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Former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel speaks at 2020 GOP convention
Further

No Place For Bad Actors, Thanks

Well that was blessedly quick. Less than a week after NBC said it would pay fascist bootlicker and election liar Ronna McDaniel to bootlick and lie on air - and a day after its employees loudly protested the move - NBC, citing their "legitimate concerns," said oops never mind and dropped McDaniel. Along with her colleagues, Rachel Maddow had cogently argued against giving a platform to a low-life hack who is "part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government."

The righteous revolt by journalists at NBC and MSNBC was swift after the network announced McDaniel's $300,000 hire Friday, two weeks after she was forced out as RNC chair to make room for Trump's even more servile daughter-in-law Lara Trump. At the time, NBC said it wanted to include news contributors representing a "diverse set of viewpoints and experiences," a dumpster-fire of an explanation blasted by enraged reporters who noted that McDaniel aiding and abetting a propaganda campaign intended to overthrow or at least undermine electoral democracy - including telling GOP canvassers in Michigan to not certify 2020 election results - is so far above and beyond a "diverse viewpoint" that Trump and multiple co-conspirators have been criminally indicted for it.

Reporters railed through Monday against McDaniel poisoning what Nicolle Wallace called "our sacred airwaves," from Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski decrying someone "who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier" to late-night Lawrence O’Donnell advising his network, "Don’t hire anyone close to the crimes." Jen Psaki rejected right-wing comparisons with her own move from politics to reporting. "That kind of experience (only) has value if it's paired with honesty and good faith," she said, especially in this fraught moment. "Our democracy is in danger because of the lies that people like Ronna McDaniel have pushed on this country...This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. This isn't about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies."

Maddow joins colleagues in objecting to McDaniel for legitimizing Trump, attacking democracy www.youtube.com

Rachel Maddow devoted most of her time on air to joining the backlash, expressing solidarity with her colleagues' "loud and principled objections" to giving a voice to the willing accomplice of an aspiring strongman. En route, she highlighted our “long history of forgettable men" intent on convincing the country we need a "new system of government." “We have had a lot of these guys, but our generation’s version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them," she said. "And why is that? (Trump) would have been as forgotten as the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the Republican Party, and had the leader of that party (decide) she would not just abide him, she would help. She would help with the worst of it."

Which was, in essence, "priming your people" not to accept the next election results. "In the news business, yes, we are covering an election," she said. "We’re also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of a democracy to end democracy. The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims (that) America’s election results aren’t real, and they shouldn’t be respected.” The "inexplicable" hire of McDaniel to report on election news, she suggested, was akin to hiring a mobster at a D.A.'s office or a pickpocket as a TSA airport screener. She ended with a civil, simple plea to the network: "I hope they will reverse their decision."

And so they did. Tuesday evening, Puck News reported NBC had dropped McDaniel in her second, well-deserved job humiliation - ever classy, even Trump mocked her - in two weeks. NBC said chairman Cesar Conde sent staff an email reversing the hire and apologizing to those "who felt we let them down." McDaniel is reportedly, unsurprisingly "exploring her legal options." Still, argues historian Timothy Snyder, a fat check - she may get paid in full, giving her $500 a second for one interview - will be a small price to pay. In what is "not a normal political situation where you can give a little and get a little," he says, appeasement is a lousy option: "If you practise giving things away, if you say, 'Ok, we're gonna practice appeasing a dictator so when the dictator comes we'll be better at it' - is that what you should be doing?"

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Fracking in Wyoming
Climate

Federal Court Rules Major Wyoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale Illegal for Ignoring Climate Impacts

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will have to reevaluate the wildlife and public health impacts of a major 2022 oil and gas lease sale in Wyoming after a federal judge ruled Friday that the agency had overlooked "what is widely regarded as the most pressing environmental threat facing the world today" when it moved forward with leasing 120,000 of federal land.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in Washington, D.C. that the BLM did not halt the lease sale even after it acknowledged that oil and gas drilling on the federal lands could result in the same negative environmental and social impacts as the addition of hundreds of thousands of cars to U.S. roads each year.

Moving forward with one of the Biden administration's largest lease sales despite its likely environmental harm, said Cooper, was illegal under the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws.

Representing The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth (FOE), environmental legal group Earthjustice sued BLM over its leasing plans' potential impact on the greater sage grouse, an endangered bird species, and other wildlife, as well as groundwater impacts.

The judge found BLM did not complete a sufficiently detailed review of drilling impacts on the greater sage grouse, and relied too heavily on outdated and overly broad analyses of oil and gas drilling in Wyoming.

While the agency has been attempting to "stop the bleeding" of the greater sage grouse, whose population has declined nearly 40% since 2002, the BLM still refused to postpone leasing in a critical habitat for the bird.

The Biden administration also did not adequately explain its analysis of potential groundwater harms, said the ruling.

Despite some conservation strides by the Biden administration, The Wilderness Society's Ben Tettlebaum said the court's decision "affirms that much work remains" to be done. The BLM, he added, "must fully account for the serious impacts of its oil and gas program on groundwater, wildlife, and the climate."

Tettlebaum said the ruling also proves the agency is required to "factor into its leasing decisions the enormous costs that greenhouse gas emissions stemming from its oil and gas program impose on public land resources and on the communities that depend on them for clean air and water."

Hallie Templeton, legal director for FOE, added that the federal government "simply cannot ignore climate, wildlife, and water impacts when analyzing the myriad risks of oil and gas leasing, whether in Wyoming or across the country," as the ruling makes clear.

"We are beyond pleased with this outcome," said Templeton.

The ruling "should be another wake up call for the Bureau of Land Management to at long last address the damage caused from federal oil and gas development," said Alexandra Schluntz, senior associate attorney for Earthjustice. "It is time to make fossil fuel leasing on our public lands a thing of the past."

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren
News

To Unrig Economy, Dems Propose Raising Taxes on Wealth Over $50 Million

Weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden won applause from progressives for using his State of the Union address to go on the offense against the Republican Party's tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, Democrats in Congress introduced legislation aimed at raising revenue by ensuring multimillionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was originally joined by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) in 2021 to introduce the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, and the three lawmakers on Monday announced measures to strengthen the proposal.

The new legislation includes stronger anti-tax evasion rules regarding trusts, where "ultrawealthy" families frequently stash money to avoid paying taxes—costing the federal government $5 billion to $7 billion per year.

"As President Biden says: No one thinks it's fair that Jeff Bezos gets enough tax loopholes that he pays at a lower rate than a public school teacher," said Warren. "All my bill is asking is that when you make it big, bigger than $50 million dollars, then on that next dollar, you pitch in two cents, so everyone else can have a chance."

The lawmakers said the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would bring in at least $3 trillion over 10 years by requiring a 2 cent tax for every dollar of wealth over $50 million—affecting just the top 0.05% of households in the United States.

The bill includes a 3% tax on the wealthiest households overall, with a 1% annual surtax on the net worth of households and trusts over $1 billion.

Susan Harley, managing director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, said the three Democrats have zeroed in on "the only way to truly tackle the injustice of income inequality in this country... to address wealth hoarding."

"The Ultra-Millionaire Tax is a critically needed policy that would ensure that the super-rich who have benefited from a rigged system will begin to pay their fair share in taxes," said Harley.

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the richest 0.1% of Americans saw their share of the country's wealth triple from 7% to 20% from the late 1970s and 2019, while the bottom 90% saw their share "plummet from about 35% to 25%."

"For too long, the ultrawealthy in America have been able to dodge taxes on a large scale," said Saez and Zucman in response to the updated proposal. "As a result they often pay much less, relative to their ability to pay, than the rest of the population. The ultra-millionaire tax would address this fundamental unfairness, and raise critical revenues for much needed investments that would make the country—and us all—richer."

Boyle noted that he witnessed firsthand the loss of economic power among working Americans as the rich got richer in recent decades.

"As the son of a union household, I witnessed every day how incredibly hard my parents worked to build a middle-class life for our family. It is simply wrong that millions of hardworking families pay a higher tax rate than billionaires," said Boyle. "This legislation will fight back against Republicans' decadeslong scheme to rig our tax code against middle-class families and in favor of multimillionaires and billionaires."

The lawmakers introduced the proposal as economic justice advocates have recently cataloged price gouging and "shrinkflation" that's aimed at boosting shareholders' and CEOs' pay while working people struggle to afford necessities like diapers and groceries.

"The system is not working when the richest 1% of Americans own more than 30% of our nation's wealth but pay just 3.2% of their wealth in taxes while others pay twice as much," said Jayapal. "Our country's tax system needs urgent reform, and the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act is a major step toward making sure the wealthy finally pay their fair share. With this legislation, we can narrow the racial wealth gap and invest trillions of dollars in schools, clean energy, housing, healthcare, and more to improve lives in communities across America."

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A billboard reading: "RFK Jr, Powered by MAGA/Trump"
News

New Video Details Billionaire Trump Donors Bankrolling RFK Jr.'s Run

A video published Tuesday by More Perfect Union sheds light on the ultrawealthy Republican donors to presumptive GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump's campaign coffers who are also financing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent White House run—which many observers see as a potential spoiler for President Joe Biden's reelection bid.

The video—which came as Kennedy announced that California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan is his running mate—underscores that the conspiracy theorist and former Democrat's biggest campaign contributor was also Trump's top donor in 2020.

"Who exactly is bankrolling RFK Jr.'s presidential push?" asked Brian Tyler Cohen, the popular YouTuber and political commentator who narrates the seven-minute video. "It turns out the answer has a lot more to do with Trump than putting a Kennedy back in the White House."

Kennedy said that he had nothing to do with the multimillion-dollar ad supporting his campaign that aired during the Super Bowl last month.

"American Values 2024, a super political action committee (PAC) backing Kennedy, dropped a cool 7 million bucks for the spot, which about 124 million people saw," Cohen said. "And propping up American Values 2024 is a large group of big donors... a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are driven by one goal: to get RFK Jr. on the ballot in all key states across the country."

"Doing a majority of the legwork here is the super PAC's biggest donor, Timothy Mellon," the video notes. "More than half of the $38 million raised by American Values this cycle has come from Timothy Mellon alone."

The video continues:

Mellon, who hails from the 34th-richest family in America, and likened anti-poverty programs to slavery, has long been a significant Reopublican donor. He's given tens of millions to Republican congressional super PACs. He's generously funded Trump's super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., to the tune of $16.5 million over the span of just two years. He was even Trump's top donor in 2020, and it doesn't look like he's going to stop tossing money at Trump anytime soon. His last donation of $5 million to the pro-Trump PAC came on January 30, 2024. Just 22 days prior, he sent the same amount to the pro-Kennedy PAC, making it pretty clear that Timothy Mellon doesn't want Kennedy, he knows Kennedy can spoil a Biden win, so he's keeping him afloat.

Boston Globe reporter Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka noted earlier this month that Mellon's donation record "is not linear."

"He has supported Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia; progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York; and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats before they left the party."

"But overwhelmingly, Mellon's money has funded conservative causes," she wrote. "According to The Texas Tribune, he donated millions in stock to Texas for a fundraising effort for a border wall. The Wall Street Journal reported he also donated more than a million dollars to a legal defense fund set up by Jan Brewer, then-governor of Arizona, for an immigration crackdown law that received national backlash and was partially struck down in the courts."

Mellon isn't the only GOP megadonor funding Kennedy's campaign. According to the video, billionaire security specialist and author Gavin de Becker has donated more money to Kennedy—$10 million, so far—than to any other cause he's ever supported. Kennedy's campaign has paid de Becker's security firm $1.9 million for services and travel expenses during the 2024 run.

Cohen said that "one of the more mysterious sources of funding" for American Values 2024 is Planeta Management LLC," which has given the super PAC $4 million."

Because there is no listed name for the organization's leader on its filing papers, "we have no idea who the third-biggest donor to Kennedy' bid is," the video states.

"We do know his fourth-biggest donor, though," Cohen said. Leila Centner—who has supported Trump and disgraced former New York Republican Congressman George Santos—has given $1 million to Kennedy's campaign.

The video notes that Centner is the co-founder and CEO of Centner Academy, a private school with a policy of "trying to keep teachers and staff from getting lifesaving Covid vaccinations" because she believes that "tens of thousands of women all over the world have had adverse effects including hemorrhaging and miscarriages just by being near someone who had the vaccine."

Perhaps the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptic, Kennedy told Fox News last year that he still believes the thoroughly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. A 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa that killed scores of people, most of them children, has been linked to a prior visit by Kennedy in which he, his wife Cheryl Hines, and anti-vaccine activists spread deadly misinformation.

Kennedy has brushed off criticism about his donors' political agenda.

"The [Democratic National Committee] is saying that one of my PACs, which I have nothing to do with... accepted money from a traditionally Republican donor, that somehow it should disqualify me from people voting for me," he said last month. "We get money from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; I'm proud that we're reaching across party lines, that we're trying to bridge the divide."

The DNC has a dubious history of crushing third-party and independent challengers.

The new video notes that "all of these pro-Kennedy donations have so far been bearing fruit in a big way."

"With the help of American Values 2024, Kennedy has gotten on ballots in key states like Nevada and New Hampshire," Cohen said. "Additionally, he'll appear on the ballot in Hawaii and Utah... and Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, three critical swing states with razor-thin margins."

"Kennedy's donors know that he'll never step foot in the White House, but that was never their goal," he added. "Their goal is to ensure that Trump does."

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Women hold up signs reading "our bodies, our lives, our decisions, our court" outside the Supreme Court
News

Abortion Defenders Decry 'Baseless' Attack on Mifepristone as SCOTUS Hears Case

As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case brought by right-wing activists seeking to sharply limit access to a commonly used abortion pill, reproductive rights advocates renewed warnings that Republicans' endgame isn't just making abortion a states' rights issue, but rather forcing a nationwide ban on all forms of the medical procedure.

The high court justices—including six conservatives, half of them appointed by former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—are hearing oral arguments in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a case brought by the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of anti-abortion doctors. The case involves the abortion pill known by the generic name mifepristone, which was first approved by the FDA in 2000 as part of a two-drug protocol to terminate early-stage pregnancies.

"If the Supreme Court refuses to follow the evidence and imposes medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, it will be just another stepping stone in the anti-abortion movement's end goal of a nationwide ban on abortion."

"Mifepristone has been used by millions of women over the last 20 years, and its safety and effectiveness have been well-documented," said Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. "The drug has taken on even greater importance for women's health since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the far right has moved to block women's access to healthcare at every turn."

In a dubious practice known as "judge shopping," the plaintiffs filed their complaint in Amarillo, Texas, where Matthew Kacsmaryk, the sole federal district judge and a Trump appointee, ruled last April that the FDA's approval of mifepristone was illegal. Shortly after Kacsmaryk's ruling, a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory decision that blocked the FDA from removing mifepristone from the market. The U.S. Department of Justice subsequently appealed Kacsmaryk's ruling.

Later in April 2023, the Supreme Court issued a temporary order that allowed mifepristone to remain widely available while legal challenges continued. A three-judge panel of the right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last August that the FDA's 2016 move to allow mifepristone to be taken later in pregnancy, mailed directly to patients, and prescribed by healthcare professionals other than doctors, was likely illegal. However, the court also allowed the pill to remain on the market pending the outcome of litigation.

In an analysis of the case published Tuesday, jurist Amy Howe explained:

There are three separate questions before the justices on Tuesday. The first one is whether the challengers have a legal right to sue, known as standing, at all. The FDA maintains that they do not, because the individual doctors do not prescribe mifepristone and are not obligated to do anything as a result of the FDA's decision to allow other doctors to prescribe the drug.

The court of appeals held that the medical groups have standing because of the prospect that one of the groups' members might have to treat women who had been prescribed mifepristone and then suffered complications—which, the FDA stresses, are "exceedingly rare"—requiring emergency care. But the correct test, the FDA and [mifepristone maker] Danco maintain, is not whether the groups' members will suffer a possible injury, but an imminent injury.

Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, called the plaintiffs' claims "baseless."

"If the Supreme Court refuses to follow the evidence and imposes medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, it will be just another stepping stone in the anti-abortion movement's end goal of a nationwide ban on abortion," she said on Tuesday. "As the court weighs its decision, let's be clear that the only outcome that respects facts and science is maintaining full access to mifepristone."

As more than 20 states have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court's June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling overturned Roe v. Wade and voided half a century of federal abortion rights, people have increasingly turned to medication abortion to terminate unwanted pregnancies. And while Republicans have often claimed that overturning Roe was not meant to ban all abortions but merely to leave the issue up to the states, GOP-authored forced pregnancy bills and statements by Republican lawmakers and candidates including Trump—who last week endorsed a 15-week national ban—belie conservatives' goal of nationwide prohibition.

Project 2025, a coalition of more than 100 right-wing groups including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and other anti-abortion organizations, wants to require the FDA to ban drugs used for medication abortions, protect employers who refuse to include contraceptive coverage in insurance plans, and increase surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting. The coalition is reportedly drafting executive orders through which Trump, if reelected, could roll back Biden administration policies aimed at protecting and expanding abortion access.

"The overturn of Roe was just the first step in the far right's relentless campaign to restrict women's reproductive freedom. We always knew they would come for medication abortion, too," Taylor said. "But conservatives seeking to block access to mifepristone are not concerned about women's safety; they want to block all abortion options for women and prevent them from making their own reproductive decisions, even in their own homes."

Right-wing groups including the Heritage Foundation have been pressing Trump to invoke the Comstock laws, a series of anti-obscenity statutes passed in 1873 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration. One of the laws outlawed using the U.S. Postal Service to send contraceptives and punished offenders with up to five years' hard labor. Named after Victorian-era anti-vice crusader and U.S. postal inspector Anthony Comstock, the laws were condemned by progressives of the day, with one syndicated newspaper editorial accusing Comstock of striking "a dastard's blow at liberty and law in the United States."

Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern said Tuesday that far-right Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs—"are clearly eager to revive the Comstock Act as a nationwide ban on medication abortion, and maybe procedural abortion, too."

"That would subject abortion providers in all 50 states to prosecution and imprisonment," he added. "No congressional action needed."

Progressive U.S. lawmakers joined reproductive rights advocates in rallying outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

"Mifepristone is safe and effective and has been used in our country for decades," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). "These far-right justices need to stop legislating from the bench."

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) asserted that "medication abortion is safe, effective, and routine healthcare."

"Over half of U.S. abortions are done this way and we have decades of scientific evidence to back up its safety," she added. "SCOTUS must protect access to mifepristone and we must affirm abortion care as the human right that it is."

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A wounded person receives treatment at a local hospital in the southern Gaza Strip
News

'Crucial' UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

"The time to act to prevent genocide is now," Amnesty International's secretary general said Tuesday, a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council released a draft report detailing how the panel found that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is already committing genocidal violence in Gaza.

Amnesty's Agnes Callamard called the 25-page report a "crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states," many of which have called for a cease-fire in Gaza for several months.

After the U.N. report found that "the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza... reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," Callamard said "states must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality."

"Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate cease-fire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid," said Callamard. "They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages."

The U.N. report was released the same day that the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, temporary cease-fire for the remainder of the month of Ramadan—the first cease-fire resolution to pass at the council following three that failed due to the U.S. vetoing the measures.

The U.S., which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and has continued to provide support throughout the bombardment, abstained from voting on Monday's resolution and infuriated human rights experts by baselessly claiming the vote was "nonbinding."

The U.N. report, titled Anatomy of a Genocide, detailed actions Israel has taken since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October that could violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Along with killing at least 32,414 Palestinians in Gaza—73% of whom have been women and children, and the remaining 27% were not proven to have been Hamas members—Israel has also imposed mass starvation on the population, killing "10 children daily," according to the report. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys in undisclosed locations; injured 70,000 people; forced medical personnel to perform "hazardous health procedures, such as amputations without anesthetics, including on children"; and "destroyed or severely damaged most life-sustaining infrastructure."

Callamard noted on Tuesday that the report came two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced an interim ruling that Israel is "plausibly" committing a genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent genocidal violence by its forces.

"In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death," said Callamard.

The secretary general echoed a call in the report, which was compiled by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the full funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel said Sunday it will no longer permit UNRWA aid trucks to deliver humanitarian relief in northern Gaza, where one-third of children under age 2 are now suffering from acute malnutrition. The U.S. officially suspended UNRWA funding through March 2025 on Monday after President Joe Biden signed a new spending package into law.

The U.S. led several countries in cutting funding to the agency in January after Israel claimed 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October. Countries including Finland, Canada, and Australia have since reinstated funding.

Callamard also called on all states, particularly powerful Western countries that are allied with Israel, including the U.S., to support international authorities as they try to hold Israeli officials to account for the mass killing and starving of civilians in Gaza. Israel has refused to allow U.N. experts and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

"Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice," said Callamard.

The secretary general noted that momentum has grown in recent days around international calls for a cease-fire, but said a desperately needed halt in fighting requires a concerted push by influential states to become a reality.

"An enduring cease-fire," said Callamard, "remains the best way to enforce the ICJ's provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering."

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