Ruling on Israel: The U.N.’s International Court of Justice has issued a preliminary judgment that declines to support a claim by South Africa that Israel is engaging in genocide in its war against Hamas. South Africa filed a case with the court in which it asked the court to order Israel to stop its military actions in Gaza. The court declined to issue such an order. The judges did order Israel to take steps to protect civilians in Gaza. After the ruling was announced this morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will do whatever is necessary to defend itself.
Trump’s testimony: Donald Trump testified in a courtroom in Manhattan for about three or four minutes yesterday in the second defamation case against him brought by journalist E. Jean Carroll. Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered segments of his testimony stricken from the record after Trump violated a court ruling that his attorneys had accepted. The ruling was that Trump could not claim on the stand that he is innocent of sexually assaulting Carroll. A jury in the first case found him guilty of sexual assault, which Judge Kaplan, who presided in that case classified as rape, and Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.
Execution: Alabama last night executed a prisoner by forcing him to breath nitrogen gas. This was the first use of the procedure. Nitrogen displaces oxygen in the body, resulting in death by oxygen deprivation. Alabama’s execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith followed a previous attempt to execute him that failed. Alabama prison personnel could not properly hook up an intravenous fluid line. This time, it took several minutes to kill Smith, who was observed to be struggling to breathe and straining against the straps that held him down. The U.S. Supreme Court last night refused to halt the execution on a split decision. The three liberal justices said that Smith’s attorneys should have more time to file objections that giving Alabama a second chance to execute Smith amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.
Border deal: Politico reported today that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell supports the bipartisan deal that had been worked out to couple new spending on border security with aid for Ukraine. In a meeting with Senate Republicans yesterday McConnell explained that Donald Trump was exerting pressure to kill the deal so that Trump would be able to continue using immigration and the situation at the border as a campaign issue. McConnell wanted to make it clear that he still supports fixing border and immigration problems with the bipartisan deal that’s now on the table and was just briefing his colleagues about Trump wanting to block border and immigration solutions.
Wall Street Journal reporter: The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that a court in Moscow has extended by two months the detention of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. He was arrested by Russian authorities on espionage charges last March. This is the fourth time the Russians have extended the length of time Gershkovich has been held in prison. The latest court hearing was held behind closed doors.
Tesla vehicles: Another recall for Tesla. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said today that 200,000 Model S, X, and Y Tesla vehicles in the U.S. are being recalled due to a software malfunction. The software problem causes the backup camera not to work properly and that could interfere with what drivers can see while backing up. Last month, Tesla recalled about 2 million vehicles in order to fix problems with the Autopilot feature.
