Weekly News Roundup - 6/7/24
D-Day 80th anniversary, a call to our own duty // Biden seeks to box in Israel and Hamas, toward a ceasefire
Welcome to the 22nd Weekly News Roundup of 2024. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here. If you notice stories or issues you’d like to see mentioned in these roundups, let me know. In 2024, the Border Stalkers Substack is featuring one news update a week, and one book a month, with weekly posts on each book. The book of the month schedule is here.
These weekly dispatches are designed for people who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.
But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”
Quotes of the Week
"Anyone who wants to save lives—Palestinian, Israeli, it doesn’t matter—should be arguing for liberalism, statehood, structure, democracy, and borders. Liberalism suppresses the sub-rational urges. The end of dishonor for Palestinians and the end of exile for Jews must follow the creation of a border between them." - Rabbi Michael G. Holzman
"I never thought about it before. But half of the people in those jobs know who they are, and the other half are still trying to figure it out." - former House Speaker John Boehner, on members of Congress
Big Stories This Week
President Biden put pressure on both Hamas and Israel to accept a ceasefire deal, as the U.S. government highlights an agreement it says that Israel itself has approved. It's an effort to box in both sides and push them toward an end of hostilities that prompts massive street marches in Israel calling on Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's centralization of power and Hindu nationalism turned off enough voters to cost Modi a large number of seats in India's parliament. Modi won a third term as Prime Minister but his mandate and power in that five-year period will be severely curtailed compared to previously.
Hunter Biden's trial for purchasing a gun while abusing illegal drugs began, and President Biden told ABC News that he would not pardon Hunter if he was convicted. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and claims that the Justice Department is prosecuting him because of political pressure from Republicans.
Week in Review
Friday, May 31
President Biden gives a speech on the Middle East in which he seeks to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward pursuing an end to the war in Gaza, and to pressure Hamas to accept such a ceasefire. “Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it," Biden says. The U.S. then puts out a joint statement with Egypt and Qatar, the Arab countries facilitating talks, calling on Hamas and Israel to "finalize the agreement." "We can’t lose this moment," Biden says. "Indefinite war in pursuit of an unidentified notion of 'total victory' ... will only bog down Israel in Gaza, draining the economic, military, and human resources, and furthering Israel’s isolation in the world."
Biden prefaces his speech on the Middle East with his first remarks on former President Trump's criminal conviction in New York. "The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed," Biden says. "Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens — 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who served on juries, this jury was chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence — five weeks. And after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. Now he’ll be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity.That’s how the American system of justice works. And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America — our justice system.The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that.That’s America. That’s who we are. And that’s who we’ll always be, God willing."
Marian Robinson, mother to former First Lady Michelle Obama, passes away at 86.
Saturday, June 1
In response to Biden's speech, 120,000 Israelis rally in Tel Aviv, calling on Netanyahu to accept the deal. Some signs say "the people demand Netanyahu's plan," while some news coverage says the protests are calling on the Israeli government to accept the "U.S. ceasefire deal."
Sunday, June 2
Claudia Sheinbaum is elected president of Mexico, the first woman to hold that position. She faces massive challenges in a nation beset by gang violence, and questions about whether she will be independent from outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is pushing ahead with massive changes to the nation's government.
Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee abruptly exits the paper's top job, in a move announced suddenly over e-mail. It is the culmination of five months of friction between Buzbee — at the Post since 2021 — and newly minted publisher and CEO William Lewis. Lewis was impatient to implement changes to try to turn around the legendary newspaper, which has lost more than $70 million over the last year.
Monday, June 3
The U.S. urges the U.N. Security Council to back the ceasefire proposal highlighted by Biden over the weekend.
Jury selection begins and concludes in the trial of Hunter Biden, and opening statements are set for Tuesday.
Washington Post employees meet with new Executive Editor Matt Murray, who tells them bluntly: "We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore."
Tuesday, June 4
President Biden temporarily closes the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum seekers by executive order, after seeking those authorities from Congress earlier this year. Republicans refused to grant authority this year, since an improving border situation could help Biden's reelection effort.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department is currently prosecuting both former President Trump and President Biden's son Hunter, testifies before Congress and rebukes House Republican lawmakers for promoting baseless rumors that the DOJ is involved at all in the New York state criminal case in which Trump was convicted last week. He also said that efforts to hold in contempt of Congress "have not and will not" influence DOJ's decisions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins a third term, but his party falls far short of his predicted margin of victory, in a stinging rebuke to Modi's "tightening grip on India’s democratic institutions and Parliament, and his strident Hindu nationalism that has targeted the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims." Modi had predicted that his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party would win around 370 seats and that coalition partners would win 30. They ended up winning just 240 seats, well below that, while partners won 54. The embarrassing result for Modi means his third term will look a lot different than his first two, since he will need to rely on others outside his party to act.
After opening statements, prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case focus their first day of arguments on his drug use and patterns of deceptive behavior.
Wednesday, June 5
Hunter Biden's ex-wife testifies about his crack cocaine use, and jurors hear about Hunter's descent into drug abuse after the death of his brother, Beau, in 2015, from cancer.
Thursday, June 6
It is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the U.S.-led Allied invasion of France to dislodge Germany's occupation during World War II. President Biden attends a ceremony on the beaches of Normandy, where soldiers waded onshore amid a blistering fusillade of enemy fire to take the first foothold of a nearly three-month campaign to liberate France. "More than 150,000 American, British, Canadian, and French ground troops ... stormed some fifty miles of coastline in Northern France," the National D-Day Memorial Foundation says. Some 2,509 American soldiers, and 1,914 from its allies, died that day, according to the Foundation's count.
The European Central Bank moves ahead with an interest rate cut, diverging from the U.S. Federal Reserve's approach.
The U.S. government is looking at anti-trust litigation against major AI companies Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft, Axios reports.
A heat wave broke records in the Southwest, with the temperature hitting 110 degrees in Phoenix.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is ordered to report to prison by July by a federal judge, for his conviction in defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.
Bipartisan leadership in Congress announce they have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on July 24.
The widow of President Biden's son, Beau, testifies in Hunter Biden's trial about finding Hunter's gun in his car and throwing it in the trash, out of fear he might hurt himself with it, or that her kids might find it.
President Biden says he will not pardon his son, Hunter, if he is convicted of a crime in the case taking place right now, and that he will accept the result of the trial.
Friday, June 7
President Biden speaks at Pointe du Hoc, where Army Rangers scaled the cliffs on D-Day, and says the nation's veterans are "asking us to stay true to what America stands for ... to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up aggression abroad and at home, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.”
Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris and apologizes that it took many months for Congress to approve military aid to help Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion. "Some of our very conservative members were holding it up but we got it done finally," Biden says.
Paris unveils the Olympic Rings on the Eiffel Tower, 50 days before the 2024 summer Olympics are scheduled to start.
Hunter Biden's defense attorneys begin calling witnesses, and start with Hunter's daughter, Naomi.
A strong jobs report for the month of May shows that the U.S. economy is healthy and growing steadily.
The Associated Press releases an analysis that finds the percentage of women and children killed in Gaza by attacks from the Israeli Defense Forces have gone "from 64% in late October, to 62% as of early January, to 57% by the end of March, to 54% by the end of April." The AP contrasts this with reports from the Gaza Health Ministry, which "has claimed that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women and children." The death toll in Gaza stood at 36,379 at the end of May, according to the health ministry.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken will push for a ceasefire breakthrough next week in his eighth trip to the region since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, the State Department says.
Interesting Reads
The Failing State Next Door, by David Frum for The Atlantic
OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance, by Kevin Roose for The New York Times (free link)
The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: ‘Fight Fire With Fire’, by Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage for The New York Times (free link)
United States shocks cricket heavyweight Pakistan at T20 World Cup in one of the biggest upsets ever, by the Associated Press
From collapsed plea deal to trial: How Hunter Biden has come to face jurors on federal gun charges, by Alanna Durkin Richer for The Associated Press
Biden's Border U-Turn by David Weigel for Semafor
NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week, by Melissa Goldin for The Associated Press