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Israel bans UN agency, arsonist hits ballots and Trump protests

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Israel votes to ban UN agency for Palestinians

What happened
Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed two laws last night banning the United Nations agency that provides the bulk of aid to Palestinians and labeling it a terrorist organization. The laws, which could end or sharply curtail U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) operations in Gaza and the West Bank, faced immediate criticism from the U.N. and Israel's Western allies.

Who said what
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel's "unprecedented” move "will only deepen the suffering Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell." Along with providing critical food, medical care and other humanitarian assistance, the agency also runs schools.

Israel's legislation is the "culmination of a long-running campaign against the agency, which Israel contends has been infiltrated by Hamas," The Associated Press said. "But supporters say Israel's real aim is to sideline the issue of Palestinian refugees," whom the UNRWA has been aiding since they "fled or were driven out"of their homes during "the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation." Israel's enmity toward the agency snowballed after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and its subsequent allegations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the terrorist assault. Israel has "offered little evidence to support this allegation," The New York Times said.

UNRWA workers "play an irreplaceable role right now in Gaza," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, and "passage of this legislation could have implications under U.S. law," especially if Israel doesn't allow more aid to Gaza soon. The U.S. and seven Western allies had urged Israel to scrap the bills.

What next?
Most of the legislation is set to take effect in 90 days, but it is "unclear how or whether the law would ultimately be implemented," the Times said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said after the vote that "UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable," but "sustained humanitarian aid must remain available in Gaza now and in the future," administered "in a way that does not threaten Israel's security." 

 
 
Today's NATIONAL story

Ballot drop boxes set on fire in Oregon, Washington

What happened
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are investigating fires set early yesterday in two ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River. Portland police said incendiary devices linked the blazes to each other and to an Oct. 8 arson attempt at a different ballot box in Vancouver. Law enforcement is searching for a Volvo captured on Portland surveillance cameras.

Who said what
Fire suppressants installed inside the boxes saved all the ballots on Oct. 8 and all but three in Portland, but the retardant device failed in Vancouver yesterday. Hundreds of ballots "are completely destroyed," longtime Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told NPR. "It's heartbreaking. It's a direct attack on democracy."

The three Portland voters will be contacted for replacement ballots, officials said, but Vancouver voters should check the status of their ballots online and request a new one if necessary. The damaged ballots in Vancouver are from a "Democratic stronghold" in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, "home to one of the most closely fought congressional races in the country," The Oregonian said. Democratic incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will need a strong showing in Vancouver to beat Republican challenger Joe Kent in their rematch.

Oregon and Washington vote by mail, and ballot boxes are longtime fixtures. But the drop boxes "have faced increasing criticism from Republicans and have been the focus of baseless right-wing conspiracy theories in recent years," The Associated Press said. The Department of Homeland Security warned in a September intelligence brief that drop boxes are viewed as "soft targets" in online "forums frequented by [domestic violent extremists] and other threat actors with election-related grievances," according to NPR. 

What next?
Officials in Portland and Vancouver said they would increase patrols and surveillance of ballot drop boxes.

 
 
Today's POLITICS Story

'I am not a Nazi,' Trump says amid MSG rally fallout

What happened
Donald Trump and his campaign hustled yesterday to stem the fallout from racist and sexist comments made by speakers at Sunday's Madison Square Garden rally, while also taking umbrage at the criticism. Most of the damage control was over comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's joke that Puerto Rico is a "floating island of garbage." But Trump focused on comparisons between his rally and a pro-Nazi, antisemitic and anti-communist "Pro American Rally" at Madison Square Garden in 1939. "I am not a Nazi," he told a rally in Atlanta last night. "I'm the opposite of a Nazi."

Who said what
Trump claimed that Kamala Harris, who he called "a fascist," and her campaign "use 'He's Hitler' and then they say, 'He's a Nazi." Harris has not publicly called Trump "Hitler" or a "Nazi," but her running mate Gov. Tim Walz said yesterday "there's a direct parallel" between Trump's MSG rally and "a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s."

Harris has called Trump a "fascist," though, agreeing with recent assessments from his former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, and Gen. Mark Milley. Kelly also said Trump argued "Hitler did some good things" and lamented he didn't have loyal military leaders like "Hitler's generals." Trump's "I am not a Nazi" line, "even in an 'LOL nothing matters' political moment, could have some shelf life — eight days out from Election Day," Adam Wren said at Politico.

The Harris campaign turned the Puerto Rico joke into a campaign ad, but it's organically "spreading like wildfire through the community," Norberto Dominguez, a Democratic precinct captain in heavily Puerto Rican Allentown, Pennsylvania, told Politico. "If we weren't engaged before," said Victor Martinez, owner of a Spanish-language radio station in Allentown, "we're all paying attention now." The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the Puerto Rico joke.

What next?
Harris campaign aides and allies are "growing cautiously optimistic about her chances of victory," The New York Times said, and even some people close to Trump "worry that the push to label him a budding dictator who has praised Hitler could move small but potentially meaningful numbers of persuadable voters" in what's essentially a 50-50 race.

 
 

It's not all bad

Next spring, a Swiss startup is set to launch a first-of-its-kind project using a removable photovoltaic (PV) solar system on a railway. The solar panels will be "rolled out like carpet" on tracks in Neuchatel, Switzerland, with trains passing over them, Euro News said. During the three-year pilot project, 48 panels will be added to a 328-foot stretch of track, and the electricity produced will be used to power homes in the area.

 
 
Under the radar

There is a steadily growing faction among U.S. military veterans and service members: extremists. No data set is perfect, but more than "480 people with a military background" have been "accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 through 2023," according to an investigation from The Associated Press. At least 230 of those arrests were in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

When people in the military "radicalize, they tend to radicalize to the point of mass violence," Michael Jensen at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) told the AP. Among extremists, the top predictor of becoming a mass casualty offender "was having a U.S. military background — that outranked mental health problems, that outranked being a loner, that outranked having a previous criminal history or substance abuse issues."

Recent programs have been created to counteract veteran suicides, and "these initiatives should also be replicated to combat extremism among veterans," said U.S. News and World Report. But extremists already indoctrinated are hard to remove from this lifestyle, so "greater efforts to screen bad recruits in the first place is thus critically important."

The Pentagon and Congress have also "called for greater efforts to root out extremism in the ranks," said The Intercept. This includes efforts to "implement steps and provide recommendations addressing the threat posed by extremist activities. However, politicians have often ignored reports identifying "veterans with negative military experiences as the demographic at higher risk for radicalization."

 
 
On this day

October 29, 2015

The Chinese government announced an end to the country's "one-child policy." The policy, in place since 1979, was a population-control method that restricted families to having only one child. After ending the controversial regulation, China continued changing its laws, and the country does not currently have a child limit.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

The "final full week of campaign is pivotal," at least in the seven battleground states, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Tuesday's front page. "Big turnout for early voting in Michigan," where "swing state teachers prep young voters," the Detroit Free Press says. "Gen Z voters aren't reading this paper," The Boston Globe says, instead getting their election news from "TikTok memes" and "Twitch livestreams." Kamala Harris "keys on Latino voters," The Washington Post says, as the Donald Trump rally's "'island of garbage' joke spurs outrage." One thing both campaigns can agree on, USA Today says, is that "undecided voters carry weight."

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

How did he not win?

Before too many fans could call him by his name, Timothée Chalamet slipped away from the Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Contest held in New York City on Sunday. An estimated 10,000 people showed up to the Washington Square Park event, including the actor himself, who made an unannounced appearance. There was drama — NYPD officers arrived amid reports of an "unscheduled demonstration" and arrested four people — before judges crowned a winner: Miles Mitchell, 21, who took home the lookalike title and $50.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Yousef Masoud / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images; Jenny Kane / AP Photo; Christian Monterrosa / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images