Regina Spektor confronts pro-Palestine protesters who interrupted concert
Spektor, who is Jewish and emigrated from the Soviet Union to the US as a child, confronted the protesters, stating her show was 'not the place for that conversation' and that they were 'just yelling at a Jew'.
She encouraged those disrupting the performance to leave, with some audience members subsequently departing the venue.
Spektor referenced her family's history of escaping persecution, noting she only speaks English because they fled a country where Jews were 'othered'.
Spektor, 45, has voiced her support of Israel in the past, including two days after Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack at Nova Music Festival.
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The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
‘Sir, why are you on the roof?' Trump grabs birdseye view to survey $200M White House ballroom plans
Right smack dab in the middle of Washington, Donald Trump has found a place that's trouble proof. The 47th president on Tuesday climbed way up to the top of the stairs for an unannounced visit to the roof of the White House briefing room so he could survey the site of the massive ballroom addition which he announced last week. Reporters on site at the complex got word that Trump might be making an appearance at approximately 9:40 am, and after approximately an hour of waiting while Secret Service took various security precautions (including the rare placement of counter-snipers atop the West Wing), Trump exited a door leading from the State Dining Room to the roof of the briefing room at 10:45 am. Accompanied by James McCrery, the architect who has been engaged to design what Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described last week as 'a much-needed and exquisite addition' of 'innately designed and carefully crafted space' in the form of a 90,000 square foot ballroom attached to the East Wing of the building, Trump walked back and forth on the roof of the press workspace and appeared to be looking at the future site of the ballroom as well as the roof of the West Wing itself. When The Independent asked why he was on the roof of the White House, Trump quipped that he was 'taking a little walk' and mentioned the 'ballroom on the other side.' 'Just another way to spend my money for this country,' Trump said. 'Anything I do is financed by me.' Crews are scheduled to break ground on the project in September. It is expected to cost upwards of $200 million, though the president claims it will be paid for by him and as-yet unnamed donors rather than by taxpayers. According to the White House, the new addition would have a seating capacity of 650 — approximately three times the space available in the East Room, which is currently the largest room available on the 18 acre complex. This has meant that larger events such as state dinners have been held in tents constructed on the South Lawn in recent years. The new event facility will be built on the site of the White House's East Wing, which currently stands between the Executive Residence and Treasury Department headquarters. First built in 1902 and enlarged with a second floor four decades later, it houses offices for First Lady Melania Trump and her staff, the White House Military Office, the White House Visitor Office, and other White House support functions. Leavitt said those offices would be temporarily relocated during the construction. According to Leavitt, the East Wing will be 'heavily changed and reconstructed' once the new ballroom is completed. An interior rendering of the ballroom provided by the White House reveals a massive hall with ornate ceilings and chandeliers, replete with gold leaf throughout. The image is reminiscent of the ballroom which Trump had built on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, the historic 1920s-era Palm Beach mansion that is both a private club run by his family's eponymous hotel and real estate company and his primary residence. Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump has sought to update the appearance of the historic facility to make it more to his liking. He enlisted a cabinetmaker he has previously employed at Mar-a-Lago, who he referred to as his 'gold guy,' to give multiple surfaces in the Oval Office his own Midas touch, leaving the iconic room adorned with ostentatious splashes of pure gold leaf paint in places where there was no such ornamentation before. He has also ordered the iconic Kennedy Rose Garden to be converted into a patio much like the one on which he entertains guests at his Florida social club. The rose bushes that have ringed the area since the Kennedy administration remain, but the grass surface that has been the site of numerous events just outside of the Oval Office has been replaced with paving stones.
The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs
Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's Hamas rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in Gaza. Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it's still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said. Driving aid trucks can be deadly Thousands of people packed around the road Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, AP video showed. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs' roofs, dangling from the sides and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. 'Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they're concerned about how they'll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,' said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers' rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving. Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident and that 'as a rule" it does not carry out deliberate attacks on aid trucks. Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, 'with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,' said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The U.N. does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren't violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The danger for drivers is growing Ali al-Derbashi, 22, was an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago because of the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives and axes, he said. He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There everything was stolen, including his truck's fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen. 'We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don't even have water or food ourselves,' he said. In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through 'prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.' The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The threats come from everywhere Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. The Israeli military did not comment on the accusation. In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings. Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations. Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger. Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. 'Our instructions are to stop, because we don't want to run anyone over,' he said. 'It's crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It's like you're blind, you can't see out.' After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. 'Every time we go out, we get robbed," he said. "It's getting worse day by day.' ——- Associated Press writers Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem and Sally Abou Aljoud from Beirut. Mariam Dagga contributed from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.
The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump administration wants to end abortion coverage through Veterans Affairs
President Donald Trump 's administration is calling to remove abortion coverage from the list of medical benefits for veterans and their families, saying it's not needed. The Department of Veterans Affairs posted the proposed rule change on Monday and opened a public comment period on it that runs through Sept. 3. The department said in its proposal that it wants to ensure it 'provides only needed medical services to our nation's heroes and their families.' The department says it would still provide abortion in life-threatening circumstances — something state laws allow, even in places where bans are in place. But critics of the change note that abortion would not be provided when pregnancies are the result of rape or incest. Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement that the change would cut off millions of veterans and their families from services. 'Veterans have historically faced significant barriers to reproductive health care, and with the current patchwork of abortion bans and restrictions across the country, these barriers are even steeper today," she said. Veterans Affairs, which provides health coverage for veterans and their dependents, did not include abortion in its coverage until 2022. President Joe Biden 's administration added it months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and state abortion bans began kicking in. The Biden changed allowed the VA to provide abortion even in states where it was banned. The VA says in its proposal that allowing abortion is legally questionable because Congress has not specifically allowed it. The policy change would also bring the VA's coverage into line with other federal health care plans — including Medicaid and the TriCare coverage for active military members and their families — which exclude abortion in most cases. The VA said in its filings that about 100 veterans and 40 dependents obtain abortions using the benefits each year — far below the projection the department made in 2022 of a total of 1,000 a year. The conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom called on the VA to drop abortion coverage in a letter last month, saying the cost or providing abortion takes other health resources away from veterans.
