Also, another provocative flag was flown at Justice Alito’s home. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway.Credit…Erik Flaaris Johansen/NTB, via Reuters
Leaders of Spain, Norway and Ireland said today that their governments would recognize an independent Palestinian state, despite vehement Israeli and American opposition.
The coordinated announcements, though mostly symbolic, delivered a significant rebuke to Israel. Well over 100 other countries have recognized a Palestinian state, but in Europe, Israel had enjoyed broad support. That dynamic has begun to shift as the war in Gaza has dragged on.
The U.S. supports the eventual creation of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but a White House spokeswoman said today that statehood should be achieved through negotiations, not declarations.
Israeli officials denounced the recognition as “a gold medal to Hamas terrorists,” and said they would withhold much-needed tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority.
Another provocative flag was flown at Justice Alito’s home
An “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol that was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and embraced by a strand of the “Stop the Steal” movement, was flown last summer outside Justice Samuel Alito’s vacation home in New Jersey.
Last week, The Times reported that Alito’s Virginia house displayed another symbol carried on Jan. 6 — an upside-down American flag — in 2021. The news prompted jurists and politicians to express concerns about his impartiality.
Alito said the upside-down flag had been raised by his wife during a clash with a neighbor, but he declined to comment on the flag at his beach house.
New York began evicting migrants from shelters
New York City today scaled back its longstanding legal obligation to provide shelter to homeless people. Under new policies, the city plans to evict some of the roughly 15,000 adult migrants that it is paying to house in hotels, tent dormitories and other buildings.
The new rules do not apply to families with children, which account for the majority of the city’s shelter population of 65,000. Adults will be limited to 30 days and younger adults to 60, though migrants can qualify for an extension. This week, the eviction orders apply to about 250 migrants.
The partial rollback of the so-called right-to-shelter requirement is a major shift in a policy that had set New York apart from all other big U.S. cities.
Severe storms destroyed parts of Iowa
Thousands of Iowans awoke to scenes of devastation, after a wave of deadly storms, including at least one tornado, swept across the state last night. The governor issued an emergency disaster proclamation in 15 counties.
Greenfield, Iowa, which is home to 2,000 people, was hit particularly hard by the tornado. Many homes there were reduced to debris and multiple people died. “It’s a completely different town now,” one resident said.
