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Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and other 11 activists set sail on Sunday afternoon for Gaza on a ship aimed at “breaking Israel’s siege” of the devastated territory, organizers said.

The sailing boat Madleen – operated by activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition — departed from the Sicilian port of Catania, in southern Italy.

It will try to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip in an effort to bring in some aid and raise “international awareness” over the ongoing humanitarian crisis, the activists said at a press conference on Sunday, ahead of departure.

“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Thunberg said, bursting into tears during her speech.

“Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.

Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”

In mid-May, Israel slightly eased its blockade of Gaza after nearly three months, allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid into the territory.

Experts have warned that Gaza is at risk of famine if more aid is not brought in.

UN agencies and major aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinians.

Among those joining the crew of the Madleen are “Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent. She has been barred from entering Israel due to her active opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza.

The activists expect to take seven days to get to their destination, if they are not stopped.

Thunberg, who became an internationally famous climate activist after organizing massive teen protests in her native Sweden, had been due to board a previous Freedom Flotilla ship last month.

That attempt to reach Gaza by sea, in early May, failed after another of the group’s vessels, the “Conscience”, was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.

The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.

The Israeli government says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 58 hostages, 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.

The Flotilla group was only the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying its war is directed at Hamas militants, not Gaza’s civilians.

“We are breaking the siege of Gaza by sea, but that’s part of a broader strategy of mobilizations that will also attempt to break the siege by land,” said activist Thiago Avila.

Avila cited the upcoming Global March to Gaza – an international initiative also open to doctors, lawyers and media – which is set to leave Egypt and reach the Rafah crossing in mid-June to stage a protest there, asking Israel to stop the Gaza offensive and reopen the border.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of killing three people and attempting to kill a fourth with a meal laced with death cap mushrooms, has taken the stand in her own defense at a trial that has captured worldwide attention.

On Monday, the start of the sixth week of the trial, Patterson told the court about her relationship with her estranged husband Simon, whose parents, Don and Gail Patterson, were among the guests who died after attending lunch at her house in July 2023.

Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, also died after eating Beef Wellington at lunch, but her husband, Ian Wilkinson, a pastor at their local church, survived after spending several weeks in hospital with acute poisoning from Amanita phalloides, the world’s most toxic mushrooms.

Prosecutors allege that Patterson, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, deliberately laced the beef dish with lethal mushrooms, after seeing their location posted on a public website. Her defense lawyers argue the deaths were a “terrible accident,” and while they acknowledge Patterson, 50, repeatedly lied to police, they say she didn’t intend to kill her guests.

The mother of two told the court that her relationship with her husband was merely “functional” in July 2023, and that she had started becoming concerned that he wasn’t involving her in family gatherings anymore.

Her self-esteem was low, and she was so unhappy with her weight that she was considering gastric bypass surgery, she told the court.

“I’d been fighting a never-ending battle of low self-esteem most of my adult life, and the further inroads I made into being middle aged, the less I felt good about myself,” she said.

How Erin Patterson met her husband

Patterson’s defense attorney Colin Mandy SC asked her about the start of her relationship with Simon Patterson, the father of their two children. Patterson told the court she met Simon in 2004 at work at Monash City Council, in the Australian state of Victoria. They were friends at first, before a romance developed several months later.

They married in 2007, at a service attended by Don and Gail Patterson and Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Erin’s parents were on holiday when she got married, so Ian Wilkinson’s son David walked her down the aisle, she told the court.

Patterson said she was “very atheist” when she met Simon. “I was trying to convert him to being an atheist, but things happened in reverse, and I became Christian,” she told the court.

She said she had a “spiritual experience” during her first church service in 2005 at Korumburra Baptist Church, where Pastor Ian Wilkinson delivered the sermon. “I had what I would call a religious experience there, and it quite overwhelmed me,” she said

A traumatic birth

Patterson recalled the traumatic delivery of her first child, who was born by emergency cesarian, after an attempt with forceps failed. Her son spent some time in the intensive care unit, and Patterson said she discharged herself against medical advice so she could go home to be with her newborn.

Patterson spoke about the support Simon’s mother Gail gave her as she cared for her son. “She gave me good advice … relax and enjoy your baby,” she said.

When they were living in Perth, Western Australia, the couple briefly separated for the first time. In 2009, Patterson rented a cottage for herself and their baby, she told the court, while her husband rented a trailer close by. They reunited in January 2010. A second baby came later.

During the course of their relationship, Patterson told the court there were periods of separation.

“What we struggled with over the entire course or our relationship… we just couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something,” she said. “We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it.”

Patterson will resume giving evidence on Tuesday.

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House Republicans eked out a win in May with their advancement of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ filled with negotiations and compromises on thorny policy issues that barely passed muster in the lower chamber.

Next week, Senate Republicans will get their turn to parse through the colossal package and are eying changes that could be a hard sell for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who can only afford to lose three votes.

Congressional Republicans are in a dead sprint to get the megabill — filled with Trump’s policy desires on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt — onto the president’s desk by early July.

Trump has thrown his support behind the current product, but said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday that he expected the package to be ‘jiggered around a little bit.’

‘It’s going to be negotiated with the Senate, with the House, but the end result is it extends the Trump tax cuts,’ he said.

‘If it doesn’t get approved, you’ll have a 68% tax increase,’ the president continued. ‘You’re going to go up 68%. That’s a number that nobody has ever heard of before. You’ll have a massive tax increase.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has an identical margin to Johnson, and will need to cultivate support from a Senate GOP that wants to put its own fingerprints on the bill.

Senators have signaled they’d like to make changes to a litany of House proposals, including reforms to Medicaid and the timeline for phasing out green energy tax credits, among others, and have grumbled about the hike to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap pushed for by moderate House Republicans.

Thune said many Republicans are largely in favor of the tax portion of the bill, which seeks to make Trump’s first-term tax policy permanent, and particularly the tax policies that are ‘stimulative, that are pro-growth, that will create greater growth in the economy.’

Much of the debate, and prospective tweaks, from the upper chamber would likely focus on whether the House’s offering has deep enough spending cuts, he said.

‘When it comes to the spending side of the equation, this is a unique moment in time and in history where we have the House and the Senate and the White House and an opportunity to do something meaningful about controlled government spending,’ Thune said.

The House package set a benchmark of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade.

Some in the Senate GOP would like to see that number cranked up marginally to at least $2 trillion, largely because the tax portion of the package is expected to add nearly $4 trillion to the deficit, according to recent findings from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

‘There’s just so many great things in this bill,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. ‘The only thing I would like to do is try to cut the spending, and I would love to take a little bit from a lot of places, rather than a lot from just one place.’

Others, like Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., want to see the cuts in the package return to pre-pandemic spending levels, which would amount to roughly a $6 trillion slash in spending.

Johnson has remained unflinching in his opposition to the current bill, and warned that ‘no amount of pressure’ from Trump could change his mind.

‘President Trump made a bunch of promises,’ Johnson said at an event in Wisconsin on Wednesday. ‘My promise has been, consistently, we have to stop mortgaging our children’s future. OK, so I think there are enough [Republicans] to slow this process down until the president, our leadership, gets serious about returning to a pre-pandemic level.’

Others are concerned over the proposed slashes to Medicaid spending, which congressional Republicans have largely pitched as reform efforts designed to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the program used by millions of Americans.

The House package would see a roughly $700 billion cut from the program, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and some Senate Republicans have signaled that they wouldn’t support the changes if benefits were cut for their constituents.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., warned in an op-ed for The New York Times last month that cutting benefits was ‘both morally wrong and politically suicidal.’ Meanwhile, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, raised concerns about what proposed cuts to the program would do to rural hospitals in her state. 

‘I cannot support proposals that would create more duress for our hospitals and providers that are already teetering on the edge of insolvency,’ she said. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

President Donald Trump shared a post on social media this weekend claiming that President Joe Biden died in 2020 and was replaced with clones.

Trump shared a link to the post from his personal account on Truth Social on Saturday. The post originated from a small account on the platform responding to discussions about Biden’s health.

‘There is no Joe Biden – executed in 2020,’ the post says. ‘Biden clones, doubles and robotic engineered soulless, mindless entities are what you see.’

‘Democrats don’t know the difference,’ it adds, before listing a litany of hashtags.

Trump added no words of his own to the post, merely sharing the link on his personal account.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Trump shared several links to Truth Social posts without offering his own commentary Saturday night. Most of the posts detailed Trump’s efforts to return steel manufacturing to the U.S.

The Saturday post comes amid new controversy over Biden’s health while in office. Speculation has exploded in the days since Biden announced he has stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer, a diagnosis that typically takes years to develop.

The nature of the diagnosis has led to speculation that members of the previous administration were aware of the cancer but withheld information about it from the public, even as they attempted to run Biden for a second term.

Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump were ‘saddened’ to learn of Biden’s diagnosis and wished him a ‘fast and successful recovery’ in a post on social media this weekend.

‘Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,’ Trump wrote. ‘We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.’

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With the early moves heating up in the 2026 battle for the House majority, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) chair argues President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate are ‘doing incredible damage to working families and to our country.’

And with the GOP defending a razor-thin majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections, Rep. Suzan DelBene, the DCCC chair, noted, ‘We only need three more seats.’

‘We have 35 districts in play across the country where we have opportunities,’ DelBene said in a Fox News Digital interview last week in the nation’s capital, pointing to the Republican-held seats the DCCC is targeting.

‘We are on offense. We are fighting for the American people and for the important issues they care about, and Democrats are united in doing that.’

While the party in power after a presidential election — currently the GOP — typically faces political headwinds and loses House seats in the following midterms, the 2026 map appears to favor Republicans.

‘The battlefield is really laying out to our advantage. There are 14 Democrats who won seats also carried by Donald Trump. There are only three Republicans in seats that were carried by [former Vice President] Kamala Harris. So, that tells me we’re going to be on offense,’ Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) chair, told Fox News Digital at the start of the 2026 cycle.

DelBene countered that ‘the reason we have opportunities is because people are outraged, because they do want to see someone come into office who is going to fight for their communities and not just be blindly loyal to a president.’

And pointing to the small bite House Democrats took out of the GOP’s majority in the 2024 elections, she added that ‘those are the types of candidates that won in our districts last cycle. It’s a reason we actually gained seats in 2024 and is absolutely the reason why we’re going to take back the majority in 2026.’

But Hudson noted he has a powerful ally as he works to keep control of the House.

‘The president understands that he’s got to keep the House majority in the midterm so that he has a four-year runway instead of a two-year runway to get his agenda enacted,’ Hudson said. ‘He’s been extremely helpful to us, and we appreciate it.’

And the Democrats are facing a polling dilemma because the party’s ratings have been sinking to historic lows in a number of national surveys so far this year.

The Democrats’ ratings in a Fox News poll stood at 41% favorable and 56% unfavorable in a survey conducted April 18-21.

That’s an all-time low for the Democrats in Fox News polling. And for the first time in a decade, the party’s standing was lower than that of the GOP, which stood at 44% favorable and 54% unfavorable.

The figures were reversed last summer, when Fox News last asked the party favorability question in one of its surveys.

But there is a silver lining for the Democrats.

The Fox News poll indicated that if the 2026 midterm elections were held today, 49% of voters would back a generic Democrat in their congressional district, with 42% supporting the generic Republican candidate.

The Democrats also have another problem — the possibility of primary challenges against longtime and older House lawmakers in safe blue districts.

Recently elected Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg last month pledged to spend millions of dollars through his outside political group to support primary challenges against what he termed ‘asleep at the wheel’ House Democrats who he argued have not been effective in pushing back against Trump.

The move by the 25-year-old Hogg, a survivor of the shooting seven years ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, to spend money against fellow Democrats ignited a firestorm within the party.

In response, DelBene said, ‘Democrats across the country are united in taking back the House.’

Asked by Fox News if the move by Hogg would force the DCCC and allied super PACs to divert money and resources from competitive districts in order to defend incumbents in safe blue districts from primary challenges, DelBene responded, ‘I think everyone knows how important it is that we take back the House, and folks are focused in helping make sure that we do that in districts all across the country.’

But the dispute is giving the GOP ammunition.

In response to the intra-Democratic Party feud, NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella argued, ‘No Democrat is safe. A political earthquake is underway, and the old guard is scrambling.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett says he remains ‘very, very confident’ that courts will support President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda.

Hassett made the statement during a Sunday morning appearance on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ telling host George Stephanopoulos that the White House still expects ‘Plan A’ to work out.

‘And so we’re very thrilled. We are very confident that the judges would uphold this law. And so I think that that’s Plan A, and we’re very, very confident that Plan A is all we’re ever going to need,’ Hassett said.

‘But if, for some reason, some judge were to say that it’s not a national emergency when more Americans die from fentanyl than have ever died in all American wars combined, that’s not an emergency that the president has authority over – if that ludicrous statement is made by a judge somewhere, then we’ll have other alternatives that we can pursue as well to make sure that we make American trade fair again,’ he added.

Hassett’s appearance comes after a federal court struck down Trump’s tariffs in a ruling last week, only for an appeals court to issue a temporary stay protecting the tariffs during litigation.

The appeals court ruling paused a decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), thus allowing Trump to continue to enact the 10% baseline tariff and the so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ that he announced April 2 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. 

The CIT had ruled unanimously to block the tariffs the day before.

Members of the three-judge panel who were appointed by Trump, former President Barack Obama and former President Ronald Reagan, ruled unanimously that Trump had overstepped his authority under IEEPA.

They noted that, as commander in chief, Trump does not have ‘unbounded authority’ to impose tariffs under the emergency law.

For now, the burden of proof shifts to the government, which must convince the court it will suffer ‘irreparable harm’ if the injunction remains in place, a high legal standard the Trump administration must meet.

Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on Sunday that he would support President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ if the debt ceiling hike was removed.

Paul told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ host Margaret Brennan that he and three other Republican senators will hold out against the bill unless it is modified. 

‘I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction,’ Paul said. 

‘I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don’t wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion,’ he continued, adding, ‘The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this.’

Trump on Saturday warned Paul would be ‘playing right into the hands of the Democrats’ if he votes against the bill.

‘If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on U.S. Debt,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. 

‘Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing, plus some cost cutting later on, will solve ALL problems. America will be greater than ever before!’

Next week, Senate Republicans will get their turn to parse through the colossal package and are eying changes that could be a hard sell for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who can only afford to lose three votes.

Congressional Republicans are in a dead sprint to get the megabill — filled with Trump’s policy desires on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt — onto the president’s desk by early July.

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and Alex Miller contributed to this report.

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Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling through southern and central Gaza were looted by desperate civilians on Saturday, the UN World Food Programme said as famine conditions worsen in the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement issued on X, the WFP said 77 trucks had crossed into Gaza loaded with flour. All of them “were stopped along the way, with food taken mainly by hungry people trying to feed their families.”

It added that “after 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to let food pass them by.”

WFP said in a post on X on Saturday that “the humanitarian situation in #Gaza is spiraling. Border closures, hunger, and desperation have made aid delivery volatile — trucks are looted, people risk everything for a bag of flour.”

“To restore hope, ease fear and prevent further chaos we must flood communities with food – now.”

Videos showed dozens of people in Khan Younis carrying away sacks of flour. Similar scenes played out in Netzarim, where bursts of gunfire could be heard as crowds rushed to grab sacks of flour.

Hunger has spread in Gaza, with UN agencies warning of impending famine without a drastic scaling up of aid entering the territory and being distributed across it. There have been multiple incidents of looting.

The United Arab Emirates said last week that only one of 24 truckloads it had organized had reached the planned destination.

Last week, chaos broke out when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). According to the Palestinian health ministry, 11 people were killed and dozens injured in that incident.

The GHF, a controversial private foundation backed by Israel and the US, says it is continuing to scale up distribution at its four hubs in central and southern Gaza. It said that on Saturday it had distributed 30 truckloads of food totaling 28,800 boxes at its hub in Rafah in southern Gaza, adding that “today’s meal distribution was the largest to date and five times more than yesterday.”

The UN’s aid agencies have criticized the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.

Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA – the UN agency that serves Palestinian territories – said 900 trucks had reportedly been sent into Gaza over the past two weeks, since an Israeli blockade was partially relaxed. The UN also says that it is struggling to coordinate safe distribution of aid inside Gaza once it arrives.

“That’s just over 10 per cent of the daily needs of people in Gaza. The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Lazzarini posted on X, comparing the quantity to the 600 to 800 truckloads coming into Gaza daily during the ceasefire earlier this year.

“The current mass starvation can be stopped. It takes political will,” he said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

India’s military has acknowledged for the first time that an unspecified number of its fighter jets were shot down during strikes on Pakistani-controlled territory amid intense fighting between the neighbors in early May.

Indian officials had previously refused to confirm even a single aircraft loss.

Asked by a Bloomberg correspondent on Saturday if Pakistan was correct in its claim that “six Indian jets” were downed, Anil Chauhan, the chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, initially denied the veracity of the claim, stating: “Absolutely incorrect and that is not information which, as I said, is important.”

But he went on to say that “what is important is why they went down,” seeming to imply that a number of jets were shot down during fighting between the historic foes, although not confirming how many. “That is more important for us. And what did we do after that? That’s more important,” he said, speaking to Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore.

The official also accepted that India’s military had made a “tactical mistake,” in response to another question about Pakistan’s claim.

“The good part is we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets, again targeting at long range,” he said.

Pakistan claimed its pilots shot down five Indian fighter jets in aerial battles – including three advanced French-made Rafales – after India launched its military operation against Pakistan in early May. Pakistan said it used Chinese-made fighter jets to shoot down the Indian combat aircraft, including the Rafales.

The fighting was a major escalation between the South Asian neighbors and came in response to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, an accusation rejected by Islamabad. A truce between Islamabad and New Delhi was announced on May 10.

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Hamas says that it has responded to a ceasefire plan put forward by President Trump’s envoy on Gaza, but did not make clear what its exact response was.

In a statement Saturday, Hamas said that its “proposal” to the mediators – Qatar and Egypt — “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip.”

“As part of this agreement, ten living Israeli prisoners held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of eighteen bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,” the statement said.

Negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire would begin immediately on the first day of the 60-day truce, according to the proposal. The terms of the agreement would also allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza “immediately” and be distributed “through agreed upon channels,” including the United Nations and the Red Crescent, according to the proposal.

But the draft agreement contained no intrinsic guarantee of a permanent end to the war, a key Hamas demand, nor assurances that the ceasefire will be extended as long as negotiations continue. Instead, it said that US President Donald Trump is “committed to working to ensure that good faith negotiations continue until a final agreement is reached.”

Hamas had initially signaled reluctance to accept the terms of the deal. Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Facebook Thursday that the framework did “not respond to any of our people’s demands” but that discussions were underway, nonetheless.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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