omar recounted, sending photos over WhatsApp of an apartment building reduced to a mountain of gray debris. “This is my family’s house, the house of all my childhood memories.”
On Friday, the IDF issued a 24-hour deadline for the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south, with Israel expected to launch a large-scale ground offensive in pursuit of Hamas. Omar and his family were living in the north, and are now among the estimated 423,000 people who are now displaced.
“Every day feels like a living hell, but somehow the next day is even worse,” Omar said.
Palestinian citizens inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli airstrikes on October 13, 2023 in Gaza City, Gaza.
Ahmad Hasaballah | Getty Images
“The airstrikes have been wiping out entire families and neighborhoods within the Gaza Strip,” Afaf Ahmed, a 21-year-old student from northern Gaza, told CNBC via social media. “They’ve been targeting residential towers, schools, educational institutions, ministries, most markets.”
A spokesperson for the IDF wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. Officials have stressed that Israel gave Gaza’s residents advance warning to evacuate.
“Evacuate where?” Ahmed exclaimed. “There is nowhere to hide from the bombs!”
“When Netanyahu said leave, he knows exactly what he’s talking about,” Ahmed said. “He knows that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can’t leave.”
Hospitals at ‘breaking point’
A major fear Gazans have is the depletion of medical supplies and loss of power to hospitals, which are already overrun with bodies. Once the fuel runs out, the hospitals’ backup generators will stop working.
“Before the war, the Gaza Strip only got six hours of electricity on a daily basis. Now we only get three to four hours and the situation is expected to get worse because Israel is not letting fuel in,” Afaf Ahmed said.
The World Health Organization on Friday warned Israel’s siege and bombardment have pushed Gaza’s hospitals to the “breaking point,” calling for an urgent humanitarian corridor to allow supplies and health workers into the territory.
“What we are witnessing is really beyond imagination. The toll this war is taking is really huge and seems unprecedented,” the U.N.’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, said. He warned that the failure of the sewage system was another impending disaster.
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Israel’s goal of evacuation from Gaza is not realistic, says Brookings Institute’s Michael O’Hanlon
Many of the Palestinians in Gaza CNBC spoke to said their biggest fear was losing their families.
For Mohammed Ashraf, a photographer in Gaza, that fear has already become reality.
“My niece was killed yesterday by the Israeli occupation army, as well as her two children, and she was pregnant,” he said. “They bombed the house over the heads of the civilians in it.”
Shortly before the war broke out, Afaf Ahmed got engaged. She said she fears not being able to experience the rest of her life.
“I just got engaged a few weeks ago so I really want to live. I want to live every single little detail of life. So yes of course I’m afraid of death. But living under oppression and living under these attacks all these years has taught us to be very strong.”
“Obviously we didn’t get used to this at all,” she said. “I can never get used to losing family members.”
Omar says his primary focus is trying to keep his 6-year-old daughter and 8-month-old son calm.
“No family should be in this situation,” he said. “I really feel powerless, I don’t believe anyone will stand with us. This is collective punishment, it’s illegal under international law … you are collectively punishing a population for things which they haven’t done as people.”
For years, human rights groups and U.N. officials have described Gaza as “the world’s largest open air prison.” Israel’s blockade began in 2007, but its occupation of the strip began in 1967, which the U.N. says remains a violation of international law.
“Gaza has always been a giant prison,” Omar said. “Now it’s becoming a giant grave.”
A cyclist passes in front of the Capitol, where today House Republicans will continue proceedings to elect a new House speaker following last week’s ouster of Kevin McCarthy at the Capitol in Washington, U.S., October 12, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The messy race to elect the next Republican speaker of the House of Representatives is injecting chaos into the typically genteel world of high-dollar GOP fundraising, threatening to disrupt a vital element of the Republican strategy to maintain its House majority.
One faction of wealthy donors is intent on exacting revenge on the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to people familiar with the matter.
“They are total pieces of s—,” said Andy Sabin, a longtime Republican donor and metalworks executive. Sabin told CNBC he’s encouraging fellow donors not to give or raise money for members like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the anti-McCarthy drive and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a moderate who sided with hardliners against the California leader.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) answers questions outside the U.S. Capitol after successfully leading a vote to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the office of Speaker of the House October 3, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images
Another group of financiers want to take on Republicans who opposed the top candidate to replace McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, these people explained.
“They’re angry. They’re all saying, ‘don’t give, don’t raise any money,'” a Republican fundraiser said.
Scalise withdrew his name from contention late Thursday after it became clear he would not be able to cobble together enough support in his conference to win a simple majority of the full House.
“If you have scheduled a fundraiser for any Republican House member who refuses to vote for Scalise, cancel it. If you are thinking of donating, don’t,” wrote attorney and GOP donor Eric Levine Thursday to his email list of approximately 1,500 people before Scalise dropped out.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise speaks to reporters after a closed-door vote meeting to nominate the US Speaker of the House candidate at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, October 11, 2023.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
The head of the litigation and bankruptcy department at Eiseman Levine, a New York firm, Levine told CNBC those who responded agreed to hold off on raising money for lawmakers who had opposed Scalise.
Other influential donors, including New York GOP fundraiser and McCarthy backer Joanne Zervos, want to try to convince Republicans to rally around their former speaker again, and resurrect McCarthy’s failed bid. They note that McCarthy has long been a prolific fundraiser for the party, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Several people declined to be named in order to speak freely about private matters. Zervos did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Still more major donors want to press pause on House GOP campaign donations altogether, at least while there is a speaker’s battle underway, one of the people explained.
“Who is going to want to give to these people based on what’s going on? Team McCarthy was a fundraising juggernaut. Losing Kevin McCarthy will be damaging for fundraising,” a longtime Wall Street Republican fundraiser said.
U.S. Rep. and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks to reporters as Republicans work to restart their effort to pick a new leader for the U.S. House of Representatives after party infighting led nominee Steve Scalise to withdraw from the race for speaker, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., October 13, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
McCarthy has said he does not plan to run for speaker a second time. But he is prepared to hold back campaign funds from his political action committee to at least four House Republicans who voted to remove him as speaker, according to another person familiar with the matter.
In 2022, a joint fundraising committee led by McCarthy, now called Protect the House, donated to four out of the eight House Republicans who later voted to oust him as speaker, according to OpenSecrets.
Reps. Mace, Eli Crane of Arizona, Virginia’s Bob Good and Matt Rosendale of Montana all received funds from the committee ahead of the last election.
So far this cycle, Mace has received over $180,000 from Protect the House, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Just days before Mace voted to remove McCarthy as speaker, the PAC gave just over $20,000 to her reelection effort, according to a person familiar with the donation.
It’s highly unlikely that lawmakers who voted to remove McCarthy will see any more money from the former speaker’s allied committee this cycle, they added. “He’s nice. He’s not that nice.”
One of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case told a federal judge Thursday that he’s not concerned his defense lawyer previously represented three witnesses who could testify against him.
The court hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, addressed concerns raised by prosecutors about the web of connections between the case’s defense lawyers and witnesses, many of whom work at Mar-a-Lago or for the former president.
Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Trump’s Florida estate, is represented by John Irving, who had been paid for by Trump’s political action committee. De Oliveira is accused of attempting to tamper with surveillance footage at the club during an investigation into the handling of classified documents and of lying to investigators. He and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and plan to contest the charges at trial.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, repeatedly asked De Oliveira, a Portuguese immigrant with little formal education, if he understood the potential ethical conflicts with his lawyer. He said multiple times that he did, but then struggled to articulate his understanding of the potential issues.
“If Mr. Irving was trying to cross other people – I don’t know how to say it,” he said.
Still, “I’m OK with it,” De Oliveira said. “I discussed it with my lawyers in previous days.”
“I would like to continue forward with Mr. Irving,” De Oliveira also said, adding that he had not been influenced or coerced into making that decision.
The two-hour hearing highlighted a bigger theme that has shaded the Mar-a-Lago documents case: The inter-connectedness of Trump’s legal universe. While it’s not atypical for an employer to assist employees in finding and paying for lawyers, a small group of attorneys have juggled many clients in Trump’s sphere, receiving compensation for at least some of their work from Trump’s Save America PAC and working closely with Trump’s own defense lawyers.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche also attended Thursday’s hearing.
Cannon accepted De Oliveira’s waiver of any issues that could arise with Irving. The Justice Department had raised the concern in part to eliminate possible grounds for appeal if the defendants are convicted at trial.
De Oliveira’s lawyer pledged not to question at trial the witnesses he previously represented, leaving that job to another lawyer.
Irving no longer witnesses who could testify about De Oliveira moving boxes at Mar-a-Lago and would have insight into him appearing to take photos of surveillance cameras. Irving said he may not even take issue with their testimony and believes it might not hurt De Oliveira.
Another Trump co-defendant in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta, was set to have a similar hearing on Thursday regarding his attorney Stanley Woodward representing a key witness who will be called to testify against all three defendants.
But Cannon refused to go forward with that hearing because prosecutors with the special counsel’s office raised arguments they hadn’t previously put in writing.
Before abruptly ending Nauta’s proceeding less than a half hour after it began, Cannon admonished the government “for frankly wasting the court’s time.”
Woodward and other defense attorneys have repeatedly tried to delay aspects of the case and want the trial date to be much later than May, when it is currently set. It’s not clear yet if the derailment of Nauta’s hearing on Thursday would ultimately prompt other deadlines in the case to be pushed back.
The special counsel’s office asked to hold these hearings for Nauta and De Oliveira more than two months ago, telling Cannon that the multiple witnesses Woodward and Irving represented could cause “divided loyalties” at the trial, when they are defending Nauta and De Oliveira while questioning their former clients on the stand.
Irving no longer represents the three clients he had who may be called to testify against Trump and his co-defendants, but Woodward still represents several potential witnesses in addition to Nauta.
As of August, the Justice Department told the court Woodward had at least seven clients who had been questioned in the investigation, including a Mar-a-Lago IT director and two others who worked for Trump while he was president, according to a court filing.
The IT director Yuscil Taveras, who cut an agreement with prosecutors under which he won’t be prosecuted in exchange for his cooperation, has a different attorney now.
Woodward has maintained his work for Nauta hasn’t created clear conflicts of interest. He’s also said in filings the IT director testified to a grand jury that he wasn’t coached or influenced on what he said.
Donald Trump repeatedly called the Hezbollah militant group ‘very smart’ in a speech on Wednesday
By Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent
In the days immediately after the Hamas attack on Israel, the Republicans seeking the US presidency had focused their criticism on President Joe Biden and what they saw as American weakness and missteps that had paved the way for violence.
That changed on Wednesday night, however, when Donald Trump addressed the topic in a speech near his home in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Now some of Mr Trump’s rivals are condemning the former president in some of the most direct language of this campaign.
During remarks to a crowd of supporters, Mr Trump said Israel had to “straighten it out because they’re fighting, potentially a very big force”.
He called Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant a “jerk” and repeatedly called Hezbollah, the militant Islamist group in Lebanon, “very smart”.
Mr Trump also said that Israel had initially agreed to work with the US on a 2020 drone strike that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, but that they backed out at the last minute.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down,” he said. “That was a very terrible thing.”
In a television interview that aired Thursday, he went further in his criticism of the Israeli prime minister, saying Mr Netanyahu was “not very prepared” for the possibility of a Hamas attack.
Mr Trump’s remarks prompted a series of quick and pointed responses from Ron DeSantis, the candidate who once was in a dead heat with the former president but now trails him in most polls by a wide margin.
“Terrorists have murdered at least 1,200 Israelis and 22 Americans and are holding more hostage,” the Florida governor wrote in a social media post, “so it is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for president, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists.”
A DeSantis campaign spokesperson would later call Mr Trump’s remarks “disturbing and disqualifying”.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Ron DeSantis slammed Mr Trump for “attacking” Israel and “praising” Hezbollah
Mr Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, noted a pattern in his old boss’s foreign policy statements.
“Hezbollah aren’t smart, they’re evil,” he said in a radio interview on Thursday.
“But the former president also said when Russia invaded Ukraine in a similar, unprovoked, unconscionable invasion a year-and-a-half ago, he said Vladimir Putin was a genius.”
The former president’s campaign team on Thursday attempted to explain Mr Trump’s comments in a social media post on Thursday, writing, “smart does not equal good” – an effort the DeSantis campaign called “rhetorical gymnastics”.
Mr Trump’s comments also prompted a response from Israeli communications minister Shlomo Karhi, who called it “shameful”.
“A former US president abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens,” he said on Israeli television.
“We don’t have to bother with him and the nonsense he spouts.”
During his presidency, Mr Trump was a vocal and aggressive supporter of Israel and its right-wing Likud government.
In 2018, he relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a move that past US leaders had been reluctant to make because of diplomatic blowback.
It won him an outpouring of support from many Israelis.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Mr Trump vocally supported Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud government when he was in office
But he has harboured a grudge against Mr Netanyahu since the 2020 US presidential election, when the Israeli prime minister called to congratulate Mr Biden on his victory while Mr Trump was still contesting the voting results.
It’s yet another indication that for Mr Trump, his foreign policy views and statements can be determined as much by personal issues as political ones.
Democrats are facing their own divisions on the topic, as sympathies towards the Palestinian situation that have grown more pronounced in recent years clash with an outpouring of support and anger over the Hamas attacks.
Within the left-wing progressive movement, cracks have been forming.
Two liberal House Democrats in Michigan, Rashida Tlaib and Shri Thanedar, clashed over the latter’s criticism of members of Congress who call Hamas “resistance” or “militants”.
Ms Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, said Mr Thanedar was more interested in generating social media attention than helping his constituents.
Earlier this week, some House Democrats exchanged heated words behind closed doors over the Israel attacks, reportedly after Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey said that anyone in Congress who hasn’t condemned the attack should feel guilty.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Democrat Rashida Tlaib – the only Palestinian American in Congress – has angered some in her party with remarks on the conflict
Mr Trump isn’t the only Republican presidential hopeful who has discovered that the Hamas attack on Israel can be somewhat treacherous political ground, either.
Mr DeSantis himself was put on the defensive while campaigning in New Hampshire on Thursday, as a voter wondered why the Florida governor was not also expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians who have been killed by Israeli bombing campaigns.
“They are not decapitating babies’ heads,” Mr DeSantis said, in reference to unconfirmed reports of specific Hamas atrocities on Saturday. “They are not intentionally doing that.”
The man, who said he had voted for Mr Trump in the past, told Mr DeSantis he had lost his support.
Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy – the tech entrepreneur and political novice who is currently close to Mr DeSantis in recent Republican polls – instigated his own round of criticism when he said that the many Republicans expressing support for Israel after the Hamas attack were engaging in “selective moral outrage” based on campaign contributions and deep-pocketed donors.
“It is shameful,” he said. “And I think that there are, frankly, financial and corrupting influences that lead them exactly to speak the way they do, that’s just the hard truth.”
That prompted a back-and-forth on social media with Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas, who called Mr Ramaswamy a “Hamas apologist” and a “clown”.
The Republican race has been remarkably stable over recent months, as Mr Trump has built and maintained a sizable lead over his opponents through a variety of legal and political drama.
The conflict in Israel, however, has created a new turbulence in US and global politics that could continue to cause headaches for Democrats – and, possibly, give Mr Trump’s rivals an opening to exploit.
