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Philippines says ship damaged in South China Sea incident with Chinese boat

Collision occurred as the coast guard escorted a resupply mission to sailors on grounded ship at Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has said one of its boats suffered “minor structural damage” as Chinese ships tried to block a resupply mission in the South China Sea, in the latest confrontation in the disputed waters. Jay Tarriela, the PCG spokesperson, said the incident took place early on Tuesday morning near Second Thomas Shoal where a small group of sailors have been living on board the Sierra Madre warship since it was grounded nearly 25 years ago. He shared videos and images on X showing a Chinese ship cutting across the bow of the Philippine resupply ship and the crew rushing to drop a buoy between the vessels. The PCG ships were accompanying the resupply boats. “The PCG vessels faced dangerous maneuvers and blocking from Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Chinese Maritime Militia,” Tarriela wrote on the social media platform, adding that the resupply mission was continuing. “Their reckless and illegal actions led to a collision between MRRV-4407 and China Coast Guard 21555 that resulted in minor structural damage to the PCG vessel.” China’s Coast Guard said it had taken “regulatory actions” against Philippine ships in the area, accusing them of entering the waters “illegally”. This morning, @coastguardph vessels, BRP CABRA and BRP SINDANGAN, were deployed by the Commandant, CG Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan, to support the Rotation and Reprovisioning Operation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Throughout the operation, the PCG vessels faced dangerous… pic.twitter.com/WsjnMnGSEk — Jay Tarriela (@jaytaryela) March 5, 2024 Tensions in the South China Sea have risen over the past year with Manila accusing Beijing of taking dangerous actions against its boats and lodging multiple diplomatic protests. Second Thomas Shoal, known as Anyungin Shoal by the Philippines and Ren’ai Jiao by China, lies about 200km (124 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000km from China’s southern Hainan Island. The Philippines is one of several Southeast Asian countries that claim parts of the South China Sea, while Beijing claims the waters almost in their entirety. In 2012, China seized control of Scarborough Shoal after a months-long standoff, and the Philippines took its case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which found China’s claims had no legal basis. Beijing has ignored the ruling. Adblock test (Why?)

Jeff Bezos topples Elon Musk to reclaim title of world’s richest man

Bezos has gained $23bn in 2024, while Musk has lost $31bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Jeff Bezos has dethroned Elon Musk to reclaim his title as the world’s richest man. The Amazon founder’s net worth currently stands at $200bn, topping the Tesla chief’s $198bn, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed on Tuesday. Bezos has gained $23bn so far in 2024, while Musk has lost about $31bn, according to the index. The billionaires’ wealth gains and losses closely tracked the stock market fortunes of Amazon and Tesla, who count their founders as their biggest shareholders. Amazon’s share price has surged by more than 18 percent this year, while Tesla’s has dropped by 24 percent. Despite selling $8.5bn worth of Amazon shares earlier this month, Bezos remains the biggest shareholder in the e-commerce giant with a 9.56 percent stake. Musk has an equity stake in Tesla of about 20 percent. In January, a judge in the United States struck down a Tesla pay package for Musk valued at up to $55.8bn after finding that the process for approving his remuneration was deeply flawed. Musk, who also runs X and SpaceX, rose to the top of the rich list in May after toppling Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of luxury goods company LVMH, who now ranks third with $197bn. Bezos, Musk and Arnault have jockeyed for the top spot in recent years in the ranking, which is based on fluctuations in the stock market and other economic data. Adblock test (Why?)

’10 years have been…’: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh reacts to PM Modi’s ‘My country is my family’ remark

In a united move against Lalu Yadav’s ‘no family’ remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, top BJP leaders including Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Nitin Gadkari, Jyotiraditya Scindia and others added ‘Modi ka Parivaar’ to their social media biodatas.

Nevada Democrat Jacky Rosen makes Senate re-election bid official

Nevada U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen announced Monday at a union hall in Las Vegas that she has officially filed for reelection in a presidential battleground state that is a top GOP target in a challenging 2024 Senate map. The first-term moderate Democrat launched her campaign for a second term last year, and 10 Republican challengers have crowded the field to oppose her. Rosen has not drawn a top-name Democratic opponent. Rosen was introduced by leaders of plumbers and pipefitters, firefighters, electrical workers and the powerful local hotel worker unions and told members their backing is going to be key to keeping Democratic control of the Senate “and stopping those MAGA Republicans from arguing every single bill.” NEVADA’S SECRETARY OF STATE SAYS LAWYERS WHO FILL POLL WORKER GAP SHOULD EARN CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS She also put the abortion debate at the center of her remarks. Democrats nationally have tried to focus voters on the Supreme Court decision in June 2022 to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the right to end a pregnancy. “I am never going to back down when it comes to our reproductive rights, which are at risk,” Rosen said. GOP hopefuls in the Senate race include Sam Brown, a retired Army captain who ran for Senate in 2022 and has backing from party leaders in Washington, D.C. His campaign manager, Faith Jones, tied Rosen to Biden in a statement critical of unemployment, housing, and food and grocery costs. Other GOP challengers include Jim Marchant, who lost a run for Nevada secretary of state in 2022 after emerging as an outspoken denier of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win over former President Donald Trump. A Marchant campaign aide did not respond to messages about Rosen’s announcement. Trump lost Nevada in 2020 by more than 30,000 votes to Biden, despite legal challenges from Republicans and campaign aides who claimed but did not provide evidence of election irregularities. Nevada’s other U.S. senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, is a Democrat who was reelected in November 2022.

Trump maintains grip on GOP nod with victory in North Dakota caucuses

Former President Donald Trump inched closer to becoming the Republican nominee for president with another primary victory Monday, this time with a win in the North Dakota caucuses. Trump won North Dakota’s caucuses, finishing first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, according to an Associated Press call of the race shortly after polls closed Sunday, earning the former president 29 delegates.  The win continues Trump’s dominant streak in this year’s GOP primary races, marking the 9th win in 10 tries for the former president as he closes in on representing the Republican Party for a third time.  The only contest Trump has lost so far was last weekend’s primary in Washington D.C. TRUMP WINS THE MICHIGAN GOP PRIMARY, BRINGING HIM ONE STEP CLOSER TO SECURING REPUBLICAN NOMINATION The win comes as Trump’s campaign has largely shifted its attention to the general election and an all-but-certain rematch of 2020’s matchup against President Biden, with the Trump campaign telling Fox News Digital before this week’s slate of contests that the primary race is “over.” “Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,” a spokesperson for the campaign said. “Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.” DC PRIMARY REPRESENTS HALEY’S BEST CHANCE YET TO BEAT TRUMP The former president already had a commanding lead heading into this week, holding ten times as many delegates as Haley before earning 29 in Monday’s North Dakota win. The loss marked another blow to Haley’s campaign, though the former South Carolina governor has vowed to stay in the race as long as there is a path to victory. That path will likely have to start appearing on Super Tuesday, where voters in 15 more states will head to the polls to determine who gets a share of 865 total delegates. While neither candidate can reach the needed 1,215 delegates to secure the nomination this week, continued dominance by Trump would give Haley a near impossible uphill climb.  For its part, the Haley Campaign has invested heavily in a Super Tuesday turnaround, announcing a seven-figure ad buy earlier this month meant to target many of the states on the Tuesday slate.

Many homes burned in the Texas wildfires weren’t insured, creating a steep path to recovery

Rural Texans are more than twice as likely to go without homeowners insurance than their urban peers.

Warren renews call for COVID-19 Victims Memorial Day, passage of resolution

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts. renewed calls on Monday for a national day to honor the lives taken by COVID-19. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Warren urged Congress to pass a resolution to designate the first Monday of March as “COVID-19 Victims Memorial Day.” “Over a million Americans have died due to COVID-19—including many family members & loved ones,” she wrote. “We must honor & remember the lives lost. @SenMarkey & I are pushing to designate today—the first Monday in March—as COVID-19 Victims Memorial Day. Congress should pass this resolution.” CDC DROPS ITS 5-DAY COVID ISOLATION GUIDELINES Warren and fellow Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey introduced the resolution in August 2021. It was reintroduced on March 6, 2023.  “This resolution recognizes our nation’s immeasurable mourning and serves as a reminder for Congress to renew its commitment to protecting communities from this ongoing public health crisis,” Markey said in a statement last year.  The United States has experienced more than 100 million COVID cases with more than 1.1 million deaths related to the virus.  The resolution states that the pandemic “had a disproportionate impact on low-income communities and communities of color, individuals with disabilities, individuals with weakened immune systems, individuals with other risk factors, such as physical or mental comorbidities, and individuals living in congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities and prisons.” Thr resolution was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last year but no action has been taken on it since. 

Pro-Palestinian protesters accost AOC outside movie theater, demand she call Israel-Hamas war a ‘genocide’

A group of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her fiancé outside a movie theater in Brooklyn and demanded that she call Israel’s offensive in Gaza a “genocide.” Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows the protesters, phones in hand, approaching the congresswoman outside the Alabama Drafthouse.  “You refuse to call it a genocide,” one of the protesters can be heard saying, to which Ocasio-Cortez fires back: “I need you to understand that this is not okay.”  “It’s not okay that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it,” the protester says.  “You’re lying!” Ocasio-Cortez shouts back.  The video shows the protesters following her down the escalator, continually berating her for not labeling the war a “genocide.”  UN FINALLY RECOGNIZES THAT ISRAELI WOMEN WERE RAPED, SEXUALLY ATTACKED BY HAMAS TERRORISTS “If you can’t say it, just say it. Literally. We’re just talking to you like normal people. Just say it’s a genocide. Just say it. Over 30,000 people are dead AOC, you can’t just say it for once?” another protester shouts, citing figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. “Just say the word, that’s it. That’s all we want you to say.”  The protesters chase her and her fiancé, Riley Roberts, outside the building. At one point, Roberts pleads with the protesters to stop as they continue following the couple down the sidewalk.  One of the protesters asks whether Ocasio-Cortez is concerned her comments would “go viral.”  ‘WOEFULLY SILENT’ AOC BLASTED IN TIMES SQUARE BILLBOARD WARNING OF ‘TROJAN HORSE’ CHINA THREAT A visibly angry Ocasio-Cortez tells the protesters that they’re going to clip the video so that her comments are “completely out of context.”  She then appears to concede that Israel’s actions constitute a genocide.  “I already said that it was. And y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t. Over and over again. It’s f—ed up man. And you’re not helping these people. You’re not helping them,” Ocasio-Cortez says.  The protesters, clearly unassuaged and dissatisfied with her answer, continue chasing the couple down the sidewalk. One of them mentions her past comments, condemning the Armenian genocide.  “Why won’t you say it in front of everybody, why us?”  Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.  Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly condemned Israel’s retaliation after the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 civilians, injured hundreds more, and took around 250 hostages.  She has called for a ceasefire and suggested the U.S. “conditioning aid, if not cutting aid to the Netanyahu government.”   Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of committing war crimes, while qualifying that she was not defending Hamas. 

Harris stresses US support for Israel, Gaza truce in talks with Gantz

Vice President Kamala Harris meets Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz amid growing pressure over the US’s Gaza war stance. United States Vice President Kamala Harris has reiterated her country’s support for Israel and pushed for more humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip in talks with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz. In a readout of Monday’s meeting in Washington, DC, the White House said Harris “expressed her deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza”, a narrow Palestinian enclave that has been the subject of a deadly Israeli military offensive since October 7. The statement explained that Harris emphasised the importance of reaching a deal that would see the release of captives taken by the Palestinian group Hamas in exchange for an immediate six-week truce. “She urged Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need,” the statement also said. Gantz’s visit to Washington, DC comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration faces widespread pressure to curb the US’s “unwavering” support for Israel in light of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment, which began on October 7 following a Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,100 people. Critics have pointed out that Israel’s war on Gaza has pushed the territory – home to nearly 2.3 million people – to the brink of collapse. The vast majority of the population has been displaced amid the bombing and an Israeli siege has left basic necessities like food, water and medicine in short supply. Experts have warned of famine, with Palestinian children already dying from malnutrition. In recent weeks, the Biden administration has shifted its tone, pushing for more assistance into Gaza. It recently airdropped a limited number of meals to Palestinians there. But critics say those efforts will have scant effect if Washington does not exert pressure on Israel to stop the war. Some have called for the US to withhold military and diplomatic assistance to the Israeli government. The US government provides at least $3.8bn in military assistance to Israel annually. Reporting from Washington, DC, on Monday afternoon, Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said there have been several “performative gestures” from the White House in recent days amid an uptick in public pressure. On Sunday, for instance, Harris spoke in Selma, Alabama – an important site in the US civil rights movement – where she reaffirmed US support for a six-week pause in the fighting and spoke in stark terms about the “inhumane” conditions in Gaza. But ultimately, Washington’s policies remain “fundamentally the same”, Rattansi said. Gantz, a former top general in the Israeli army, is widely seen as a more centrist politician than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But critics say that, as a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, he too represents the Israeli government and its policies in Gaza. Biden, who is seeking re-election in November, has already faced a backlash at the ballot box for his stance towards Israel’s war in Gaza. Last week, more than 101,000 Democratic primary voters in the state of Michigan voted “uncommitted” instead of supporting Biden, largely as the result of an organised protest campaign stemming from the Gaza war. Speaking to Al Jazeera on Monday, Tamer Qarmout, an assistant professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said what matters is whether the Biden administration will take “real action to stop Israel” from continuing its war. “We don’t see this happening,” Qarmout said. “The US is not really using any of its leverage to change Israel’s behaviour.” Adblock test (Why?)

‘Bad sign’: Legal scholars question US Supreme Court’s Trump primary ruling

Washington, DC – Former United States President Donald Trump hailed it as a victory. His critics blasted it as a blow against accountability. But experts say the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow Trump to remain on the Colorado primary ballot was always the most likely outcome. The controversy, they argue, lies in the details. On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s efforts to bar Trump from the state’s Republican presidential primary under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. That amendment contains a so-called “insurrection clause”: a section of the law that disqualifies candidates from public office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US government. Colorado’s state Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump had run afoul of the insurrection clause by egging on the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. But in a unanimous ruling, the US Supreme Court deemed the state could not remove Trump from its primary ballot. Thomas Keck, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Al Jazeera that the Colorado case had long faced an uphill battle. “It was definitely always a long shot and the ruling is not surprising,” Keck explained. But, he added, the US Supreme Court’s ruling opened up larger questions about what guardrails exist to protect US democracy. “It has been three years [since January 6] and Trump has faced almost zero consequences. That is a bad sign for the health of the country’s democratic institutions,” Keck said. The fact that not a single justice today issued a single sentence disputing the finding that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection is incredibly telling. Yes, they let him off on a technicality, but there is no question that he is an oath-breaking insurrectionist. — Noah Bookbinder (@NoahBookbinder) March 4, 2024 A divided public reaction Trump claimed vindication after the ruling, portraying the case as part of a political and legal “witch hunt” aimed at hurting his reelection chances. His supporters were quick to seize on that narrative in the wake of Monday’s ruling. In a social media post, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz called the decision a defeat for “election interference by lawfare”.  Another Republican, Representative William Timmons, hailed it as a “big win for America and a huge loss for Democrats trying to interfere in the election”. Democrats, meanwhile, reacted with a mixture of outrage and ambivalence, with some questioning the optics of removing Trump from the ballot. Quentin Fulks, a manager for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, responded to the Supreme Court’s decision with indifference. Biden is likely to face Trump again in this year’s general election, after defeating him in the 2020 presidential race. “We don’t really care,” Fulks said during an interview on MSNBC on Monday. “It’s not been the way we’ve been planning to beat Donald Trump,” he continued. “Our focus since day one of launching this campaign has been to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box”. ‘Pretty shocking’ The Colorado case hinged on Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. After Trump’s loss to Biden, a group of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a violent attempt to overturn his defeat. Last September, a group of six Colorado voters — with the support of the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — filed a petition in state court to bar Trump from the ballot on the basis that he played a part in the riot. Trump has long faced accusations that he spurred on his supporters with false claims that the election had been stolen through large-scale fraud. In Monday’s ruling, the Supreme Court’s nine justices — six conservative, three left-leaning — unanimously agreed that states could only disqualify those holding or seeking state-level office. The US presidency, they said, was a different matter. “States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 [of the 14th Amendment] with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” they wrote. From there, however, the unanimity ended. In an unsigned majority opinion, five conservative justices argued that, at the federal level, only the US Congress could disqualify an individual from running for office on the grounds of insurrection. “The Constitution empowers Congress to prescribe how those determinations should be made,” they wrote. “The terms of the Amendment speak only to enforcement by Congress.” But critics warn that decision — with its emphasis on congressional action — could limit the judicial branch’s power to interpret the 14th Amendment. Claire Finkelstein, the director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, called the majority’s argument “pretty shocking”. She explained that, under its logic, the Supreme Court may not be able to disqualify someone like Trump from appearing on a primary ballot, even if he were convicted on federal charges of insurrection. The court would need “some piece of federal legislation saying that a federal conviction for insurrection should count for purposes of the amendment”, she said. On Monday, Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, told the news site Axios he had begun crafting such a bill. But critics point out that such legislation faces long odds, given the broad support Trump enjoys in the Republican Party, which controls the US House of Representatives. Discord on the bench Other members of the Supreme Court likewise questioned the scope of the majority’s opinion, warning of a dangerous precedent. The court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan — decried the opinion as overreaching in a joint opinion. They argued it essentially neutered the court’s ability to weigh in on the matter in the future. “This Court is authorized ‘to say what the law is’,” they wrote. “Today, the Court departs from that vital principle, deciding not just this case but challenges that might arise in the future.” By placing the matter in Congress’s hands, the three justices argued that the majority had “shut the door on other potential means of federal enforcement”, in