…

Washington — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 1 to serve his four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol insurrection, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington granted prosecutors’ request to make Bannon begin serving his prison term after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court last month upheld his contempt of Congress conviction. But Nichols also made clear in his ruling that Bannon could seek a stay of his order, which could delay his surrender date.

Outside the courthouse, Bannon told reporters: “I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.”

Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, a Republican, had initially allowed Bannon to remain free while he fought his conviction. But the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said all of Bannon’s challenges lack merit.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and the other for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Bannon’s lawyer at trial argued that the charges were politically motivated and that the former adviser didn’t ignore the subpoena but was still engaged in good-faith negotiations with the congressional committee when he was charged.

The defense has said Bannon had been acting on the advice of his attorney at the time, who told him that the subpoena was invalid because the committee would not allow a Trump lawyer in the room and that Bannon could not determine what documents or testimony he could provide because Trump has asserted executive privilege.

Defense lawyer David Schoen told the judge the defense had planned to ask the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, if necessary, to review the matter. Schoen said it would be unfair to send Bannon to prison now because he would have already completed his sentence before those rulings could be handed down.

“That might serve a political agenda; but it would be a grave injustice,” Schoen wrote in court papers.

A second Trump aide, trade advisor Peter Navarro, was also convicted of contempt of Congress and reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence.

Navarro had maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But courts have rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.

The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol, concluding an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection two years ago.
…

…

Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket completed its first full test flight Thursday, returning to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas. 

The previous three test flights ended in explosions of the rocket and the spacecraft. This time, both managed to splash down in a controlled fashion. 

The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — almost 121 meters tall — was empty as it soared above the Gulf of Mexico and headed east on a flight to the Indian Ocean. 

Minutes after Thursday morning’s liftoff, the first-stage booster separated from the spacecraft and splashed into the gulf precisely as planned, after firing its engines. 

An hour later, live views showed parts of the spacecraft breaking away during the intense heat of reentry, but it remained intact enough to transmit data all the way to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean. 

“And we have splashdown!” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice announced from Mission Control at company headquarters in California. 

It was a critical milestone in the company’s plan to eventually return Starship’s Super Heavy booster to its launch site for reuse. 

SpaceX came close to avoiding explosion in March, but lost contact with the spacecraft as it careened out of space and blew up short of its goal. The booster also ruptured in flight, a quarter-mile above the gulf. 

Last year’s two test flights ended in explosions shortly after blasting off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The first one cratered the pad at Boca Chica Beach and hurled debris for thousands of feet (meters). 

SpaceX upgraded the software and made some rocket-flyback changes to improve the odds. The Federal Aviation Administration signed off Tuesday on this fourth demo, saying all safety requirements had been met. 

Starship is designed to be fully reusable. That’s why SpaceX wants to control the booster’s entry into the gulf and the spacecraft’s descent into the Indian Ocean — it’s intended as practice for planned future landings. Nothing is being recovered from Thursday’s flight. 

NASA has ordered a pair of Starships for two moon-landing missions by astronauts, on tap for later this decade. Each moon crew will rely on NASA’s own rocket and capsule to leave Earth, but meet up with Starship in lunar orbit for the ride down to the surface. 

SpaceX already is selling tourist trips around the moon. The first private lunar customer, a Japanese tycoon, pulled out of the trip with his entourage last week, citing the oft-delayed schedule. 

SpaceX’s founder and CEO has grander plans: Musk envisions fleets of Starships launching people and the infrastructure necessary to build a city on Mars. 
…

…

…

UTAH BEACH, France — As the sun sets on the D-Day generation, it will rise again Thursday over the Normandy beaches where the waves long ago washed away the blood and boot-steps of its soldiers, but where their exploits that helped end Adolf Hitler’s tyranny are being remembered by the next generations, seeing war again in Europe, in Ukraine.

Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans who have pilgrimaged back to France, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has dashed hopes that lives and cities wouldn’t again be laid to waste in Europe, are making the always poignant anniversaries of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings even more so 80 years on.

As now-centenarian veterans revisit old memories and fallen comrades buried in Normandy graves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at D-Day commemorations with world leaders — including U.S. President Joe Biden — who are supporting his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion will inevitably fuse together World War II’s awful past with the fraught present on Thursday.

The break of dawn almost eight decades exactly after Allied troops waded ashore under hails of gunfire on five code-named beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword — will kick off a day of remembrance by Allied nations now standing together again behind Ukraine — and with World War II ally Russia not invited by host France. It cited Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine that has intensified in recent weeks” for the snub.

With the dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine estimated in the hundreds of thousands, commemorations for the more than 4,400 Allied dead on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy are tinged with concerns that World War II lessons are being lost.

“There are things worth fighting for,” said World War II veteran Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and turns 100 in July, as he visited Omaha Beach this week. “Although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other.”

“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that,” he said.

Conscious of the inevitability that major D-Day anniversaries will soon take place without World War II veterans, huge throngs of aficionados in uniforms and riding vehicles of the time, and tourists soaking up the spectacle, have flooded Normandy for the 80th anniversary.

The fair-like atmosphere fueled by World War II-era jeeps and trucks tearing down hedge-rowed lanes so deadly for Allied troops who fought dug-in German defenders, and of reenactors playing at war on sands where D-Day soldiers fell, leave open the question of what meaning anniversaries will have once the veterans are gone.

But at the 80th, they’re the VIPs of commemorations across the Normandy coast where the largest-ever land, sea and air armada punctured Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe and helped precipitate his downfall 11 months later.

Those who traveled to Normandy include women who were among the millions who built bombers, tanks and other weaponry and played other vital World War II roles that were long overshadowed by the combat exploits of men.

“We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world,” said 98-year-old Anna Mae Krier, who worked as a riveter building B-17 and B-29 bombers.

Feted wherever they go in wheelchairs and walking with canes, veterans are using their voices to repeat their message they hope will live eternal: Never forget.

“To know the amount of people who were killed here, just amazing,” 98-year-old Allan Chatwin, who served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, said as he visited Omaha, the deadliest of the Allied beaches on D-Day.

He quickly added: “I don’t know that amazing is the word.”
…

washington — U.S. House Republicans issued criminal referrals Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the Republicans’ yearlong impeachment inquiry. 

The Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending the prosecution of Hunter Biden and James Biden and accusing them of making a “conscious effort” to undermine the House’s investigation. 

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said in a statement that the referrals are “nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to twist Hunter’s testimony so they can distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.” 

James Biden ‘s lawyer, Paul Fishman, echoed that sentiment, calling it a “baseless partisan action,” and reiterated that his client has “always maintained that Joe Biden never had any involvement in his business dealings.” 

Accused of lying to gun dealer

The referrals to Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel David Weiss add to the legal challenges facing Hunter Biden, who is now on trial in a federal court in Delaware for three felony charges stemming from the purchase of a gun in October 2018. The 54-year-old has been accused by prosecutors of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days. 

On Capitol Hill, the Republicans pursued their wide-ranging investigation into Hunter Biden, separate from that federal case, are trying to tie the Democratic president to his son’s business dealings. Both Hunter and James Biden sat for hourslong interviews with lawmakers even as they failed to uncover evidence directly implicating Joe Biden in any wrongdoing. 

Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said testimony from IRS whistleblowers shows that Hunter Biden lied to Congress at least three times in his February 28 deposition. 

“I think the Justice Department needs to look at that and act accordingly. When you lie to Congress, that is a serious violation of the law. It’s a felony,” said Smith. “The president’s son should not be treated any differently than any other American.” 

The Justice Department, which will ultimately decide whether to take up the criminal referrals, declined to comment. 

Inquiry becomes political liability

The focus on the Biden family resulting from Hunter Biden’s federal trial and the impeachment inquiry has proved to be a political and personal liability for the president. The proceedings are unfolding as the 2024 White House election looms, and allies of Joe Biden worry about the toll it will take on him. He is deeply concerned about the health and sustained sobriety of his only living son. 

Since former President Donald Trump’s conviction on charges in New York, Republican leaders have assailed the Justice Department for what they claim is a “two-tiered” system of justice that targets conservatives. They play down the department’s current prosecution of Hunter Biden and the fact that other prominent Democrats have faced federal investigation during Joe Biden’s presidency. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that if Garland “wishes to demonstrate he is not running a two-tiered system of justice and targeting the president’s political opponents, he will open criminal investigations into James and Hunter Biden,” under the false statements and perjury statutes. 

The false statements in question, according to the House committee chairmen, include references Hunter Biden made about what position he held at a corporate entity that received millions of dollars from foreign clients. The president’s son also “relayed an entirely fictitious account” about text messages between him and his Chinese business partner in which Hunter Biden allegedly invoked his father’s presence with him as part of a negotiation tactic, according to the Republican investigation. 

There is also a focus on statements James Biden made about whether the president, while a private citizen, met with a former Biden family business partner. 

House Democrats said Republicans are resorting to criminal referrals because their impeachment push has effectively flamed out despite 17 months of investigating the Biden family. 

“This agonizingly protracted and completely fruitless investigation has proven only that President Biden was not part of, did not profit from, and took no official actions to benefit his family members’ business ventures,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement Wednesday. 
…

Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his election victory, and Washington said it looked forward to further cooperation with New Delhi to ensure a free Indo-Pacific region.

“The friendship between our nations is only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential,” Biden said in a posting on social media platform X.

Modi, whose National Democratic Alliance retained power with a surprisingly slim majority in voting results announced on Tuesday, said he had received a call from Biden.

“[I] Conveyed that India-U.S. comprehensive global partnership is poised to witness many new landmarks in the years to come. Our partnership will continue to be a force for global good for the benefit of humanity,” Modi said on X.

The United States and India have deepened ties in recent years given shared concerns about China’s growing power, even though New Delhi has maintained its long-standing relationship with Russia despite the war in Ukraine, and human rights issues.

In a statement issued shortly after Biden’s congratulatory message, the U.S. State Department said Washington looked forward “to continuing to further our partnership with the Indian government to promote prosperity and innovation, address the climate crisis, and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday called the U.S.-Indian relationship “a great partnership,” although the U.S. had concerns about human rights, which it would continue to raise openly with New Delhi.

Ties have been tested by the discovery of assassination plots against Sikh nationalists in Canada and the United States. In November, U.S. authorities said an Indian government official had directed the plot in the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and dual citizen of the United States and Canada.

Last month, the U.S. ambassador to India said Washington was satisfied so far with India’s moves to ensure accountability in the alleged plots, but many steps were still needed and there must be consequences for what was a “red line for America.”

Political analysts say Washington has been restrained in public criticism of Modi because it hopes India will act as a counterweight to an expansionist China.
…

…

Turkey is supplying weapons to Ukraine as Kyiv works to resolve its ammunition shortage. A Turkish weapons manufacturer is teaming with the U.S. to open a munitions factory, while another Turkish firm is set to open a drone factory in Ukraine. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports.
…

…

U.S. lawmakers are divided on President Joe Biden’s executive order imposing new limits on asylum seekers at U.S. borders. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the debate over border security remains a tough issue ahead of general elections in November.
…

Brussels — McDonald’s MCD.N does not have the right to use the term “Big Mac” for poultry products in Europe after not using it for them for five consecutive years, the region’s second top court said on Wednesday, a partial win for Irish rival Supermac’s in a long-running trademark dispute.

The Luxembourg-based General Court’s ruling centered on Supermac’s attempt in 2017 to revoke McDonald’s use of the name Big Mac, which the U.S. company had registered in 1996 for meat and poultry products and services rendered at restaurants.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) dismissed Supermac’s application for revocation and confirmed McDonald’s use of the term for meat and chicken sandwiches, prompting the Irish company to challenge the decision.

Supermac’s, which opened its first restaurants in Galway in 1978 and had sought to expand in the United Kingdom and Europe, sells beef and chicken burgers as well as fried chicken nuggets and sandwiches.

The General Court rejected McDonald’s arguments and partially annulled and altered EUIPO’s decision.

“McDonald’s loses the EU trade mark Big Mac in respect of poultry products,” judges ruled.

“McDonald’s has not proved genuine use within a continuous period of five years in the European Union in connection with certain goods and services.”

The U.S. fast-food chain said in an email it can still continue to use the Big Mac trademark, which it uses chiefly for a beef sandwich.

Supermac’s founder Pat McDonagh told Ireland’s Newstalk Radio that the decision was “a big win for anyone with the surname Mac.”

“It does mean we can expand elsewhere with Supermac’s across the EU, so that is a big win for us today,” he told the radio station.

Trademark owners should pay attention to the ruling, said Pinsent Masons IP lawyer Matthew Harris.

“This is a huge wakeup call and owners of well-known trademarks cannot simply rest on the premise ‘it is obvious the public know the brand and we have been using it’,” he said.

“The case highlights that even global renowned brands are held to the same scrutiny when having to evidence genuine use of a trademark in a given territory.”

The ruling can be appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s highest.

The case is T-58/23 Supermac’s v EUIPO – McDonald’s International Property (BIG MAC). 
…

GENEVA — Every year, many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking asylum or jobs in Europe are “at great risk of harm and death” because few protection services are available to help them on their perilous journey, according to a report issued by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Tuesday.

“The absence of critical services is placing refugees and migrants at great risk of harm and death and is also triggering dangerous secondary onward movements,” Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation told journalists at a briefing Tuesday in Geneva.

“Some refugees and migrants underestimate the risks, while many fall victim to the narratives of smugglers and traffickers,” he said.

The report highlights the horrors faced by refugees and migrants who risk their lives moving on dangerous routes stretching from the East and Horn of Africa and West Africa towards North Africa’s Atlantic coast, and across the Central Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

The UNHCR reports refugees and migrants from about 20 different African countries “die while crossing the desert or near borders.” As well as Sub-Saharan Africans, it says an increasing number of people from countries in Asia and the Middle East, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria are arriving in North Africa.

The report says most of the refugees and migrants “suffer serious human rights violations en route” including ‘’sexual and gender-based violence, kidnappings for ransom, torture, and physical abuse.”

“Protection services along the routes that can help mitigate the risks these people face — such as immediate humanitarian assistance, shelter for people who have been exposed to violence, and access to justice — are often not available,” Cochetel said.

“In many countries, the services that were there in 2022-2023 are no longer there. This is the case, in particular, in Morocco, in Mauritania, in Sudan because of the conflict, in the northern part of Niger, in the southern part of Algeria. So, basically these are in key hubs, key crossing routes that are used by migrants and refugees,” he said.

Aside from the conflict in Sudan, several other crises emerged in 2023 that forced people to flee their homes.

“Regrettably, more emergencies cannot be ruled out in 2024,” authors of the report warn. “Neither can the human need of people to flee or abandon their homes to find safety and or better… basic life conditions for themselves and their families.”

Cochetel observed that the lack of sustained funding threatens the limited services that currently are available, including search and rescue missions.

“In the past, la gendarmerie nationale [the national military police] in Agadez, Niger, would pick up people who had been stranded or abandoned by smugglers and traffickers in the desert. But such rescue missions,” he said, “no longer occur along that route.”

“The only country on the African continent where I know that this concept is implemented is in Djibouti,” Cochetel said.

He said Djiboutian authorities are patrolling the land side of their coast “to see people that have been abandoned by smugglers in the desertic areas or people who have returned with the same smugglers from Yemen and who are dropped in the middle of nowhere,” adding that such search and rescue projects needed to be developed in partnership with local authorities in Nigeria, southern Morocco, Mauritania, and other desert regions.

“We would need that to save more lives and bring back to safety people stranded or abandoned there,” Cochetel said.

Since the publication of the previous report in July 2022, the UNHCR says an estimated 3,045 individuals have been reported dead or missing along the combined Central and Western Mediterranean and Northwest Africa Maritime routes.

“However, the real figures could be significantly higher, as many incidents likely go undetected and remain unrecorded,” it said.

While the report is meant to make governments aware of the shortcomings in support services, UNHCR’s Cochetel said it also is intended to provide useful information on the availability of services for refugees and migrants who are “lost, stranded, and abused along the routes.”

For example, he said the report contains GPS coordinates and WhatsApp numbers that refugees and migrants can use to locate essential, possibly life-saving protective services.
…

US President Joe Biden is in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing and to underscore the need for a strong transatlantic alliance in the face of Russian aggression. He’ll also take part in a formal state visit hosted by France’s president, and will meet face-to-face with Ukraine’s president, who has been invited to (somber ceremonies marking this decisive battle that led to the end of the World War II. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Paris. Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report
…

The White House; Paris — U.S. President Joe Biden landed Wednesday in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion — and plans to use the occasion to underscore the need for a strong transatlantic alliance in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Biden will meet Ukraine’s president, and with surviving American veterans of the 1944 beach invasion, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Biden will use the events, Sullivan said, to “talk about, against the backdrop of war in Europe today, the sacrifices that those heroes and those veterans made 80 years ago and how it’s our obligation to continue their mission to fight for freedom.”

Sullivan, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Paris, said Biden will also deliver a speech on Friday at Normandy that will cover “the existential fight between dictatorship and freedom” — all while overlooking a 30-meter tall cliff that Army Rangers had to scale under enemy gunfire to win the battle that eventually led to France’s liberation and the demise of Nazi Germany.

“And he’ll talk about the dangers of isolationism and how, if we bow to dictators, fail to stand up to them, they keep going and ultimately America and the world pays a greater price,” he said.

Biden will also attend a state visit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, in addition to face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been invited to the somber ceremonies marking this decisive battle that led to the end of World War II.

American presidents have regularly made the journey for this critical anniversary, and Biden is no exception.

“The president is very much looking forward to going to Normandy over the course of the next two days of this week to commemorate the service and the sacrifice, the bravery of the soldiers, Allied and American alike, who fought in D-Day in that invasion, conducted Operation Overlord and really spelled through that operation, the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany, and the beginning of something even more impactful, and that’s this rules-based international order that we all still continue to enjoy today,” John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA at the White House.

Here, analysts say, history offers lessons.

“The D-Day landings were the Western Allies’ military statement that authoritarian regimes could not change boundaries by force,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ”That countries could not just be invaded, and that authoritarian regimes of the type that Nazi Germany constituted — particularly with its terrible oppression of subjugated peoples, particularly the Jews — were not acceptable and not just not acceptable, but would be destroyed.”

Analysts say Biden’s Ukraine goals will be overshadowed by his increasingly unpopular support of another conflict.

“Even though obviously Ukraine is the top priority for the Europeans, they are seeing how the Biden administration’s policy on Gaza is undermining European security in two different ways,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.

“First of all, it is really destroying Western credibility in the broader international community and in the Global South — any talk about the rules-based international order at this point, will get laughed at, given what the Biden administration has done.”

This trip to France, a close ally, comes at the start of six weeks of high-level U.S. involvement in high-stakes summits — including a peace summit on Ukraine, a summit of leaders of the Group of Seven, or G7, leading industrialized countries, and a summit of NATO members.

VOA asked Sullivan what this set of diplomatic events could mean for peace in Europe, and beyond.

“I think we need to send a clear message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he cannot outlast us, and that he cannot divide us,” he replied. “And we have been very good at holding the line on those two messages, and this is going to be a great opportunity over the coming weeks to not just put a period at the end of that sentence, but an exclamation point.”

Patsy Widakuswara contributed from the White House.
…

…

…

…

…

The Palestinian militant group Hamas on Tuesday said it could not agree to a peace deal without a clear Israeli position on a permanent cease-fire and complete withdrawal from Gaza. The decision followed Israeli leaders’ pledge to continue military operations until Hamas is destroyed, despite a cease-fire proposal announced by President Joe Biden days earlier. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
…

JUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia became the latest European Union country to recognize an independent Palestinian state after its parliament approved the move with a majority vote on Tuesday, dismissing a call for a referendum on the issue by the largest opposition party.

The government last week decided to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state following in the steps of Spain, Ireland and Norway as part of a wider effort to coordinate pressure on Israel to end the conflict in Gaza.

“Today’s recognition of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state sends hope to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and in Gaza,” Prime Minister Robert Golob said on X.

The vote was scheduled for Tuesday, and a parliamentary group for foreign affairs on Monday endorsed the government decision with a majority vote.

The right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, however, then submitted a proposal on a consultative referendum on the recognition bid, which would have delayed the vote for at least a month.

The SDS, the largest opposition party, argued that it was not the right time to recognize an independent Palestinian state, and that the move would only award the “terrorist organization Hamas.”

After the ruling coalition, which holds a majority in Slovenia’s 90-member parliament, tried to find the way around the referendum demand and proceed with the vote, the SDS withdrew its proposal but submitted it again hours later.

The parliament committee for foreign affairs declared it inadequate and dismissed it at an extraordinary session.

The decision was approved with 52 votes and nobody against it after the opposition SDS party had left the session.

Previously, EU members Sweden, Cyprus, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria had already recognized a Palestinian state. Malta has said it could follow soon.

Israel has been fighting against Hamas, which rules Gaza, since the cross-border Oct. 7 attack by militants in which some 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Nearly 130 hostages are believed to remain captive in Gaza.

Gaza health authorities say more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war over the past seven months.
…

washington — Federal health advisers voted Tuesday against a first-of-a-kind proposal to begin using the mind-altering drug MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, handing a potentially major setback to advocates who had hoped to win a landmark federal approval and bring the banned drugs into the medical mainstream. 

The panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration sided 10-1 against the overall benefits of MDMA when used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. They cited flawed study data, questionable research conduct and significant drug risks, including the potential for heart problems, injury and abuse. 

“It seems like there are so many problems with the data — each one alone might be OK, but when you pile them on top of each other … there’s just a lot of questions I would have about how effective the treatment is,” said Dr. Melissa Decker Barone, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The FDA is not required to follow the group’s advice and is expected to make its final decision by August, but the negative opinion could strengthen FDA’s rationale for rejecting the treatment. 

The vote followed hours of pointed questions and criticisms about the research submitted on MDMA — sometimes called ecstasy or molly. Panelists pointed to flawed studies that could have skewed the results, missing follow-up data on patient outcomes, and a lack of diversity among participants. The vast majority of patients studied were white, with only five Black patients receiving MDMA, raising questions about the generalizability of the results. 

“The fact that this study has so many white participants is problematic because I don’t want something to roll out that only helps this one group,” said Elizabeth Joniak-Grant, the group’s patient representative. 

The FDA advisers also drew attention to allegations of misconduct in the trials that have recently surfaced in news stories and a report by the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which evaluates experimental drug treatments. The incidents include a 2018 report of apparent sexual misconduct by a therapist interacting with a patient. 

Lykos Therapeutics, the company behind the study, said it previously reported the incident to the FDA and regulators in Canada, where the therapist is based. Lykos is essentially a corporate spinoff of the nation’s leading psychedelic advocacy group, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, which funded the studies. The group was founded in 1986 to promote the benefits of MDMA and other mind-altering substances. 

MDMA is the first in a series of psychedelics — including LSD and psilocybin — that are expected to come before the FDA in the next few years. The panel’s negative ruling could further derail financial investments in the fledgling industry, which has mainly been funded by a small number of wealthy backers. 

MDMA’s main effect is triggering feelings of intimacy, connection and euphoria. When used to enhance talk therapy, the drug appears to help patients process their trauma and let go of disturbing thoughts and memories. 

But the panel struggled with the reliability of those results, given the difficulties of objectively testing psychedelic drugs. 

Because MDMA causes intense, psychological experiences, almost all patients in two key studies of the drug were able to guess whether they had received the MDMA or a dummy pill. That’s the opposite of the approach generally required for high-quality drug research, in which bias is minimized by “blinding” patients and researchers to whether they received the drug under investigation. 

“I’m not convinced at all that this drug is effective based on the data I saw,” said Dr. Rajesh Narendran, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist who chaired the panel. 

Panelists also noted the difficulty of knowing how much of patients’ improvement came from MDMA versus simply undergoing the extensive therapy, which totaled more than 80 hours for many patients. Results were further marred by other complicating factors, including a large number of patients who had previously used MDMA or other psychedelics drugs recreationally. 
…