View From DC: US-Israeli ‘shared values’ shaken
Greetings from The National's Washington bureau.
In a departure from partisan politics, aliens were the talk of the town this week after a former US intelligence analyst testified on the Hill that the government has retrieved crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft, along with the "non-human" remains of the pilots.
The analyst's remarkable testimony will be a boon to UFO believers who for decades have argued that the US government has concealed the truth about what is really out there.
Closer to home, the Biden administration was forced on to awkward footing this week as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government pushed through the first in a series of judicial reforms that have sparked months of furious protest and international condemnation.
A mainstay of established US foreign policy doctrine is unequivocal support for its long-time ally Israel, and while officials were quick to reaffirm this, the scolding from the Biden administration was impossible to miss.
Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, emphasising the need for greater political consensus and telling him to do something about settler violence .
The White House , meanwhile, called Israel's actions to gut the Supreme Court's oversight powers “unfortunate".
In domestic affairs, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised up US interest rates to a 22-year high. The increase by 25 basis points is the 11th rise since March 2022 in the Fed's war on inflation.
Outside of the Washington beltway, the summer heatwave continues to reach alarming new benchmarks.
Shallow waters off south Florida topped 37.8°C for several hours this week, experts said on Tuesday, potentially beating a Kuwait-set world record with temperatures more commonly associated with hot tubs.
A peak temperature of 38.38oC was recorded in Manatee Bay south of Miami, but it remained above 37.77oC for about four hours – devastating for coral reef ecosystems and the species that depend on them.
One local coral reef restoration project announced a tragic “100 per cent coral mortality” in the Sombrero Reef after a decade of restoration work.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's son Hunter pleaded not guilty to two tax charges on Wednesday, after a plea deal unravelled earlier in the day.
He was initially going to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors, who were planning to recommend two years on probation.
Instead, the routine plea hearing turned into a three-hour session featuring hushed negotiations between lawyers and pointed questions from Donald Trump-appointed US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika.
Finally, in another revealing moment of frailty among Washington's elderly ruling class, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who is 81, suffered some sort of cognitive episode while speaking at a podium.
Ellie Sennett
US Correspondent
EYE ON 2024
Trump classified documents trial set for May 2024
The federal case against Republican front-runner and former US president Donald Trump 's alleged mishandling of classified documents is scheduled to begin next May, the judge presiding over the case ordered on Friday.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the trial would start on May 20, 2024, in the Fort Pierce Division of Florida. She expected the trial to last two weeks.
“Discovery in this case is exceedingly voluminous and will require substantial time to review and digest in accordance with defendants’ right to a fair trial,” Ms Cannon wrote in her order.
What is Washington talking about?
领英推荐
Israel's judicial overhaul The overhaul of Israel's top court comes as Americans' attitudes shift on the country , particularly its hardline policies towards Palestinians, in a change yet to be fully reflected in the generally pro-Israel US Congress. The Biden administration has cautiously navigated the judicial overhaul, asserting continued support for the country while “privately and publicly” expressing hopes that any major changes come with a major democratic consensus. Brian Katulis, senior fellow and vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told The National that the Biden administration's strategy to try to deter the judicial reforms “clearly didn't work”.
Climate change and infrastructure spending “The dangers are clear and present. I hope that the message is getting through. This is real,” Senate budget committee chairman Sheldon Whitehouse said at a Wednesday hearing on climate change's impacts on national infrastructure. The hearing occurred as large parts of the US struggled with an oppressive heatwave, including Phoenix, Arizona, which endured a record 25 days of temperatures above 43oC. The committee heard how climate change is threatening the national energy grid, roadways, air travel and coastal communities.
Tunisia's military The Brookings Institution Centre for Middle East Policy on Tuesday hosted an online discussion on the findings from non-resident fellow Sharan Grewal's new book on the Tunisian military and its evolution, Soldiers of Democracy? Military Legacies and the Arab Spring. Expert panelists examined key questions on why the military agreed to close the parliament, how civil-military relations are shifting today, and the implications for US policy.
QUOTED
"Israel has just demonstrated who exactly they share values with and it is not the majority of the American-Jewish community."
- Hadar Susskind, president of the progressive Jewish-American group Americans for Peace Now, speaking to The National about the recent judicial overhaul
Spotlight: The Palestinian-American chef who's turned his grandparents' food into fine-dining fare
Michael Rafidi, a Palestinian-American chef who grew up in Maryland, had little interest in cooking the food of his grandparents for much of his career, leaning more towards classic French and modern cuisine.
But after doing some travelling, including in the Middle East, Mr Rafidi, 40, found a new love for the dishes he ate at home while growing up.
“I decided I should get back to my roots,” Mr Rafidi tells The National.
In 2020, he opened Albi in Washington as a tribute to his grandparents,
But the award-winning, upscale Albi is far from a traditional restaurant, and the food he serves is not prepared the way his grandmother – who he still texts for recipes and advice – would necessarily cook, let alone approve of.
“I am not trying to do verbatim Palestinian food,” Mr Rafidi says. “I grew up here in DC, so this is an American restaurant, but from a Palestinian view."
ONLY IN AMERICA
Cure for loneliness? How an AI robot helps New York's isolated
Monica Perez was so lonely she used to talk to herself constantly.
Neighbours in the building where she lives would often see her do it in the lift. They would be baffled to find her having a conversation by herself as the doors opened.
Ms Perez, 65, lives in the quaint town of Beacon, a historic settlement on the Hudson River about 100km north of New York City.
Estranged from much of her family, Ms Perez, who also suffers from vision loss and epilepsy, has lived alone in the building for about 10 years.
Her experience isn't a very rare one – the US has declared loneliness to be a public health epidemic that is as damaging to well-being as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
It was this feeling that spurred Ms Perez to find a solution.
Eventually, she reached a company in San Francisco, Intuition Robotics, which offered her a new machine they called ElliQ, tipped as a proactive and empathetic care companion designed to help older adults remain active, engaged and independent.