Latest news with #Parnes
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
American International College students graduate in 140th Commencement ceremony
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – May is often the time of year when hundreds of students in higher education graduate. Hampshire Pride Parade and Festival held in Northampton More than 400 students from eight countries can proudly say they have graduated from American International College, marking Sunday as the 140th Commencement ceremony for the institution. Founded in 1885, AIC is comprised of the School of Business, Arts, and Sciences, along with Health Services and Education. 'Our students will be artists, they'll be doctors, they'll be nurses, they'll be public health officials, they'll be educators,' said Frank Borelli, Assistant Dean of the School of Business, Arts and Sciences at AIC. 'They will change the world, and today we celebrate.' Families and friends filled the MassMutual Center in Springfield to celebrate this special moment with the graduates. As each of the graduates took their seats, multiple speeches were given, including the Commencement address by senior political correspondent for The Hill, Amie Parnes. 'Ask what it means to fight and have that determination throughout your life,' Parnes said. Parnes delivered a message that will motivate the graduates as they received their doctoral, bachelor's, and master's degrees. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Fox News
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Former Biden official warns ex-president to stay away from spotlight, says Democratic Party angry with him
Print Close By Gabriel Hays Published April 19, 2025 Democratic figures and even the former first family's aides are saying that former President Biden needs to stay out of politics, according to a new report from "The Hill." The outlet's senior political correspondent, Amie Parnes, spoke to former first lady Jill Biden's communications director Michael LaRosa, who stated that Biden's staff needs to steer him away from the spotlight because the party is not interested in seeing him. "If they had advisers who had their hand on the pulse of the Democratic Party or national politics, they would have understood the intense level of anger or indifference to them that remains inside our party and isn't going away anytime soon," the former Biden staffer said. KAMALA HARRIS WAS 'VERY ANNOYED' WITH OBAMA AS SHE SOUGHT HIS ENDORSEMENT, BOOK REVEALS Parnes spoke to LaRosa following Biden's speech at a disability advocacy conference in Chicago earlier this week. The speech, which the ex-president gave on the state of the Social Security Administration, was Biden's first major address since leaving the White House in January. During the speech, Biden ripped the Trump administration, saying, "fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so much damage… and so much destruction. It's kind of breathtaking." According to LaRosa, Biden's return was not a welcome moment within the party and that his handlers should recognize that. "I love both Bidens dearly, but staff loyalty means there is a responsibility to provide them with an honest situational awareness, especially when it comes to their public image, no matter how hurtful it is to hear," he said. The former Jill Biden staffer continued, noting the party feels that the only people benefitting from Biden's return is the Trump administration and conservatives, who have been able to use the unpopular ex-president's appearance as a distraction. BIDEN RETURNS TO PODIUM FOR FIRST TIME TO SLAM TRUMP'S SOCIAL SECURITY PLANS: 'WRECK IT SO THEY COULD ROB IT' It was a "lovely gift for the White House, President Trump and conservative media at a time when they were playing defense and under the kind of heavy scrutiny over the botched tariff policy in ways we haven't seen since Trump was elected," LaRosa told Parnes. Weeks before leaving office, CNN polling revealed only 36 percent of Americans approved of Biden's job as president, with 64 percent disapproving. The CNN poll also showed that 61 percent of respondents saw Biden's presidency as a failure overall. Parnes co-authored "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," a recently-published book that has delved into the Democratic Party's chaotic 2024 campaign featuring major scoops from people close to Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama on how these figures navigated Biden's withdrawal from the race and his subsequent replacement by Harris. In one excerpt from the book, Parnes and co-author Jonathan Allen, an NBC reporter, wrote about how Biden may have sabotaged her campaign by controlling her policy points. "Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so," they wrote, adding that Biden met with Harris to ensure she knew to protect him. It has been widely speculated that Harris not deviating enough from Biden's policy damaged her own chances. In his comments to Parnes, LaRosa lamented this sad end to Biden's political career, stating again that both the Bidens and their handlers should recognize the moment and act accordingly. "It's a heartbreaking and tragic ending to their time in public life, but it's also the truth, and they should index the political realities into their decisionmaking." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Print Close URL
Al Jazeera
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Palestinian Bedouins say Israeli settlers terrorising them off their land
When Israel began bombing Gaza on October 7, 2023, Fayez Atil sensed his community in the occupied West Bank would soon come under attack too. Atil is from the Palestinian village of Zanuta, a traditional herding community in the Jordan Valley. Settlers from illegal Israeli settlements had harassed and attacked his village for years. Still, the violence escalated sharply after Israel launched what many describe as a 'genocidal' war on Gaza. 'It suddenly felt like a war,' he told Al Jazeera by phone. 'Every day and every night, the illegal settlers would try to steal our sheep or vandalise our village by destroying our property and cars,' the 45-year-old added. Zanuta's 250 inhabitants gradually left their village – and way of life – due to the constant settler attacks and harassment. Atil packed his belongings and left with his family after Israeli settlers beat up a 77-year-old Palestinian shepherd at the end of October 2024. 'They beat the old man, his wife and children,' said Atil. 'It was the first time we ever saw that level of aggression from settlers.' The villagers of Zanuta are one of 46 Palestinian Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank expelled from their land by state-backed Israeli settlers since October 7, 2023, according to Al-Haq, a Palestinian nonprofit. 'What is happening [to Bedouin communities] is not simply an issue of violent and radical settlers. This is state violence,' explained Shai Parnes, spokesperson for Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. At the start of Israel's war on Gaza, Israel called up thousands of reservists who were serving in the West Bank to fight in Gaza, and replaced them with 'extremist settlers', Parnes said. 'Settlers … suddenly got weapons, ammunition and military uniforms [after October 7],' Parnes told Al Jazeera. These settlers suddenly possessed the legal power to kill and arrest Palestinians. All the expulsions occurred in Area C, which is sparsely populated and rich in agricultural resources. Comprising 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, it is the largest of three zones created in the West Bank as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords between then-Palestinian and Israeli leaders. The Oslo Accords aimed to ostensibly create a Palestinian state in the West Bank alongside Israel. But over the last 32 years, the size of illegal Israeli settlements there steadily increased, with their population rising from about 200,000 to more than 750,000. Area C is also under the complete control of the Israeli army, making it easier for settlers – supported by soldiers – to surround vulnerable Palestinian herder communities and expel them from their lands, say Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups. This differs from Area A, which is technically under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, even though Israeli troops still raid it often, while Area B is under the joint control of the PA and the Israeli army. Even Palestinian Bedouins who are citizens of Israel are being kicked off their land, human rights groups and activists say. About 120,000 Palestinians live in so-called 'unrecognised villages' across the Naqab Desert. They are descendants of Palestinians who managed to stay on their land during the Nakba, when Zionist militias ethnically cleansed some 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. The Israeli government insists that Bedouin communities from 'unrecognised' villages should simply relocate to cities, yet doing so would sever their connection with the land and threaten their way of life as herders. Most Bedouin communities have held on to their right to stay on their land. Yet, Israel has long claimed that Bedouins are nomads who never really settle in one place. However, Khalil Alamour, a Bedouin leader from the village Khan al-Sira, explains that Bedouins stopped migrating more than two centuries ago, and they always return to their land after migrating seasonally to search for food for their cattle. 'Bedouins are stuck to our land. We are an Indigenous community … we can't just be flipped to another place,' he said. But Israel has refused to provide services to 'unrecognised villages', instead evicting the inhabitants from their homes and confiscating their land, said Alamour. In November 2024, Israeli police completed the demolition of Umm al-Hiran, even though the Bedouin inhabitants had agreed to live alongside Jewish settlers, as they told Al Jazeera in February 2024. 'The violence against us is part of a racist policy against all Bedouins and against the Palestinian community more generally. And Bedouins are part of the Palestinian community,' Alamour told Al Jazeera. Many herder communities in the West Bank have been uprooted multiple times since the Nakba. Abu Bashar, a Palestinian mokhtar (mayor) of Wadi al-Seeq, said his community has been uprooted four times since Israel came into existence. The most recent incident occurred just days after October 7, when Israeli settlers stormed the community and began terrorising inhabitants. About 187 people – 45 to 50 families – fled on foot, walking for hours until they reached Ramon village, where they have stayed until now. 'After October 7, the settlers went crazy. They surrounded our village and they came with the army, which protected them, and expelled us from our village,' Abu Bashar told Al Jazeera. 'We're now living in tents and under trees in terrible circumstances in Ramon,' he said. Over the last two years, the villagers of Wadi al-Seeq and Zanuta have filed suits with the Israeli Supreme Court. Critics say going through Israeli courts – which do not have jurisdiction over occupied land, according to international law – effectively legitimises Israel's occupation. According to human rights groups, Israel's Supreme Court has played a key role in legitimising policies that violate Palestinian rights, such as greenlighting the demolition of Palestinian homes and entire villages. 'The Supreme Court is another mechanism used to whitewash the Israeli occupation,' said Parnes, from B'Tselem. Despite the Supreme Court's historical role, several Palestinian Bedouin communities have filed cases with it. Qamar Mashraki, a Palestinian lawyer representing Zanuta, as well as other Bedouin communities expelled from their lands since October 7, has won two cases so far. In January 2024, the inhabitants of Zanuta and Umm Dharit were informed they had the legal right to return to their land. 'We have to exploit every tool we [as Palestinians] have,' Mashraki told Al Jazeera. But Israeli settlers attacked families from Zanuta when they tried to return, preventing the community from rebuilding homes and herding their animals, pushing many to flee again in September 2024. With the help of Mashraki, Zanuta's inhabitants filed a second court motion which demanded that Israeli authorities protect the community from Israeli settlers. Last month, the court issued a decision that the army and the police had to protect the people of Zanuta, said Atil. He added that families feel relatively safe to try and return to Zanuta again. Dozens of other Bedouin communities that have been driven off their land don't feel as fortunate. Many fear that they will lose their land and way of life, even if they initiate a legal battle. Abu Bashar, from Wadi al-Seeq, said his community is still waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether they can return to their land. Even if he can legally go back, he worries settlers will attack his community again. 'The settlers took everything from us: our homes, our tractors, our water supply and even our food,' he told Al Jazeera. 'We're under siege.'
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kamala Harris Left ‘Speechless' by Trump's Shocking Victory
The author of a new book says former Vice President Kamala Harris was so taken aback by President Donald Trump's shocking win in November that she could barely speak. As the reality of her defeat set in, Harris repeatedly asked her aides 'if they'd actually lost' and whether 'they were prepared to do a recount.' Harris's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 'had the same exact reaction' as he watched from his room at D.C.'s Mayflower Hotel, Amie Parnes, a senior correspondent for The Hill, told TMZ on Friday. 'They really thought they were going to win,' Parnes said. Parnes—whose book on the matchup, Fight, was released this week—said Harris was left 'without words' at her home in Washington, D.C., when the results came in November 5. Co-authored with NBC journalist Jonathan Allen, Parnes's book reveals Harris was disappointed by a perceived lack of support from former President Barack Obama and ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 'She was really looking for [Obama's] approval this time around, and was really kinda underwhelmed by his support in the very end,' Parnes said. 'She was really upset by the fact he took several days to get behind her.' 'There were some very hurt feelings on her part,' Parnes added, noting that both she and her co-author 'greatly believe' the Harris-Walz campaign could have sailed to victory had there not been 'so many missteps along the way.'
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kamala Harris was ‘completely shocked' by election night loss to Trump after she ‘bought the hype'
Former Vice President Kamala Harris was floored by her loss to President Trump this past November, having 'bought the hype' that her campaign was in good shape in the run-up to Election Day, according to the author of a new book on the 2024 presidential election. 'She was completely shocked, and Tim Walz was shocked,' The Hill correspondent Amie Parnes, co-author of 'FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,' told the podcast 'Somebody's Gotta Win with Tara Palmeri' Thursday. Walz was so 'stunned' by Harris' crushing defeat that he was unable to speak, according to Parnes. 'He has no words,' the reporter told Palmeri, describing the Minnesota governor sitting in his hotel room silently on election night as staffers tried to explain the situation. 'And people are kind of explaining to him, same thing with [Harris]. And she's like, 'Are you sure? Have we done a recount? Should we do a recount?'' Parnes continued. 'They thought that they were going to win,' she added. 'And so, you know, when they come back now and say, 'Oh no, we didn't really have a chance.' No, that's not what they were thinking. They thought they were going to win.' Parnes reported that some members of Harris' team felt they were being 'gaslit' by senior campaign officials, who were confident that 'things were looking good' for the Democratic nominee. Harris 'bought the hype,' according to the journalist, and thought she was on a path to victory. 'Kamala Harris was looking at her crowd size, and they felt like the vibe was strong and people were saying, 'Oh, we have more boots on the ground. We're doing better in fundraising,'' Parnes said. 'And she bought all of that. She bought the hype, and so did a lot of people in the campaign.' In the aftermath of her defeat, Harris reportedly told friends that she could have beaten Trump had she had more time and had former President Joe Biden initially run for re-election before bowing out July 21. 'She could have won, she told friends, if only the election was later in the calendar — or she got in earlier. In other words, Joe Biden was to blame,' Parnes and co-author Jonathan Allen write in their book, according to Fox News. Some of Harris' friends don't buy the former vice president's assessment. 'That is f—ing bonkers,' said one Harris friend, according to Parnes and Allen. 'If Election Day was October first, we might have actually somehow pulled it off. Shorter was actually better, not longer.' 'I don't think we needed more time … We needed more substance,' a Harris campaign adviser argued. 'And she did not have more substance.' Parnes and Allen's book further reveals that former President Barack Obama was reluctant to endorse Harris after Biden dropped out of the race because he felt she couldn't beat Trump. 'He didn't think that she was the best choice for Democrats, and he worked really behind the scenes for a long time to try to have a mini-primary, or an open convention, or a mini-primary leading to an open convention, did not have faith in her ability to win the election,' Allen said during an appearance on MSNBC earlier this week. 'As it turned out, she didn't win, but he was really working against her,' he added.
