'Every day he's doing better': Parents of freed American-Israeli hostage on son's progress
Parents of freed American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, Yael and Adi Alexander, join Morning Joe to discuss the release of their son. Edan is believed to be the last living U.S. citizen held captive in Gaza, and he was freed on May 12 after having been captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
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Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Israel's Smotrich could collapse Palestinian economy by ending bank waiver
Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has cancelled a waiver that Palestinian banks rely on to operate hours after five Western governments announced he faced sanctions, along with fellow ultra-nationalist Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for inciting violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Warnings have previously been raised that Israel's ending of the waiver could have devastating consequences for the Palestinian economy, which is dependent on the Israeli banking system as the Palestinian Authority (PA) does not have its own central bank or currency. 'Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has instructed Accountant General CPA Yali Rothenberg to cancel the indemnity provided to correspondent banks dealing with banks operating in Palestinian Authority territories,' Smotrich's office said in a statement on Tuesday, announcing the changes. The statement also directly linked Smotrich's decision to the PA's international advocacy against the establishment of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, which the minister's office described as the 'delegitimisation campaign against the State of Israel internationally'. Smotrich's decision to end the waiver came hours after Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom announced sanctions against him, as well as against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for their 'incitement of violence' against sanctions were not publicly linked to Smotrich's targeting of the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank and represents Palestine at international forums, including the United Nations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). However, Smotrich has a history of blaming the PA and punishing the 2.7 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for international condemnation of Israel's illegal occupation. 'For every country that unilaterally recognises a Palestinian state, we will establish a settlement,' Smotrich said in July 2024, as he announced that Israel was 'recognising' five illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank after five more countries – Norway, Spain, Ireland, Armenia and Slovenia – announced they were recognising Palestinian statehood. He has also called for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank if the ICJ ruled that Israeli settlements are end of the waiver could have a devastating impact on the finances of Palestinians, particularly in the occupied West Bank, which has already suffered multiple economic blows over the past two years. The overwhelming majority of exchanges in the West Bank and Gaza are in shekels, Israel's national currency, because Palestine is not allowed to have its own central bank or print its own currency, which means that Palestinian banks are reliant on Israeli banks to operate. But Israeli banks only continue to work with the Palestinian banks because of the government waiver, which protects them from potential legal action relating to transactions with their Palestinian counterparts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has repeatedly threatened to end the waiver in the past, prompting rebukes from even Israel's closest allies. Janet Yellen, the United States Treasury Secretary in former President Joe Biden's administration, warned in May last year that 'to cut Palestinian banks from Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis'. In July, G7 countries urged Israel to 'take necessary action' to ensure the continuity of Palestinian financial systems. The UN has also warned that 'unilaterally cutting off Palestinian banks from the global banking system would be a violation of the fundamental principles of international law'. Under this pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to extend the waiver for short periods. However, far-right ministers like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have always objected. After one vote in November last year, Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted in Israeli courts of possessing a 'terror' organisation's propaganda material and supporting a 'terror' organisation, wrote in a post on X that he had a 'principled objection' to indemnifying the Israeli banks. The Palestinian Authority should be completely cut off and 'collapsed', he said.
Hamilton Spectator
20 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Poll suggests half of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
OTTAWA - A new poll suggests that nearly half of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza almost two years after the current conflict began. In a survey conducted last weekend, the polling firm Leger asked Canadians and Americans a series of questions about the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Leger surveyed 1,511 Canadians and 1,011 Americans between June 6 and June 8. The poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples. The polling comes as the federal government is under pressure to take concrete steps to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Leger asked respondents whether they 'agree or disagree that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip' based on how they 'define what constitutes a genocide.' The UN declared genocide a crime under international law in 1946. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. That can include killing members of the group, causing them serious injury, deliberately inflicting conditions that can be dangerous to their lives, imposing measures to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children from the group to another group. Just less than half of the Canadian respondents, 49 per cent, said they agree that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, including 23 per cent who said they strongly agree and 26 per cent who said they somewhat agree. Another 21 per cent said they disagree with the claim that Israel is committing genocide — 10 per cent said they somewhat disagree and 11 per cent said they strongly disagree. The remaining 30 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer. Conservative supporters were the least likely to say they believe Israel is committing genocide, with 37 per cent agreeing with the statement and 33 per cent disagreeing. More than 60 per cent of Liberal, NDP, Green Party and Bloc Québécois supporters said they agree Israel's actions amount to genocide. The poll was conducted just days before the Canadian government took action against Israeli cabinet ministers it accuses of inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. On Tuesday, a group of five countries including Canada announced sanctions against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The five countries accused the ministers of calling for the displacement of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Last month, an open letter from Prime Minister Mark Carney, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza and called the level of suffering in the territory 'intolerable.' The letter threatened concrete actions if the Israeli government did not allow more food aid into Gaza and end its military operations there. It also called on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. In response to the genocide question, 38 per cent of Americans polled said they agree Israel is committing genocide, while 26 per cent said they disagree and 36 per cent said they don't know. Supporters of the Democrats - 52 per cent - and Americans under the age of 35 - 53 per cent - were the most likely to call the situation in Gaza a genocide. More than half of Canadians, 54 per cent, said they don't follow news about the Middle East or the current conflict in the Gaza Strip. Just nine per cent said they're following news about the Gaza conflict very closely, and another 35 per cent said they're following somewhat closely. American respondents reported almost the same levels of engagement. Despite that, 49 per cent of Canadians and 54 per cent of American respondents said they feel they have a very good or fairly good understanding of the conflict in Gaza. Opinions on mainstream media reporting about the conflict were evenly split, with 20 per cent of Canadian respondents saying they feel the media has been 'generally balanced.' Another 20 per cent said they feel the coverage has been more favourable toward Palestinians and 21 per cent said it was more favourable to Israel. American respondents reported almost identical responses. Many Canadians surveyed were pessimistic about the possibility of a peaceful resolution. When asked whether they believe that lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached, 41 per cent of Canadian respondents said no, 28 per cent said yes and 31 per cent said they don't know. Canadian respondents over age 55 were the least optimistic — 51 per cent of them said a lasting peace cannot be achieved. Americans were more evenly split, with 34 per cent saying they think peace is out of reach and 33 per cent saying it can be achieved. The polling industry's professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. — With files from David Baxter This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2025. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House
The falling out between President Trump and Elon Musk is just the latest reminder that the relationship between the new White House and the titans of technology has turned out to be complicated. The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) was among several big names from Silicon Valley awarded prime seats for the president's Jan. 20 Capitol inauguration, alongside Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, Amazon (AMZN) chair Jeff Bezos, and Google (GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai. In the five months since, the president has either confronted all of their companies in court or applied pressure on those firms with his own words. Musk and Trump made their break official last week in a series of social media posts that featured insults and threats hurled by both men. The other executives and their companies had already been grappling with a tougher-than-expected stance on their industry. Zuckerberg, for example, was not able to convince Trump to stop an antitrust trial against Meta from going forward this spring. The president has since threatened Cook's Apple with 25% duties on overseas-made iPhones and criticized the iPhone maker's ramped-up production in India. Meanwhile, the company is defending against an antitrust lawsuit led by the Justice Department, filed during President Joe Biden's administration. Trump's Justice Department has also pushed ahead with a Biden-era recommendation for a judge to break up Pichai's Google empire. Trump even called Bezos to complain about Amazon after it was reported that the online retail giant was considering displaying the cost of tariffs next to prices on its site. Trump said Bezos "solved the problem very quickly.' Yet Amazon still faces a lawsuit from Trump's Federal Trade Commission that is due to start in February 2027. The FTC, which brought the case during Biden's term in office, told a judge in the spring that it needed to push the original October 2026 trial date due to Amazon's litigation delays. One of the biggest questions facing the tech world as Trump took office was how aggressive Trump's antitrust enforcers would be following four years of a Biden administration marked by legal fights with many of Silicon Valley's biggest names. By sustaining many of these cases and probes against Big Tech, Trump has parted ways with traditional Republican-style enforcement, legal experts say. "This isn't the Bush administration," Trump's FTC chair Andrew Ferguson told a group of American CEOs this spring in Washington, D.C., referring to one of the weakest US antitrust enforcement periods in modern history. Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Anat Alon-Beck expects the Trump administration will continue to rein in Big Tech, especially given bipartisan support for the idea that Big Tech currently has too much power. There have been some positive developments for the tech firms too. Big Tech has gained the benefit of a relaxed regulatory environment, especially in the industry of artificial intelligence, making fundraising and complying with securities laws easier. In an executive order titled 'Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,' the president rescinded Biden's executive order on AI safety and directed federal agencies to remove regulatory obstacles to US global AI dominance. "So they have to take what they can get from the current administration," Alon-Beck said. One tech giant that does have an early win from Trump is Microsoft. President Trump's antitrust cops ended what had become an uphill government effort to unwind Microsoft's (MSFT) $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard that also began during the Biden administration. The decision came when the FTC voluntarily dropped a lawsuit that Biden's FTC boss, Lina Khan, first filed against the tie-up in December 2022. But Microsoft may not emerge unscathed, either. Bloomberg has reported that Trump officials at the FTC are also broadening a probe into Microsoft and its relationship with AI upstart OpenAI ( The probe was first launched by Khan, a key architect of a new movement seeking to expand the legal theories that can give rise to antitrust claims. In June of last year, multiple news organizations reported that the probe also involved a DOJ investigation into chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) competitive conduct. The probe was to address concerns over the company's dominance in the market for microprocessors that power AI. The Trump administration has not indicated it has dropped the investigation. And in April, Nvidia said in a regulatory filing that the president had kept in place Biden's export restrictions on the company's H20 AI chips to China. As for Musk, Trump this past weekend said he had no desire to repair the relationship, which he said was over. He warned there would be 'serious consequences' if Mr. Musk financed candidates to run against Republicans who voted in favor of the president's domestic policy bill. But on Monday, Trump made some conciliatory comments about Musk and Tesla. "I'd have no problem with it," Trump said at a White House event on Monday when asked if he would be willing to speak with Musk. "I'd imagine he wants to speak with me." He added, "I wish him well, very well actually." Wedbush technology analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Monday that he doesn't expect Trump and Musk to fully patch their soured relationship but would not be surprised if it improved in the months ahead. At the end of the day, Ives wrote, "Trump needs Musk to stay close to the Republican party and Musk needs Trump for many reasons," including a federal framework for autonomous vehicles. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
