Politics

WASHINGTON —  Last week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed for the Middle East to try to keep Israel’s war in Gaza from spinning out of control, and to begin talks on what diplomats call “the day after” — what happens after the shooting stops.Who will govern a shattered Gaza? Who will feed and house its refugees?Who will police its ravaged streets?And perhaps improbably, can the war, however brutal its toll, be turned into an opening for a wider peace?“When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next,” President Biden said last month. “And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution” — an agreement under which a sovereign Palestinian state would live side by side with Israel, with security guarantees for both.Blinken took that message to Tel Aviv on Friday...

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court agreed Friday to rule on whether the government may ban the sale or use of “bump stocks” that can transform a semiautomatic rifle into one that shoots hundreds of bullets per minute with a single pull of the trigger.Since 1934, federal law has banned machines guns, but there has been dispute over whether a bump stock can be outlawed as a type of machine gun.The government was prompted to adopt new regulations after a shooter in Las Vegas used semiautomatic weapons equipped with bump stocks to kill 58 people and wound more that 500 others. Officials said the bump stocks allowed the shooter to rapidly fire “several hundred rounds of ammunition” into a crowd that had gathered for an outdoor concert on Oct. 1, 2017.Congress did not revise the law, but the Trump ...

Last season, Rui Hachimura helped save the Lakers. Now the 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward is hoping to help save the Earth — even though he’s in concussion protocol with the Lakers — by dunking an approaching meteorite into oblivion.Or something like that. The details of Hachimura’s heroic endeavor will be revealed Saturday, when a cartoon version of the Japanese basketball star appears on the anime series “Crayon Shin-chan” in an episode with a title that translates to “The Adventures of Buri Buri Zaemon: Space Dunk Edition.”Hachimura provides his own voice for his character on the popular Japanese series, which debuted in 1992 and has aired more than 1,000 episodes.“My family and I are big fans of Crayon Shin-chan,” Hachimura said in a statement posted in Japanese on the TV Asahi website. “...

A Los Angeles city employee who was trapped in Gaza for weeks has been safely evacuated from the besieged territory, according to the mayor’s office.“Our office has been working to get him to safety and I have been in regular contact with his son. I am relieved to announce today that the employee is now safe in a neighboring country and out of the war zone,” Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday afternoon in a statement. The city employee is Simi Valley resident Sohail Biary, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports have been allowed to leave Gaza since Wednesday after weeks of attention on their plight, according to the Associated Press. The isolated Palestinian territory has faced a worsening ...

Prosecutors won’t seek the death penalty against the man accused of orchestrating the killing of Tupac Shakur, they told a Las Vegas judge Thursday as Duane “Keffe D” Davis pleaded not guilty to murder.Davis, 60, a self-admitted shot caller of the Compton Southside Crips, appeared in court handcuffed and told the judge he understood the charge he faced. He then entered his plea on his third court appearance since his late September arrest in one of the nation’s most infamous celebrity murder cases.After Clark County Judge Tierra D. Jones asked prosecutors whether they would seek the death penalty against Davis in the 1996 slaying, a prosecutor said they were not planning to ask a review panel to consider such a move.Davis asked the judge to explain what she meant by the question. “Every f...

WASHINGTON —  Supreme Court justices on Wednesday sounded ready to rule that a T-shirt with the phrase “Trump Too Small” cannot be trademarked by a California attorney seeking the exclusive right to sell clothing with the slogan.Trump is not a party to the case of Vidal vs. Elster, but in the past he objected when businesses and others tried to make use of his name.In arguments Wednesday, Biden administration attorneys urged the court to deny the trademark for the disputed shirts, but their position was not related to the message, which is critical of the former president. Since 1946, Congress has barred the registering of a trademark that includes a name or image that identifies “a particular living individual,” administration attorneys said.When they adopted this provision, lawmakers wer...

JENIN, West Bank — Even amid the terrible destruction that has transformed parts of Jenin into pits of jumbled masonry, the bullet-pocked tower of the Palestinian government headquarters stands out — not for the relatively light damage it sustained but for who caused it. Whereas homes in this West Bank city have been demolished by Israeli troops, roads have been churned up by Israeli bulldozers and storefronts have been disfigured by Israeli gunfire, the offices of the Sultah, or Palestinian Authority, were attacked by Palestinians themselves during a noisy protest over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Disgusted with the authority’s inability to protect its own people or stand up to Israel, militants in the crowd aimed their bullets at the government compound after its security forces tried t...

Of all the wrong-headed responses to the current crisis in the Middle East, demanding that the only Palestinian American in Congress be censured for criticizing Israel is among the most cynical.Inevitably, the war between Israel and Hamas has unmasked deep rifts among Democrats — between outspoken supporters of Israel and its steps to crush Hamas, and those who call for a cease-fire in Gaza and an end to Israel’s trampling of Palestinian rights. Opinion Columnist Robin Abcarian But Republican efforts to expel or censure Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her outspoken pro-Palestinian views is nothing more than a cynical attempt to grab the spotlight and exploit Democratic divisions for political purposes.Yes, it’s true that Tlaib has used the word “g...

U.S. gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton says she is “staying very positive” as she goes through the “long and slow process” of recovering from a rare form pneumonia that kept her in intensive care for more than two weeks.“I’m beyond blessed to have the opportunity to make this statement,” Retton posted Monday on Instagram. “I am overwhelmed with all the love and support from the world as I fight. I am forever grateful to you all.”It was the first time the public has heard directly from Retton since learning of her health scare earlier this month.On Oct. 10, McKenna Kelley, the second-oldest of Retton’s four adult daughters, announced on Instagram that her mother was in the ICU “fighting for her life” and “not able to breathe on her own.” Kelley also revealed at that time that her mother di...

General Motors reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers to end a 6-week-old strike with similar terms to the deal signed earlier by Ford Motor Co., according to people familiar with the matter.The deal includes a 25% hourly pay raise plus cost-of-living allowances over the more-than-four-year contract, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. GM’s tentative agreement has similar economic terms to Ford’s but it is unclear if there are differences in retiree benefits, which has been a sticking point, according to the person.The agreement still needs to be approved by GM’s union members.GM’s shares jumped 3.9% on the news before paring gains in pre-market trading. The were up 1.1% as of 9:29 a.m. Eastern time.The UAW expanded its walkout at GM on Sat...