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Former US President Jimmy Carter dies – He was 100 years old
The US says it pushed retraction of a famine warning for north Gaza. Aid groups express concern.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lead organization monitoring for food crises around the world withdrew a new report this week warning of imminent famine in north Gaza under what it called Israel's “near-total blockade,” after the U.S. asked for its retraction, U.S. officials told the Associated Press. The move follows public criticism of the report from the U.S. ambassador to Israel. The rare public dispute drew accusations from prominent aid and human-rights figures that the work of the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network , meant to reflect the opinion of unbiased international experts, has been tainted by politics. A declaration of famine would be a great embarrassment for Israel, which has insisted that its 15-month war in Gaza is aimed against the Hamas militant group and not against its civilian population. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Wednesday, December 18, 2024 The future of search and travel discovery is undergoing a transformative shift, fueled by generative AI, hybrid models, and the evolving dominance of video platforms. As technology advances and consumer behavior adapts, how we discover information—and particularly how we plan and experience travel—is changing fundamentally. While Google search has dominated the information landscape for over two decades, emerging tools and interfaces now challenge the status quo, creating a complex but exciting evolution. As we stand at the crossroads of technology and travel, the solutions of today—large language models (LLMs), video content platforms, and hybrid search systems—may already represent the optimal state of search. However, challenges such as bias, hallucinations in AI outputs, and conflicts between entertainment and information persist, leading to innovative opportunities for a seamless, personalized travel discovery experience. The Current Landscape of Search and Travel Discovery For over 20 years, Google has reigned as the most intuitive way to find information. The platform’s mission statement—“organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible”—has been delivered with incredible success. Google’s formula of providing credible third-party sources, ranked by algorithms, and monetized with unobtrusive ads has remained unrivaled. For travel, Google serves as both an informational and inspirational tool. Users can find everything from flight deals and destination guides to reviews and itineraries. Its seamless experience, paired with trusted sources, makes it the go-to platform. However, while Google works well, new models like AI-powered search and video discovery are beginning to capture more attention, particularly from younger generations. AI and Large Language Models: The Rise of Conversational Search Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT have introduced a revolutionary new way to consume information. Trained on vast amounts of data, LLMs can deliver instant answers in a conversational format through text or voice, creating a more efficient alternative to traditional search engines. In the realm of travel discovery, LLMs are capable of: While still in their early stages, LLMs are filling gaps in traditional travel data sources. However, challenges persist, such as hallucinations (fabricated information) and cognitive bias. Hallucinations are expected to decrease over time, while cognitive bias—rooted in the human knowledge these models are trained on—will require ongoing adjustments. Despite these limitations, LLMs represent the future of search due to their adaptability and growing ability to provide trustworthy information. As companies like OpenAI and Google pursue broader goals of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), these models will increasingly dominate travel planning and discovery. Google: The Workhorse of Information, But For How Long? Google remains the cornerstone of search today, offering the flexibility to pick and choose sources. Its algorithm-driven approach prioritizes trust and credibility, essential for travel planning where reliability matters. However, compared to AI-driven search, Google can feel inefficient. Users must navigate multiple links, often clicking at random, which consumes time and effort. Younger generations, particularly Gen Z, are signaling a shift in preferences. Many consider text search too resource-heavy and are turning to video-first platforms like TikTok and YouTube for answers. While Google will likely remain relevant, it must evolve to compete with the efficiency and engagement of AI-powered tools and video platforms. Video Platforms: Inspiration and Conflict Video platforms are increasingly shaping how people discover travel destinations, with TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube leading the way. These platforms excel in delivering: However, video platforms face inherent challenges. Apps like TikTok prioritize engagement over accuracy, driven by algorithms designed to maximize watch time. This creates a conflict between viral entertainment content and factual, informative travel data. While videos succeed at inspiration, they often fall short as reliable sources of truth for travel planning. For travelers, the result is a fragmented experience—immersive but unreliable. Platforms like TikTok are not designed as information retrieval systems, yet they hold significant influence over travel trends and decisions. The Hybrid Model: Combining AI, Search, and Video The future of search for travel will likely combine the strengths of AI, traditional search engines, and video platforms into a seamless, hybrid model. Imagine a platform that: This hybrid approach could provide users with: Google and OpenAI are already moving in this direction. Google’s search tools are evolving to incorporate AI-driven insights, while ChatGPT’s “Search” feature integrates real-time information retrieval. The ultimate solution may feature a user experience (UX) resembling Google, enhanced with AI personalization and video integration. AI Agents: The Gatekeepers of Personalized Search As search technology evolves, AI agents will play a central role in personalizing travel discovery. These agents act as intermediaries, pre-processing data to deliver curated, de-biased information in the format users prefer. However, humans are inherently biased, and travelers may instruct AI agents to favor certain brands, influencers, or sources. This could perpetuate existing biases and limit discovery, creating a paradox where personalization conflicts with objectivity. The Role of AI-Generated Videos To address the shortcomings of video platforms, AI-generated videos may emerge as a solution. While controversial, synthetic videos created by AI using accurate, trusted data could fill the gap between inspiration and reliable information. By combining human-like visuals with factual data, these videos could deliver engaging yet accurate travel content. For instance, imagine asking an AI for a travel itinerary and receiving a video of a virtual guide showcasing destinations, activities, and tips based on your preferences. This technology may take another two years to become fully viable, but it presents a promising solution to the conflict between viral and informational content. Conclusion: The Future of Travel Search is Hybrid The evolution of search is redefining how travelers discover, plan, and experience the world. AI-driven tools, video platforms, and hybrid search models are merging to create faster, more personalized, and immersive solutions. While Google remains foundational, LLMs and video platforms are reshaping user expectations, particularly among younger generations. The hybrid future of travel discovery will balance inspiration, efficiency, and trust. AI agents will curate data, while synthetic videos may provide engaging and reliable content. As search technology continues to evolve, the ultimate goal will remain the same: helping travelers find the information they need—seamlessly and intuitively—to explore the world with confidence.
Matt Hancock has revealed England's hospitals were on the brink, mere "hours" away from exhausting supplies of certain personal protective equipment (PPE) during the initial months of the Covid-19 crisis. The ex-health secretary disclosed to the Covid-19 inquiry that some PPE was in critical shortage across the first pandemic wave. He holds a firm belief that in any forthcoming pandemics, vaccines should be compulsory for NHS and social care workers, and that masks ought to be obligatory in hospitals immediately. When probed by lead counsel to the inquiry, Jacqueline Carey KC, about the pre-pandemic lack of gowns impacting the capacity to provide adequate PPE, Mr Hancock admitted: "The stockpile that we had was not as good as it needs to be in the future, absolutely." Enquired whether England ever completely depleted its PPE stock, he conceded: "As a whole? No, but individual locations did. "We came extremely close. We came within small numbers of items on a regular basis during April and May 2020 – by the second wave, we were in better shape. "Gowns I think at one point we got to within six or seven hours of running out. "We were working incredibly hard to make sure that we didn’t (run out). We nearly did." On the topic of facemask usage in hospitals during future pandemics, he commented: "It should be brought in immediately, and supplies need to be ready, preferably in each hospital, to make that possible." Additionally, Mr Hancock stated that ensuring health and social care workers are fully vaccinated is a "reasonable step that should be expected" and advocated for simultaneous implementation in the NHS and social care sectors. The policy requiring Care Quality Commission-registered care home staff to be fully vaccinated to work in care homes, unless medically exempt, came into effect in November 2021, with full enforcement from April 2022. Mr Hancock expressed regret over not applying this rule to both social care and the NHS at the same time, emphasising: "If you are employed to care for others, then you should take reasonable steps to ensure you are not harming those in your care." "A clinically proven vaccine is a reasonable step that should be expected." Earlier, Mr Hancock, who was booed by a campaigner as he arrived to give evidence, claimed he had "ruffled some feathers" by shielding the NHS from political interference. He also told the inquiry meddling from Number 10 created "incredible difficulties" in Covid-19 testing efforts. The inquiry's third module is scrutinising the repercussions of the virus on healthcare frameworks within the UK's four nations. When questioned about his witness statements, which alluded to "inappropriate political interference from Number 10" affecting the scope of these hearings, Mr Hancock acknowledged: "Well, of course some of it did. For instance, the biggest interference that caused difficulties was within testing, where some of the political appointees in Number 10 caused incredible difficulties." He also pointed fingers at Scotland's former first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, for instigating "all sorts of difficulties" during the crisis. At the onset of Thursday's hearing, Mr Hancock was probed about the protection of frontline workers throughout the pandemic. He maintained that the government did "everything we possibly could", but conceded: "Does that mean, in a system that employs 1.4 million people in the NHS, with another around two and a half million in social care, that every decision was perfect? Of course it wasn’t." Defending the Stay Home, Save Lives, Protect the NHS campaign, Mr Hancock affirmed its balance when asked, replying simply: "Yes. "We needed to ensure that the public across the whole of the UK understood the importance of staying at home whenever possible in order to stop the spread of the virus." Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett questioned Mr Hancock about his assertion that the NHS was available to all during the pandemic based on need. She pointed out that individuals requiring cancer screening or major surgeries, such as hip operations, were unable to access necessary care. In response, Mr Hancock explained: "It was not safe clinically to go for some cancer treatment during the pandemic, because cancer treatment sometimes involves reducing the immune system. "It was better to delay some non-urgent operations in order to protect both the space in the NHS and the patients themselves because, as we know, you’re more likely to catch Covid in a hospital than in almost any other setting." Mr Hancock emphasized that "the overall point is, that we did not have a collapse in the system". Mr Hancock had previously resigned as Health Secretary after footage surfaced of him breaching social distancing rules by kissing his former aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his office. Following his sensational departure from the front bench, he joined the cast of the ITV reality series I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Upon exiting Dorland House after giving testimony on Thursday, the ex-health secretary was greeted with cries of "liar" from protestors. ChronicleLive is now on WhatsApp and we want you to join our communities. We have a number of communities to join, so you can choose which one you want to be part of and we'll send you the latest news direct to your phone. You could even join them all! To join you need to have WhatsApp on your device. All you need to do is choose which community you want to join, click on the link and press 'join community'. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the ChronicleLive team. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you’re curious, you can read our privacy notice . Join the ChronicleLive Breaking News and Top Stories community Join our Court & Crime community Join the Things to do in Newcastle and the North East community Join our Northumberland community Join our County Durham community Join our Sunderland community Join our NUFC community Join our SAFC community Join our Great North Run communityFRANKFURT, Germany -- A power cable linking Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea suffered an outage, prompting an investigation, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Wednesday. Writing on X, Orpo said that power transmission through the Estlink-2 cable stopped Wednesday and that authorities were “investigating the matter.” He said the interruption would not affect electricity supplies in Finland. Estonian network operator Elering said there was enough spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side, public broadcaster ERR said on its website. Authorities have been on edge about undersea infrastructure in the Baltic. Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November . Germany's defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was “sabotage," but without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible. The remark came during a speech in which he discussed hybrid warfare threats from Russia. The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that once brought natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities have termed it sabotage and launched criminal probes. The Estlink-2 cable was down for much of this year to repair damage from a short circuit that may have been caused by the cable's complex positioning, ERR reported.
Kneron To Unveil Cutting-Edge AI Solutions At CES 2025ATLANTA — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who tried to restore virtue to the White House after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, then rebounded from a landslide defeat to become a global advocate of human rights and democracy, has died. He was 100 years old. The Carter Center said the 39th president died Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, lived most of their lives. A moderate Democrat, Carter ran for president in 1976 as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad grin, effusive Baptist faith and technocratic plans for efficient government. His promise to never deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter said. Carter’s victory over Republican Gerald Ford, whose fortunes fell after pardoning Nixon, came amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over race, women’s rights and America’s role in the world. His achievements included brokering Mideast peace by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David for 13 days in 1978. But his coalition splintered under double-digit inflation and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His negotiations ultimately brought all the hostages home alive, but in a final insult, Iran didn’t release them until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had trounced him in the 1980 election. Humbled and back home in Georgia, Carter said his faith demanded that he keep doing whatever he could, for as long as he could, to try to make a difference. He and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in 1982 and spent the next 40 years traveling the world as peacemakers, human rights advocates and champions of democracy and public health. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter helped ease nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiate cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, the center had monitored at least 113 elections around the world. Carter was determined to eradicate guinea worm infections as one of many health initiatives. Swinging hammers into their 90s, the Carters built homes with Habitat for Humanity. Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess The common observation that he was better as an ex-president rankled Carter. His allies were pleased that he lived long enough to see biographers and historians revisit his presidency and declare it more impactful than many understood at the time. Propelled in 1976 by voters in Iowa and then across the South, Carter ran a no-frills campaign. Americans were captivated by the earnest engineer, and while an election-year Playboy interview drew snickers when he said he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” voters tired of political cynicism found it endearing. The first family set an informal tone in the White House, carrying their own luggage, trying to silence the Marine Band’s traditional “Hail to the Chief” and enrolling daughter, Amy, in public schools. Carter was lampooned for wearing a cardigan and urging Americans to turn down their thermostats. But Carter set the stage for an economic revival and sharply reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the energy industry along with airlines, trains and trucking. He established the departments of Energy and Education, appointed record numbers of women and nonwhites to federal posts, preserved millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness and pardoned most Vietnam draft evaders. Emphasizing human rights, he ended most support for military dictators and took on bribery by multinational corporations by signing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He persuaded the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties and normalized relations with China, an outgrowth of Nixon’s outreach to Beijing. But crippling turns in foreign affairs took their toll. When OPEC hiked crude prices, making drivers line up for gasoline as inflation spiked to 11%, Carter tried to encourage Americans to overcome “a crisis of confidence.” Many voters lost confidence in Carter instead after the infamous address that media dubbed his “malaise” speech, even though he never used that word. After Carter reluctantly agreed to admit the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. Negotiations to quickly free the hostages broke down, and then eight Americans died when a top-secret military rescue attempt failed. Carter also had to reverse course on the SALT II nuclear arms treaty after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Though historians would later credit Carter’s diplomatic efforts for hastening the end of the Cold War, Republicans labeled his soft power weak. Reagan’s “make America great again” appeals resonated, and he beat Carter in all but six states. Born Oct. 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. married fellow Plains native Rosalynn Smith in 1946, the year he graduated from the Naval Academy. He brought his young family back to Plains after his father died, abandoning his Navy career, and they soon turned their ambitions to politics. Carter reached the state Senate in 1962. After rural white and Black voters elected him governor in 1970, he drew national attention by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Carter published more than 30 books and remained influential as his center turned its democracy advocacy onto U.S. politics, monitoring an audit of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. After a 2015 cancer diagnosis, Carter said he felt “perfectly at ease with whatever comes.” “I’ve had a wonderful life,” he said. “I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”Manmohan Singh created distinct identity in Indian politics Shekhawat on ex-PM's death
In the wake of a successful effort to kill a year-end spending bill and replace it with more limited legislation to keep the government open, Elon Musk declared victory last week on X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform he owns: “Your actions turned a bill that weighed pounds into a bill that weighed ounces!” he crowed. “You are the media now. VOX POPULI VOX DEI.” The stopgap funding measure will largely delay major spending decisions until after Donald Trump’s inauguration, keep the government open through the holidays and at least temporarily delay the most indefensible spending that was crammed into the scale-tipping bill. But those who believe the indefensible spending won’t end up back in the budget are endearingly optimistic. The most interesting political takeaway from the drama is that the Republican Party now has two masters with different goals. Musk’s stated mission was to impose fiscal restraint and greater efficiency on government (though his unstated motives are a matter of speculation). Trump’s objective was to avoid the hassles of a debate over raising the government borrowing limit early in his term, freeing him to rack up more debt through spending and tax cuts. Based purely on the political result, Musk won and Trump lost. While the bill does spend less than the earlier version, it does not raise the debt ceiling. A case can be made for both goals. I think Musk is indisputably correct about the need to cut spending. And although I don’t want Trump to be able to amass more debt, fights over the borrowing limit are reckless because they put the full faith and credit of the United States in doubt. The challenge for Republican legislators is that they are caught between the agendas of two figures who are very popular on the right, and those agendas — and perhaps others — are in conflict. We’ll have to wait to see how the politics play out. In the meantime, I also want to address the more philosophical problems with Musk’s position. First of all, literally weighing the value or profligacy of a piece of legislation by the ounce, as Musk proposes, is not exactly logical. The National Industrial Recovery Act — the foundational legislation of the New Deal — comes in at an economical 18 pages, but that hardly gives one a sense of its massive impact on the economy. Then there’s the idea that Musk’s minor budget victory proves his X followers are “the media now.” Huh? The standard conservative complaint about traditional media is that they mislead the public in the service of an ideological or self-serving agenda. But Musk rallied his virtual mob with a host of false claims about the bigger-spending bill. Now he is suggesting that misleading the public in the service of the agenda of the owner of a media platform is a glorious triumph. It’s certainly a triumph for if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them hypocrisy. Lastly, Musk’s oft-repeated motto “ Vox populi, vox dei ” — “The voice of the people is the voice of God” — is theological nonsense . Its use by British Whigs to challenge monarchical power in the 18th century was politically defensible, but it doesn’t take a divinity degree to understand that, taken literally, the phrase argues that God is subservient to the passions and vicissitudes of public opinion. It’s very difficult to find anything in the Old or New Testament to back up that idea. If a poll were all it took to change God’s mind, Sodom and Gomorrah would have been fine, Noah wouldn’t have needed a boat and Jesus wouldn’t have had to ask God to “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” One of the earliest mentions of the Latin phrase is found in the writings of Alcuin of York , an adviser to Charlemagne. Alcuin told the first holy Roman emperor to ignore such declarations of public godliness “since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” Musk started using the phrase “ Vox populi, vox dei ” to validate the verdicts of his own Twitter polls. When users voted to reinstate Trump’s account two years ago, Musk declared that the result he clearly wanted amounted to a divine statement. We can only guess what this says about Musk’s God complex and its compatibility with his role as Trump’s Alcuin. But my main objection to Musk’s assertion is that it’s a dangerous lie. The idea that the largest mob has God on its side is even more pernicious than the notion that legislation should be measured in pounds. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch .A boat explosion at a South Florida marina kills 1 and injures 5 others
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lead organization monitoring for food crises around the world withdrew a new report this week warning of imminent famine in north Gaza under what it called Israel's “near-total blockade,” after the U.S. asked for its retraction, U.S. officials told the Associated Press. The move follows public criticism of the report from the U.S. ambassador to Israel. The rare public dispute drew accusations from prominent aid and human-rights figures that the work of the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network , meant to reflect the opinion of unbiased international experts, has been tainted by politics. A declaration of famine would be a great embarrassment for Israel, which has insisted that its 15-month war in Gaza is aimed against the Hamas militant group and not against its civilian population. U.S. ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew earlier this week called the warning by the internationally recognized group inaccurate and “irresponsible ." Lew and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funds the monitoring group, both said the findings failed to properly account for rapidly changing circumstances in north Gaza. Humanitarian and human rights officials expressed fear of U.S. political interference in the world's monitoring system for famines. The U.S. Embassy in Israel and the State Department declined comment. FEWS officials did not respond to questions. “We work day and night with the U.N. and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew said Tuesday. USAID confirmed to the AP that it had asked the famine-monitoring organization to withdraw its stepped-up warning issued in a report dated Monday. The report did not appear among the top updates on the group's website Thursday, but the link to it remained active . The dispute points in part to the difficulty of assessing the extent of starvation in largely isolated northern Gaza. Thousands in recent weeks have fled an intensified Israeli military crackdown that aid groups say has allowed delivery of only a dozen trucks of food and water since roughly October. FEWS Net said in its withdrawn report that unless Israel changes its policy, it expects the number of people dying of starvation and related ailments in north Gaza to reach between two and 15 per day sometime between January and March. The internationally recognized mortality threshold for famine is two or more deaths a day per 10,000 people. FEWS was created by the U.S. development agency in the 1980s and is still funded by it. But it is intended to provide independent, neutral and data-driven assessments of hunger crises, including in war zones. Its findings help guide decisions on aid by the U.S. and other governments and agencies around the world. A spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, Oren Marmorstein, welcomed the U.S. ambassador's public challenge of the famine warning. “FEWS NET - Stop spreading these lies!” Marmorstein said on X . In challenging the findings publicly, the U.S. ambassador "leveraged his political power to undermine the work of this expert agency,” said Scott Paul, a senior manager at the Oxfam America humanitarian nonprofit. Paul stressed that he was not weighing in on the accuracy of the data or methodology of the report. “The whole point of creating FEWS is to have a group of experts make assessments about imminent famine that are untainted by political considerations,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor in international affairs at Princeton University . “It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations -- the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy -- to interfere." Israel says it has been operating in recent months against Hamas militants still active in northern Gaza. It says the vast majority of the area’s residents have fled and relocated to Gaza City, where most aid destined for the north is delivered. But some critics, including a former defense minister, have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza’s far north, near the Israeli border. North Gaza has been one of the areas hardest-hit by fighting and Israel’s restrictions on aid throughout its war with Hamas militants. Global famine monitors and U.N. and U.S. officials have warned repeatedly of the imminent risk of malnutrition and deaths from starvation hitting famine levels. International officials say Israel last summer increased the amount of aid it was admitting there, under U.S. pressure. The U.S. and U.N. have said Gaza’s people as a whole need between 350 and 500 trucks a day of food and other vital needs. But the U.N. and aid groups say Israel recently has again blocked almost all aid to that part of Gaza. Cindy McCain , the American head of the U.N. World Food Program, previously called for political pressure to get food flowing to Palestinians there. Israel says it places no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and that hundreds of truckloads of goods are piled up at Gaza’s crossings and accused international aid agencies of failing to deliver the supplies. The U.N. and other aid groups say ongoing combat, looting and insufficient security by Israeli troops make it impossible to deliver aid effectively. Lew, the U.S. ambassador, said the famine warning was based on “outdated and inaccurate” data. He pointed to uncertainty over how many of the 65,000-75,000 people remaining in northern Gaza had fled in recent weeks, saying that skewed the findings. FEWS said in its report that its famine assessment holds even if as few as 10,000 people remain. USAID in its statement to AP said it had reviewed the report before it became public, and noted “discrepancies” in population estimates and some other data. The U.S. agency had asked the famine warning group to address those uncertainties and be clear in its final report to reflect how those uncertainties affected its predictions of famine, it said. “This was relayed before Ambassador Lew’s statement,” USAID said in a statement. “FEWS NET did not resolve any of these concerns and published in spite of these technical comments and a request for substantive engagement before publication. As such, USAID asked to retract the report.” Roth criticized the U.S. challenge of the report in light of the gravity of the crisis there. “This quibbling over the number of people desperate for food seems a politicized diversion from the fact that the Israeli government is blocking virtually all food from getting in,” he said, adding that “the Biden administration seems to be closing its eyes to that reality, but putting its head in the sand won’t feed anyone.” The U.S., Israel’s main backer, provided a record amount of military support in the first year of the war. At the same time, the Biden administration repeatedly urged Israel to allow more access to aid deliveries in Gaza overall, and warned that failing to do so could trigger U.S. restrictions on military support. The administration recently said Israel was making improvements and declined to carry out its threat of restrictions. Military support for Israel’s war in Gaza is politically charged in the U.S., with Republicans and some Democrats staunchly opposed any effort to limit U.S. support over the suffering of Palestinian civilians trapped in the conflict. The Biden administration’s reluctance to do more to press Israel for improved treatment of civilians undercut support for Democrats in last month’s elections. Sam Mednick and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.By CHRIS MEGERIAN and COLLEEN LONG WASHINGTON (AP) — In the two weeks since Donald Trump won the presidency, he’s tried to demonstrate his dominance by naming loyalists for top administration positions, even though many lack expertise and some face sexual misconduct accusations. It often seems like he’s daring Congress to oppose his decisions. But on Thursday, Trump’s attempt to act with impunity showed a crack as Matt Gaetz , his choice for attorney general, withdrew from consideration. Trump had named Gaetz, a Florida congressman, to be the country’s top law enforcement official even though he was widely disliked by his colleagues, has little legal experience and was accused of having sex with an underage girl, an allegation he denied. After being plagued by investigations during his first presidency, Trump wanted a devoted ally in charge of the Justice Department during his second. However, it was never obvious that Gaetz could win enough support from lawmakers to get confirmed as attorney general. Trump chose for a replacement Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who defended him during his first impeachment trial and supported his false claims of voter fraud. Now the question is whether Gaetz was uniquely unpalatable, or if Trump’s other picks might exceed his party’s willingness to overlook concerns that would have sunk nominees in a prior political era. The next test will likely be Pete Hegseth, who Trump wants to lead the Pentagon despite an allegation of sexual assault that he’s denied. So far, Republicans are rallying around Hegseth , an Army veteran and former Fox News host. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the controversy over Gaetz would have little bearing on Trump’s other choices. He said they would be considered “one at a time.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, suggested otherwise, claiming “the dominoes are falling.” “The drip drip of evidence and truth is going to eventually doom some others,” he said. Trump’s election victory was a sign that there may not be many red lines left in American politics. He won the presidential race despite authoritarian, racist and misogynist rhetoric, not to mention years of lies about election fraud and his role in sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He was also criminally convicted of falsifying business records to pay hush money, and he was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. Empowered by voters who looked past his misconduct and saw him as a powerful agent of change, Trump has shown no deference to Washington norms while working to fill his second administration . The transition team hasn’t pursued federal background checks for Trump’s personnel choices. While some of his selections have extensive experience in the areas they’ve been chosen to lead, others are personal friends and Fox News personalities who have impressed and flattered Trump over the years. Several have faced allegations involving sexual misconduct . Hegseth is facing the most scrutiny after Gaetz. Once Trump announced Hegseth as his nominee for Pentagon chief, allegations emerged that he sexually assaulted a woman in California in 2017. The woman said he took her phone, blocked the door to the hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a police report made public this week. Hegseth told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said. However, he paid the woman a confidential settlement in 2023. Hegseth’s lawyer said the payment was made to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit. Trump’s choice for secretary of health and human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has faced allegations of misconduct too. A woman who babysat for him and his second wife told Vanity Fair magazine that Kennedy groped her in the late 1990s, when she was 23. Kennedy did not deny the allegation and texted an apology to the woman after the article was published. That isn’t the only hurdle for Kennedy; he’s spent years spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines, raising fears about making him a top health official in the new administration. Linda McMahon, chosen by Trump to be education secretary, is fighting a lawsuit connected to her former company, World Wrestling Entertainment. She’s accused of knowingly enabling sexual exploitation of children by an employee as early as the 1980s, and she denies the allegations. Tulsi Gabbard is another person who could face a difficult confirmation battle, but for very different reasons. The former Democratic representative from Hawaii has been a vocal Trump ally, and he chose her to be national intelligence director. But there’s grave concern by lawmakers and national security officials over Gabbard’s history of echoing Russian propaganda. Critics said she would endanger relationships with U.S. allies. Gaetz was investigated by federal law enforcement for sex trafficking, but the case was closed without charges and Republicans have blocked the release of a related report from the House Ethics Committee. However, some allegations leaked out, including that Gaetz paid women for sex. One of the women testified to the committee that she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl, according to a lawyer for the woman. As Gaetz met with senators this week, it became clear that he would face stubborn resistance from lawmakers who were concerned about his behavior and believed he was unqualified to run the Justice Department. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction,” Gaetz wrote on social media when announcing his withdrawal. Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, said he believed there were four to six members of the caucus who would have voted against Gaetz, likely dooming his nomination, and “the math got too hard.” He said some of the issues and allegations around Gaetz were “maybe beyond the pale.” “I think there were just too many things, it was like a leaky dike, and you know, it broke,” Braun said. Trump thanked Gaetz in a post on Truth Social, his social media website, without addressing the substance of the allegations against him. “He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect,” Trump wrote. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Stephen Groves and Lisa Macaro contributed from Washington. Jill Colvin in New York and Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also contributed.Trump convinced Republicans to overlook his misconduct. But can he do the same for his nominees?
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