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This week’s conference is headed by Israel’s Diaspora Ministry, which is headed by Amichai Chikli (Likud). The conference titled “International Conference on Combating Antisemitism” is a culmination of Israel’s “Diaspora week”, but it is really meant to garner further support for Israel’s racist policies.

Chikli defended Elon Musk last year when the latter attacked George Soros for “hating humanity” and comparing him to the X-Men comic book villain Magneto, who like Soros, is a Holocaust survivor. Now, the guest list for his antisemitism conference is generating so much controversy that even reactionary Zionists can’t support it.

“The conference guest list includes controversial European right-wing politicians Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right French National Rally party founded by noted antisemite and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen; Marion Marechal, a far-right French member of the European Parliament and Le Pen’s granddaughter; Hermann Tertsch, a far-right Spanish member of the European Parliament; Charlie Weimers of the far-right Sweden Democrats party; and Kinga Gál, of Hungary’s Fidesz party.”

This Who’s Who of the European far right has led some of Israel’s most notable defenders, such as Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, and others, to pull out of the event.

The administration officials gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic a front-row seat to the planning for the strike against the Houthis – a stunning intelligence leak that has caused anger against Republicans who called for criminal investigations against Hillary Clinton and others for playing fast and loose with sensitive information.

On the face of it, the strike against the Houthis had far more to do with the administration’s policies on protecting maritime trade and containing Iran than its concerns about Europe freeloading on US defense spending and military prowess.

But Vance appears determined to push that angle as a reason to postpone the strike.

“I think we are making a mistake,” wrote Vance, adding that while only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez canal, 40% of European trade does. “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” he added. “The strongest reason to do this is, as [Trump] said, to send a message.”

CANTON ‒ Stark County Treasurer Alex Zumbar said he intends to repurchase $2 million in State of Israel bonds.

Pro-Palestinian activists say the investments are immoral.

Three Stark County investments in State of Israel bonds mature April 1. Zumbar said he plans to reinvest $1 million with a three-year bond at a 4.74% interest rate and $1 million with a five-year bond at a 5.17% interest rate when the prior investments mature.

"The bonds offer an attractive and competitive rate for the diversified portfolio when I compared them to other like investments being offered," Zumbar said.

Last April, Stark County reinvested $1.3 million in State of Israel bonds that will mature in 2029.

The Trump administration deported a Venezuelan professional soccer player, a youth soccer coach with no criminal record, to an El Salvadoran prison known for torture and abusive conditions, according an affidavit filed with the court and confirmed by a family member’s post on Facebook in Venezuela.

The family only discovered that their loved one, Jerce Reyes Barrios, had been renditioned to El Salvador when they saw him in viral videos posted by the Trump administration, in which it celebrated what it said was the mass deportation of violent members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

“We were surprised to see him in the videos being released on social media of those deported to El Salvador,” his uncle, Jair Barrios, said in a Facebook post in Spanish. “We immediately contacted the lawyer because no more information about him was appearing on the ICE locator.”

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the Department of Education, seemingly attempting to circumvent the need to obtain congressional approval to formally close a federal department.

The administration may eventually pursue an effort to get Congress to shut down the agency, Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, because its budget had more than doubled in size in recent years but national test scores had not improved.

The federal government does not mandate curriculum in schools; that has been the responsibility of state and local governments, which provide 90% of the funding to schools. Nevertheless, at the White House, Trump repeated his campaign promise to “send education back to the states”.

An Indian postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University who has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza is facing deportation after being detained under United States President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, was designated for deportation for “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism” on social media, Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said on Wednesday.

McLaughlin did not provide evidence for her claim of ties between Suri and Hamas, the group that governs Gaza.

CLAYTON — Two activists who participated in a pro-Palestine protest last spring at Washington University now face charges, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office said Wednesday.

Those charged include Jill Stein, the presidential nominee of the Green Party in 2024, who is accused of hitting a police officer with a bicycle and kicking him at the protest. Stein, 74, was charged Friday with first-degree trespass and fourth-degree assault.

In charging documents, Washington University police said demonstrators were given numerous warnings to leave the university’s private campus. Officers moved in for arrests around 8 p.m. Court documents alleged Stein interlocked her arms with other demonstrators and refused to leave.

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In an interview with the Post-Dispatch just days after the protest, Stein disputed accounts that she struck an officer.

“While I was being assaulted with a bicycle, one of the police bent down and picked up my foot in order to try to further destabilize me into falling backwards,” Stein said. “And I wiggled out of his grip, you know, in an effort not to fall back on my head.”

Under the current proposal, the €150 billion loan fund can be used only for procurement within Europe.

The draft proposal released yesterday shows that the French have prevailed. The headlines in Europe proclaimed that the decision excludes the US, UK and Turkish arms industries from European procurement in the billions of euros, but Israel too will be outside the fence.

According to the proposal, 65% of the cost of procurement of defense systems must be spent in countries in EFTA (the European Free Trade Association), which consists of the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein, and also Ukraine.

The remaining 35% can be spent in other countries, but only if they have signed a security and defense partnership agreement with the EU. South Korea, Japan, and the UK are expected to sign such agreements, but the US is not, because of the fear that they will not allow countries to bar the sale of certain weapons systems.

Israel and its defense companies are liable to find themselves torn between the EU requirements and the security alliance with the US, which will prevent the signing of such a strategic agreement and deny them billions of euros in potential sales. The EU plan also excludes the possibility of European countries buying weapons systems entirely designed in a country that is not in EFTA or has not signed an agreement.

Ben & Jerry's has said its chief executive, David Stever, was being removed by its parent company, Unilever, in a growing dispute over the ice cream company's political activism.

The allegation was part of a legal case filed in a US court by Ben & Jerry's that says Unilever violated a merger agreement by trying to silence its "social mission".

It comes a month after the ice cream company accused Unilever of demanding that it stops publicly criticising US President Donald Trump.

The ice cream maker was bought by Unilever in 2000 through a merger agreement that created an independent board tasked with protecting the ice cream brand's values and mission.

But Unilever and Ben & Jerry's have been at loggerheads for a while. Their relationship soured in 2021 when Ben & Jerry's announced it was halting sales in the West Bank. The dispute escalated over the last year as Ben & Jerry's advocated for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The family of an Ardrey Kell High School student allegedly assaulted for wearing a hijab says they are “very likely” to sue Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The family of the 15 year-old student, whose name has not been disclosed, said she was punched repeatedly in math class Friday by a football player at the school after days of anti-Muslim bullying.

The girl was later transported to the hospital for treatment for her injuries, including “multiple broken bones in her face, her jaw,” Jibril Hough, a leader and advocate with the Islamic Center of Charlotte, said at a press conference Wednesday. The girl said the male student called her racial slurs and told her to “go back to (her) country,” Hough said.

The family wants the incident to be investigated as a hate crime. “The young man who happened to be an Ardrey Kell football player seemed to have plenty of hate and be filled with intent,” Hough said. “He called our sister the b-word, the n-word, and told her to go back to her country...This is her own country. She was born and raised here.”

The family alleged CMS did not handle the situation appropriately by not calling an ambulance promptly. Instead, the district allegedly requested the student’s mother take her to the hospital. The student’s family said CMS also told them not to alert the media about the incident.