‘We will rebuild,' Gaza hoteliers tell CNN
When Donald Trump announced his plans to turn war-torn Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East," many Palestinians were angered. CNN spoke to two hoteliers, who explained what life was like before the war and their hopes for the future.
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The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
WASHINGTON -- Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors. Whether it's leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion. An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump's 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors. The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress' authority and advance his agenda. 'What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,' said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. 'The temptation is clear,' said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program and an expert in emergency powers. 'What's remarkable is how little abuse there was before, but we're in a different era now.' Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has drafted legislation that would allow Congress to reassert tariff authority, said he believed the courts would ultimately rule against Trump in his efforts to single-handedly shape trade policy. 'It's the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,' Bacon said of Congress' power over trade. 'And I get the emergency powers, but I think it's being abused. When you're trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that's policy, not emergency action.' The White House pushed back on such concerns, saying Trump is justified in aggressively using his authority. 'President Trump is rightfully enlisting his emergency powers to quickly rectify four years of failure and fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden — wide open borders, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, radical climate regulations, historic inflation, and economic and national security threats posed by trade deficits,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Of all the emergency powers, Trump has most frequently cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to justify slapping tariffs on imports. The law, enacted in 1977, was intended to limit some of the expansive authority that had been granted to the presidency decades earlier. It is only supposed to be used when the country faces 'an unusual and extraordinary threat' from abroad 'to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.' In analyzing executive orders issued since 2001, the AP found that Trump has invoked the law 21 times in presidential orders and memoranda. President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has also deployed an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify deporting Venezuelan migrants to other countries, including El Salvador. Trump's decision to invoke the law relies on allegations that the Venezuelan government coordinates with the Tren de Aragua gang, but intelligence officials did not reach that conclusion. Congress has granted emergency powers to the presidency over the years, acknowledging that the executive branch can act more swiftly than lawmakers if there is a crisis. There are 150 legal powers — including waiving a wide variety of actions that Congress has broadly prohibited — that can only be accessed after declaring an emergency. In an emergency, for example, an administration can suspend environmental regulations, approve new drugs or therapeutics, take over the transportation system, or even override bans on testing biological or chemical weapons on human subjects, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Democrats and Republicans have pushed the boundaries over the years. For example, in an attempt to cancel federal student loan debt, Joe Biden used a post-Sept. 11 law that empowered education secretaries to reduce or eliminate such obligations during a national emergency. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected his effort, forcing Biden to find different avenues to chip away at his goals. Before that, Bush pursued warrantless domestic wiretapping and Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast in camps for the duration of World War II. Trump, in his first term, sparked a major fight with Capitol Hill when he issued a national emergency to compel construction of a border wall. Though Congress voted to nullify his emergency declaration, lawmakers could not muster up enough Republican support to overcome Trump's eventual veto. 'Presidents are using these emergency powers not to respond quickly to unanticipated challenges,' said John Yoo, who as a Justice Department official under George W. Bush helped expand the use of presidential authorities. 'Presidents are using it to step into a political gap because Congress chooses not to act.' Trump, Yoo said, 'has just elevated it to another level.' Conservative legal allies of the president also said Trump's actions are justified, and Vice President JD Vance predicted the administration would prevail in the court fight over tariff policy. 'We believe — and we're right — that we are in an emergency,' Vance said last week in an interview with Newsmax. 'You have seen foreign governments, sometimes our adversaries, threaten the American people with the loss of critical supplies,' Vance said. 'I'm not talking about toys, plastic toys. I'm talking about pharmaceutical ingredients. I'm talking about the critical pieces of the manufacturing supply chain.' Vance continued, 'These governments are threatening to cut us off from that stuff, that is by definition, a national emergency.' Republican and Democratic lawmakers have tried to rein in a president's emergency powers. Two years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would have ended a presidentially-declared emergency after 30 days unless Congress votes to keep it in place. It failed to advance. Similar legislation hasn't been introduced since Trump's return to office. Right now, it effectively works in the reverse, with Congress required to vote to end an emergency. 'He has proved to be so lawless and reckless in so many ways. Congress has a responsibility to make sure there's oversight and safeguards,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who cosponsored an emergency powers reform bill in the previous session of Congress. He argued that, historically, leaders relying on emergency declarations has been a 'path toward autocracy and suppression.'
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A timeline of the twists and turns in the Trump-Musk relationship
The escalating war of words this week between President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk marked the most contentious chapter in a yearslong and at-times rocky relationship between two of the most influential figures in business and politics. Musk, a former Democrat, has criticized Trump in the past, but over the past year forged a strong relationship with the president that positioned him to wield significant power in the early months of Trump's second administration. Those close ties, though, came after years of ups and downs stretching back to 2016 when Musk accepted a spot on several of Trump's business advisory councils. Here are some of the highlights of Trump and Musk's volatile relationship from the past few years. Musk, who would ultimately emerge as one of the most loyal contributors to Trump's 2024 campaign, was initially a vocal opponent. Despite a solid working relationship with Trump during his first term, the enigmatic tech leader called on Trump to skip the 2024 race. "I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset," Musk wrote on X. "Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America." The post was not without provocation — Trump days earlier at a campaign rally in Alaska bashed Musk for his effort to purchase X, then known as Twitter, and for saying in an interview that he never voted for a Republican. "He told me he voted for me," Trump said at the rally. "He's another bulls--- artist." Musk in response threw his support behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. "If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, then DeSantis will easily win — he doesn't even need to campaign," he wrote on X. Weeks after officially taking control of X, Musk extended an olive branch to Trump by reinstating his account on the social media platform — once his favorite online megaphone — after it was banned following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Musk reinstated the account on Nov. 19, four days after Trump formally launched his 2024 campaign. By the summer of 2023, Trump had been indicted in three separate criminal cases. Musk, who months earlier predicted Trump would win the 2024 election if arrested, condemned the prosecutions. "I did not vote for him last election, but such aggressive legal action against a former president is not right," Musk wrote. The post served as a shift for Musk, who soon after began posting more sympathetic messages about Trump. In the first few months of 2024, Trump's campaign found itself in a cash crunch after allocating upwards of $50 million toward his legal defense. So when Trump met with Musk alongside several other wealthy Republican donors in Palm Beach, Florida, most political observers were quick to connect the dots. Musk, the world's richest man, has insisted that the meeting was unplanned and maintains that Trump never explicitly requested funding. 'I'm not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form … and he did not ask me for money,' Musk said in an interview after the meeting, though he did say afterward that he was at least "leaning away" from President Joe Biden. When asked about their meeting, Trump said he'd "helped" Musk in the past, without providing details. According to campaign finance documents, Musk created America PAC, a pro-Trump Super PAC, on May 22. Soon after, reports emerged that Trump and Musk had discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla CEO in a second Trump administration, an effort to ensure Musk would hold a key position in the White House. Less than an hour after an assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, Musk officially threw his support behind Trump's candidacy. "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Musk wrote on X. Trump responded by touting reports that Musk planned to contribute $45 million a month to his re-election effort and promising to make life "good" for him. "We have to make life good for our smart people. You know, we have some smart people. We have to make life good for our smart people, and he's as smart as you get," Trump said at his first campaign event after the assassination attempt. In an event billed by Trump's campaign as "the interview of the century," Trump joined Musk for an online rally on X. The event was repeatedly delayed due to tech issues, but saw the pair bond over their shared disdain for Biden's immigration policies. It also saw Musk unsuccessfully try to prod Trump into prioritizing renewable energy over fossil fuels. When Trump returned to the site of the first assassination attempt against him, he shared the rally stage with Musk, who accused Democrats of seeking to take away voters' freedom of speech and right to bear arms. Musk emphatically encouraged Trump supporters to "vote, vote, vote." By October, Musk had already given nearly $75 million to the super PAC he created to support Trump, according to campaign finance filings. That money was used in part to fund sprawling get-out-the-vote drives in battleground states, including door-knocking programs in deep-red, traditionally low-turnout areas. Trump's striking victory, in which he won all seven battleground states and the popular vote for the first time, came as Musk's spending for the effort surpassed a quarter billion dollars, according to campaign finance reports. Of that total, $120 million came in the final weeks of the race. In his election night speech, Trump praised Musk, saying, "A star is born." One week after the election, Trump appointed Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, fulfilling a campaign promise to allow Musk to oversee cuts to government spending. Ramaswamy later left to pursue a gubernatorial bid in Ohio. Toward the end of the month, Trump traveled to Texas to watch the launch of Musk's SpaceX Starship rocket, despite previously ridiculing the company. Musk spoke at Trump's inauguration rally at Capital One Arena, emphatically lauding Trump's victory, jubilantly raising the prospect of taking DOGE to Mars and thanking the crowd for voting to guarantee "the future of civilization is assured." "My heart goes out to you," Musk said before forcefully touching his heart and raising his hand in a gesture some critics likened to a Nazi salute. Musk has denied that assertion. Among the first executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 20 was one that formalized the creation of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. The White House officially announced Musk's role in early February, clearing way for him to oversee a wide-ranging effort to reduce to the size of the federal government through mass job cuts, the cancellation of research programs and grants and the dismantling a federal agencies. In an early sign of tensions between Musk and several Cabinet members, Trump placed limits on his adviser, making clear in a Truth Social post that staffing decisions across the federal government will be determined by agency heads, not Musk. The Tesla CEO had been exercising authority over rank-and-file federal workers, including a threat to fire them if they didn't respond to inquiries regarding their work output. The new publicly established guardrails appeared to do little to hurt the pair's relationship, with Trump a week later turning the South Lawn of the White House into a Tesla show room to demonstrate support for Musk amid slumping sales for his electric vehicle company. On the first day of May, Musk told reporters at the White House that he would soon step back from DOGE to focus on his companies, comparing the shift to going from full-time to part-time work. The announcement came after Tesla reported a drop in its first-quarter profit and revenue. By the end of the month, Musk's exit was formalized. The White House on May 28 confirmed that Musk's tenure as a special government employee, a temporary role that he soon would legally have to exit anyway, had come to an end. Musk thanked Trump "for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending," and the president at a news conference with Musk days later said, "Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history." Trump presented Musk with a gold-colored key at the event. But underneath the polite exchanges hid simmering tension: Musk days earlier appeared on CBS' "Sunday Morning" and bashed a massive Republican bill, designed to fund much of Trump's domestic agenda, by condemning the expected impact of the legislation on the national debt. Trump soon after pulled the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Musk, to be NASA administrator. Days after formally departing the White House, Musk launched a scathing attack on the Trump-backed bill making its way through Congress. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' Musk wrote in a post on X. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.' Asked about those criticisms, Trump expressed disappointment. "Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,' Trump told reporters, before suggesting Musk's opposition to the bill was personal. 'Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate which was a lot of money for electric vehicles. They're having a hard time the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy," Trump said. The attacks quickly grew more personal. Musk called out Trump's "ingratitude," arguing that Republicans would have lost the 2024 election without his support. Trump in response said Musk "went crazy" after being asked to leave his White House role, and he toyed with the idea of severing government ties with Musk's companies. Musk replied by claiming Trump was in what are known as "the Epstein Files," and said Trump's tariff policy would cause a recession. He also amplified a post calling for Trump to be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance. A day after the barrage of attacks, Trump told reporters he's no longer thinking of Musk. "Honestly, I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many — I'm not thinking about Elon. You know, I just wish him well," he said. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How Closures at Food Distribution Hubs Are Impacting Gazans
Palestinians receive food from a charity distribution point in Khan Yunis, Gaza on June 05, 2025. Credit - Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images The organization tasked with delivering food aid in Gaza halted operations at its distribution centers this week following a series of fatal incidents near aid sites, raising urgent questions about how humanitarian assistance can be delivered safely in the weeks ahead. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private group backed by Israel and the U.S. said in a statement on social media Wednesday that centers would be 'closed for update, organization, and efficiency improvement work." On Thursday, the organization said two of its aid centers were open, while two other hubs remained closed. In total, over 1.4 million meals were distributed on the day, across the two centers, according to the GHF. But on Friday, June 6, the GHF announced that all aid hubs would once again be closed for the day, warning people to stay away from sites for their own safety. Here's what has been reported regarding the circumstances surrounding the closure of aid centers. The closures came after a number of incidents in which Palestinians collecting aid from hubs have been killed. On Sunday, June 1, 31 Palestinians were killed at an aid hub, according to Reuters and the Associated Press, citing Gaza's Health Ministry and witnesses, after Israeli soldiers opened fire near crowds. In a statement on X, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it 'did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.' CNN reported that sound and video of gunfire from the site was consistent with that of weapons used by the IDF, and that the rate of fire 'appears to rule out' weapons used by Hamas. Pictures of bullets from the scene were also consistent with machine guns used by the IDF as they can be mounted on tanks, according to the news outlet. Weapons experts told the BBC that both the IDF and armed Palestinian groups have access to weapons that use these types of rounds. In a post by the GHF Sunday, civilians were warned that Israeli troops were operating in the area surrounding the aid hub at the time of the shooting, and that it was prohibited to enter before 5 a.m. On Monday, June 2, three Palestinians were killed, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the BBC, at the same location as Sunday's killings. The IDF said on Monday morning that it 'was aware of reports regarding casualties, and the details of the incident are being looked into.' The statement added that approximately half a kilometer from the aid site, 'IDF troops identified several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated routes. The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops.' The IDF has not provided any further statement to TIME regarding the incidents on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday marked the third day in a row of deadly incidents at the distribution center. At least 27 people were killed, according to the Red Cross. The Red Cross said Tuesday that its field hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, received 184 patients, 19 of whom were dead upon arrival and an additional eight who died at the hospital. The majority of cases had suffered gunshot wounds, the Red Cross said. A spokesperson told TIME that all responsive patients from Tuesday's mass casualty event had told the aid organisation they were trying to reach an aid distribution site. 'The ICRC urgently reiterates its call for the respect and protection of civilians. Civilians trying to access humanitarian assistance should not have to confront danger,' the Red Cross said. The IDF however said that troops fired warning shots Tuesday towards suspects that had deviated from designated aid routes. 'Troops are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites,' the IDF said in a statement. 'The warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometer away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them.' United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk condemned Tuesday's incident, calling for 'a prompt and impartial investigation into each of these attacks,' adding that those responsible must be 'held to account.' GHF is a U.S. private organization that has been backed by Israel and the U.S. to be the sole distributor of aid in Gaza. This came after Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on the territory in early March. Israel allowed aid into Gaza in May, following international pressure and condemnation of the humanitarian situation. But the United Nations called the initial aid 'a drop in the ocean.' The GHF was designated to distribute aid in Gaza. But the day before operations began, on May 25, the foundation's lead Jake Wood resigned, saying he would not be able to work in a way that met 'humanitarian principles.' On May 27, just two days into the new GHF-led distribution program, it was reported that one Palestinian had been killed and dozens more injured near an aid hub. Medicin San Frontieres reacted on May 30 to the incident, saying: 'The disastrous start of the food distribution coordinated by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation confirmed that the U.S.-Israel plan to instrumentalise aid is ineffective,' adding that it was a 'dangerous and reckless approach,' to aid distribution. The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday that since Israel resumed military operations in March, 640,000 Palestinians have been displaced. Over half of those displaced since May are based in the North of Gaza, on the other end of the strip from three of the GHF's four aid centers. 'Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel's militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,' said Türk. Since the start of the war, as of June 5, over 54,600 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry —the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies in the absence of any independent monitoring on the ground. A peer-reviewed study, undertaken by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine epidemiologists, published in January in The Lancet found that the official Gaza death toll reported by the enclave's Ministry of Health between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024 likely undercounted the number of fatalities during that period. The war was triggered after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Oday Basheer, who helps run a food kitchen in Deir al-Balah, told TIME that he has not collected any food from the GHF centers yet, describing the process as 'messy and dangerous.' His kitchen has partnered with World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by chef José Andrés, to help provide food for displaced Palestinians. WCK halted operations in Gaza twice in the past year after Israeli strikes killed seven in April 2024 and three last November. Despite aid entering the strip, Basheer says that prices are still rising, with people paying up to $20 for a kilo of flour. 'There is not enough coming in to replace what we are buying, people are dying to get a bag of flour,' he says. Read more: $25 Butter and $40 Eggs: The Search for Food in Gaza He also described that people who successfully get into the aid hubs can take as much as they want, with aid not distributed equally among those waiting. 'From where I am, you have to walk 20 kilometers there and back, carrying food. Just the strongest and fastest can get there,' he explains. Jehad Miri, a journalist from Tel al-Hawa in Gaza City who has been displaced over a dozen times, says that despite having not eaten properly for weeks, he has not gone to the GHF aid sites. 'Going to those aid centers feels like walking into death,' he told TIME from Deir al-Balah. 'Just two days ago, a close friend of mine was killed. He used to go to the aid centers to help families who couldn't reach them.' Several of Miri's family members have chronic health conditions, and he has been supporting them however he can. 'I've been trying to take care of them getting food, water, and whatever they need. Every day feels like a mission finding water, finding a way to charge batteries, finding internet, finding safety,' he says. Wednesday's aid hub closure affected everyone, Miri says, not only those who go to collect aid. 'We get some food from traders who risked their lives to bring it from the aid hubs. Now, that's gone. We can't buy anything anymore, the prices are insane.' Basic food supplies are staggeringly high, with 500 grams of butter costing up to $25 and a dozen eggs priced at over $40, civilians in Gaza have told TIME. Friday marked the beginning of Eid Al Adha, an important festival in Islam that will be honored across the Gaza Strip, despite the continuing war. But Miri explains: 'In Gaza, Eid doesn't feel like Eid anymore.' Basheer agrees, saying: 'It was a custom to get new clothes, new food before Eid. Now you cannot find anything. There is no joy, there is no celebration for this Eid. Every day there is lots of killing, you don't know if you will be alive.' Contact us at letters@
