Unbiased headline news for Tuesday May 14, 2024 – The United States urged Iran to cease its unprecedented transfer of weaponry to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, enabling their fighters to conduct reckless attacks on ships in the Red Sea and elsewhere.
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the U.N. Security Council that for progress toward ending Yemen’s civil war, it must collectively call out Iran for its destabilizing role and insist that it cannot hide behind the Houthis.
—
Humanitarian workers struggled to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by what Israel claims is a limited military operation in Rafah.
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees stated that 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past week, out of 1.3 million who were sheltering there before the operation commenced. Most had already escaped fighting elsewhere during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.
—
North Korea, already one of the world’s most repressive regimes, is steadily adding a slate of digital surveillance tools to further control its citizens, according to a U.S.-based North Korea expert.
From smartphones to streaming devices to traffic cameras, technology is becoming more prevalent in everyday North Korean life, Stimson Center senior fellow Marty Williams told reporters at a briefing in Seoul. And Kim Jong Un’s regime is utilizing these new digital tools to spy on its citizens more effectively than ever before.
—
U.S. airlines are suing to block the Biden administration from mandating greater transparency over fees that the carriers charge their passengers.
The airlines argue that a new rule would confuse consumers by providing them with too much information during the ticket-buying process. The U.S. Transportation Department stated Monday it will vigorously defend the rule against what it termed “hidden junk fees.” American, Delta, United and three other carriers, along with their industry trade group, sued the Transportation Department in a federal appeals court.
—
President Joe Biden announced new tariffs Tuesday on Chinese EVs, semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, steel and aluminum.
The tariffs on EVs will rise to 100%, quadrupling the current tariff of 25%, according to a source familiar with the tariffs. This is the latest move by the Biden administration to prevent China from undercutting U.S. companies and threatening U.S. manufacturing jobs.
—
A Missouri man has pleaded guilty to crashing a U-Haul into a White House security barrier in May 2023.
Sai Kandula, 20, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and speaking softly from the podium of a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom, acknowledged he had deliberately slammed into a security bollard in a failed attempt to seize power at the White House and install a dictatorship aligned with Nazi beliefs.
—
Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.” She praised the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation’s board of trustees.
—
Grammy-winning saxophonist David Sanborn passed away Sunday, his representative confirmed in a statement. He was 78.
“It is with sad and heavy hearts that we convey to you the loss of internationally renowned, 6 time Grammy Award-winning, saxophonist, David Sanborn,” read a post on Sanborn’s official Facebook page, announcing that he died “after an extended battle with prostate cancer with complications.”