White House doubles down on Trump claim domestic violence should not be counted as a crime: ‘Made up’

John Bowden
Tue, September 9, 2025


The White House defended Donald Trump’s remarks about crime statistics on Tuesday after the president seemed to downplay counting domestic violence incidents among those numbers a day earlier.

On Monday, the president spoke about his federalized occupation of Washington D.C. with National Guard troops, while claiming that he’d turned the city into a “safe zone”. During his remarks, made at the Museum of the Bible downtown, Trump went on a side tangent about what he referred to as “lesser” infractions: “things that take place in the home,” in his words.

“Things that take place in the home, they call crime,” Trump groused. “They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime scene.’”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that the president was downplaying the importance of prosecuting domestic violence at her briefing on Tuesday, but instead of walking back Trump’s remarks insisted that her boss was somehow making a point that members of the media were using domestic violence incidents to distract from efforts to combat street crime.

“He wasn't referring to crime. That's exactly the point he was making,” Leavitt told reporters. “The president is saying, in fact, is that these crimes will be made up and reported as a crime to undermine the great work that the federal task force is doing to reduce crime in Washington, D.C.”

Karoline Leavitt claimed that Donald Trump was not downplaying the seriousness of domestic violence when he dismissively called ‘thinks that take place in the home’ an example of a ‘lesser’ infraction (AP)More

The White House’s latest statement comes as Trump himself has faced pushback from the media and locals on his notion that the District of Columbia has been made crime-free by the deployment of troops on the streets. But Leavitt’s explanation seemed to clash with what seemed to be the intent of Trump’s words a day earlier when the president made a clear definition of domestic conflict and possible spousal abuse, before seeming to suggest it wasn’t a matter for the police.

Crime in D.C., Trump claimed on Monday, was now “virtually nothing”, adding that in crime statistics police and media were counting “much lesser things. Things that take place in the home that they call crime. You know; they’ll do anything they can to find something.”

He continued: “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘this is a crime.’ See? So now I can’t claim [to have reduced crime in D.C. by] 100%.”

In the same remarks, Trump repeated his claim that “you can walk to a restaurant” in D.C. without fear, putting aside the fact that D.C. restaurant foot traffic has actually plunged since the deployment of troops and federal law enforcement began across the city.

Even the Museum of the Bible itself admitted to CNN in an email that attendance was suffering amid the takeover, which is now entering its second month.

D.C. Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton delivers a speech opposing President Donald Trump's threat to deploy National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers to combat crime on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, and other American cities, at the Capitol on Sept. 3. (AP)More

Shawn Townsend, CEO of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington which represents hundreds of businesses across the city and runs the popular season D.C. Restaurant Weeks featuring local spots, called the imposition of National Guard troops on the city D.C.’s “pandemic 2.0” in a statement this week to Axios. The Covid pandemic shuttered many businesses permanently, and the slow return of workers to downtown areas was more brutal to those that survived the initial closures.

Last month, Townsend’s group extended D.C.’s summer 2025 Restaurant Week for the first time in years as businessses once again as tourism and local economic activity both declined sharply with the troop deployments.

“I've heard from folks that won't renew leases or even consider D.C.,” Townsend told Axios.

While businesses told news outlets that the flashy imagery and rhetoric of the White House’s focus on crime-fighting in cities was directly impacting their bottom lines and contributed to an inaccurate image of city life even under occupation, there’s no sign that the Trump administration is listening to business leaders in Washington D.C. or anywhere else. No major local business groups have endorsed the president’s efforts in D.C. or his threats to expand the takeover to Baltimore, New York, Chicago or New Orleans.

And on Tuesday, Leavitt’s only words on the matter were to insist that the murder of a Ukrainian immigrant on public transport in Charlotte, North Carolina justified expanding the campaign nationwide — and to tout the administration’s latest arrest numbers in the capital.

By Tuesday, Leavitt said, more than 2,177 people have been arrested in Washington D.C. since the takeover began. A New York Times analysis noted that this represents only a slight increase over the city’s overall arrest rate prior to the occupation.


Trump downplays domestic violence in speech about religious freedom

Mel Leonor Barclay/The 19th
Tue, September 9, 2025 


Trump in the White House Sept. 2. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This story was originally reported The 19th.

President Donald Trump on Monday downplayed the severity of domestic violence crimes, saying that were it not for “things that take place in the home they call crime,” the administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., would have resulted in a bigger statistical reduction in crime.

“They said, ‘Crime’s down 87 percent.’ I said, no, no, no — it’s more than 87 percent, virtually nothing. And much lesser things, things that take place in the home they call crime. You know, they’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime. See? So now I can’t claim 100 percent but we are. We are a safe city,” Trump said.

The president’s comments were part of a speech he delivered at the Religious Liberty Commission’s meeting at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

Domestic violence has long been recognized by the federal government as a national public health and safety crisis. A national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 4 in 10 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced physical or sexual violence or stalking by an intimate partner.

Next month marks the 25th annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which coincides with the 2000 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The law increased federal funding to combat domestic violence and other crimes that disproportionately affect women, recognizing the matter as a public health and safety issue, not a private domestic matter.

The federal government is by far the biggest source of funding for anti-domestic violence efforts, and since taking office, the Trump administration has sought to restrict nonprofits’ access to federal domestic violence grants. They have also laid off a top official and several teams working on the issue, threatening to destabilize domestic violence services and prevention efforts nationwide.

In a statement to The 19th, the White House said the president wasn’t “talking about or downplaying domestic violence.”

“President Trump’s Executive Order to address crime in DC even specifically took action against domestic violence,” said Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House. The order urged the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate housing providers who don’t comply with requirements to “restrict tenants who engage in criminal activity,” including domestic violence.

The White House also pointed out that the administration barred transgender women from women’s domestic abuse shelters, a move that advocates warn makes trans women less safe.

“While President Trump is making America safer, the Fake News is whipping up their latest hoax in real time to distract from the Administration’s tremendous results,” Jackson said.

Some groups focused on combating domestic violence criticized the president’s comments.

“The DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence believes that intimate partner violence is a crime and more than a ‘little fight with the wife’ as President Trump stated earlier today. Per federal and local statute, domestic violence is a crime and one that is not only a precursor to domestic violence homicides, but also a common factor in community violence, including mass shootings, where perpetrators often have a history of committing domestic violence,” said Dawn Dalton, the coalition’s executive director.

“The idea that domestic abuse is serious and criminal is not up for debate. Words cannot take us backwards and the days of treating domestic and sexual violence as ‘private matters’ are long gone. Any attempt to minimize these crimes does not change the impact of domestic violence and cannot change the reality of crime statistics in Washington, D.C.,” said Casey Carter Swegman, director of public policy at Tahirih Justice Center.

“By reducing domestic violence to a ‘little fight,’ President Trump revives a regressive view from an era when survivors were expected to endure abuse alone, without legal protections or public support, said Susanna Saul Director, Legal Programs at Her Justice, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to women living in poverty in New York City. “This does more than trivialize domestic abuse. It emboldens abusers to increase their violence and risks undoing decades of legal and cultural progress that have made safety a community responsibility, rather than a private burden.”

Rep. Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Wisconsin who has championed legislative efforts against domestic violence, said such crimes amount to “abuse that devastates families, endangers women and children, and takes lives every single day.”

“As a survivor of domestic violence, I found President Trump’s comments today downplaying domestic violence deeply offensive and disturbing,” she said in a statement. “Trump has a long history of violence against women that makes his dismissiveness unsurprising.”

Opinion

Judge to Dismiss Absurd RICO Charges Against Cop City Protesters

At 61 defendants, this was one of the largest RICO cases in U.S. history.

Malcolm Ferguson
Tue, September 9, 2025 
THE NEW REPUBLIC



A Georgia judge plans to throw out the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charges against the 61 defendants who were protesting the construction of “Cop City,” the $90 million, 85-acre police training facility in the lush forest of a majority-Black Atlanta neighborhood in 2023. The facility opened in April.

Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer told the court that he did not think Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to pursue the sweeping RICO indictments under Georgia law, as he had never obtained the necessary permission from Governor Brian Kemp.

“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.”

The “Stop Cop City” protests and subsequent arrests that followed were sparked by the police killing of environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a.k.a. Tortuguita, at the Stop Cop City Encampment in January 2023. Autopsy reports showed that they were shot over 50 times while sitting cross-legged with their hands up, and no traces of gunpowder were found on them, contradicting the police report stating that Terán shot first.

“The 61 defendants together have conspired to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center by conducting, coordinating and organizing acts of violence, intimidation and property destruction,” Carr said when the Cop City protesters were first indicted.

In addition to the RICO charges, three of the defendants were originally hit with charges of money laundering after organizing a bail fund, but those charges also failed to stick. Another three activists were charged with federal intimidation after making flyers calling Jonathan Salcedo, the state trooper who murdered Tortuguita, a “murderer.” Five of the protesters were charged with domestic terrorism and arson. Farmer is considering dismissing all of the separate charges attached to the RICO, allowing Carr to pursue the domestic terrorism ones.

Even still, this is a massive victory in the face of a state looking to bring the hammer down on people trying to stop an environmentally destructive, military-style police base from being built in their city after all legal options had been exhausted. That shouldn’t get you charges that used to be reserved for the Mafia.

At 61 defendants, this was one of the largest RICO cases in U.S. history.

Georgia judge to toss landmark racketeering charges against 'Cop City' protesters

R.J. RICO
Tue, September 9, 2025 


FILE - Andrew Douglas, of Atlanta, raises his fist during a protest over plans to build a police training center, March 9, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, file)


ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”

Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history.

The defendants faced a wide variety of allegations — everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, to supplying food to protesters who were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper who had fatally shot a protester. Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison on the RICO charges.

Farmer said during a hearing that Carr needed Gov. Brian Kemp's permission to pursue the case instead of the local district attorney. Prosecutors earlier conceded that they did not obtain any such order.

“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren't followed.”

The case is not over yet

Five of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson connected to a 2023 "night of rage" in which masked activists burned a police car in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks at a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. Farmer said Carr also didn't have the authority to pursue the arson charge, though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand.

Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge proceed.

Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Farmer that he believes the judge's decision is “wholly incorrect.”

Carr plans to “appeal immediately,” spokesperson Kara Murray said.

“The Attorney General will continue the fight against domestic terrorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property," she said.

Defense attorney Don Samuel said the case was rife with errors. Defense attorneys had expected to spend the whole week going through dozens of dismissal motions that had been filed. During an impassioned speech on Monday, the first day of the hearing, Samuel called the case “an assault on the right of people to protest" and urged Farmer to “put a stop to this.”

“We could have spun the wheel and seen which argument was going to win first,” Samuel told The Associated Press after Farmer announced his decision from the bench.

The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist, known as "Tortuguita," who authorities said had fired at them while inside a tent near the construction site. A prosecutor found the troopers' actions “ objectively reasonable,” though Tortuguita's family has filed a lawsuit, saying the 26-year-old's hands were in the air and that troopers used excessive force when they initially fired pepper balls into the tent.

Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out. Opponents also pursued civic paths to halt the facility, including packing City Council meetings and leading a massive referendum effort that got tied up in the courts.

Carr, who is running for governor, had pursued the case, with Kemp hailing it as an important step to combat "out-of-state radicals that threaten the safety of our citizens and law enforcement.”

But critics had decried the indictment as a politically motivated, heavy-handed attempt to quash the movement against the 85-acre (34-hectare) project that ultimately cost more than $115 million.

Environmentalists and anti-police activists were united

Emerging in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests, the “Stop Cop City” movement gained nationwide recognition as it united anarchists, environmental activists and anti-police protesters against the sprawling training center, which was being built in a wooded area that was ultimately razed in DeKalb County.

Activists argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.

The training center, a priority of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, opened earlier this year, despite years of protests and millions in cost overruns, some of it due to the damage protesters caused, and police officials’ needs to bolster 24/7 security around the facility.

But over the past two years, the case had been bogged down in procedural issues, with none of the defendants going to trial. Farmer and the case’s previous judge, Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams, had earlier been critical of prosecutors’ approach to the case, with Adams saying the prosecution had committed “gross negligence” by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included among a giant cache of evidence that was shared between investigators and dozens of defense attorneys.

As the delays continued, defendants said their lives had been wrecked by the charges, with many unable to secure steady jobs or housing.

Three of the defendants, organizers of a bail fund that supported the protesters, had also been charged with 15 counts of money laundering, but prosecutors dropped those charges last year.

Prosecutors had previously apologized to the court for various delays and missteps, but lamented the difficulty of handling such a sprawling case, though Farmer pointed out that it was prosecutors who decided to bring this “61-person elephant” to court in the first place.

Defense attorney Xavier de Janon said Farmer's decision is a “victory,” but noted that there are other defendants still facing unindicted domestic terrorism charges in DeKalb County, as well as numerous pending misdemeanors connected to the movement.

“The prosecutions haven’t ended against this movement, and I hope that people continue to pay attention to how the state is dealing with protests and activism, because it hasn’t ended," de Janon said. "This is a win, and hopefully many more will come.”

Trump Is No Nationalist
David Frum
Tue, September 9, 2025

THE ATLANTIC

President Donald Trump tells a lot of untruths, but one of the untruthiest is that his movement is “national.” Again and again, in fact, Trump and his core followers seem to care a lot more about what is happening in other countries than about what is happening in the United States.

Last week, for example, Trump hosted the president of Poland at the White House. From the cordial photos, the meeting might seem a welcome change from MAGA’s usual contempt and hostility to U.S. allies. But look again.

Trump’s meeting with President Karol Nawrocki was a carefully staged insult to Poland’s elected government—and the latest move in a campaign to manipulate European political systems in favor of Trump’s ideological allies.

Like many European countries, Poland has both a president and a prime minister. Day-to-day policy, including foreign policy, is set by the government, which is headed by the prime minister, who is answerable to Parliament. The president’s role is mostly negative: He wields a powerful veto, and can use the threat of its exercise to bend the government to his will.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, leads a coalition strongly supportive of Ukraine in its fight with Russia. That fight has been costly to Poland. Almost 1 million Ukrainians have been displaced to Poland, where they are allowed to work and receive social benefits such as schooling and health care. Some Poles have begun to resent Ukrainians. Their votes helped elect Nawrocki in two rounds of balloting, on May 18 and June 1.

Nawrocki is an amateur historian whose work seems calibrated to inflame the historic mutual grievances between Poles and Ukrainians. He campaigned on the slogan “Poland First.” Although not as overtly pro-Russian as his political allies in Hungary and Slovakia, Nawrocki has used his powers in ways that put pressure on the Ukrainian side. He is trying to limit benefits to Ukrainians in Poland and end their right to work. He opposes Ukrainian entry into NATO.

The Trump administration blatantly favored Nawrocki during the election campaign. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem traveled to Poland after the first round of voting to endorse Nawrocki by name and insult his principal opponent as one of the “weak” leaders who have allowed in immigrants who “destroyed their civilizations.” Poland is one of the few countries in Europe where views of the United States remain generally favorable, so Noem’s intervention may have made a difference in an election decided by less than a single point of the popular vote.

The Trump administration is exploiting partisan animosities within Poland to advance its own goals of wrecking the European Union and ending the Ukraine war on terms favorable to Russia.

Or take another example: Last month, Vice President J. D. Vance spent his summer holiday in the United Kingdom. He fished with the British foreign minister, visited U.S. service personnel, and made a side visit to Scotland to play golf on a Trump course. The first two of those activities would be normal for any U.S. vice president. The third is the kind of corruption that’s just a normal day’s business under President Trump. But Vance also made time for something out of the ordinary: a personal intervention in Britain’s internal politics.

Unlike in Poland, the Trump administration is highly unpopular in the United Kingdom. Only about one-fifth of Britons have a favorable view of Donald Trump. Vance polls even lower than that. But on the British right, Trump and Vance command attention and support—and Vance’s summer project was to lever that attention to shift British conservatism in a Trump-like direction.

The British right is now contested between two parties: the familiar Conservative Party and a new Reform Party. Reform has pulled ahead in the polls. The situation is volatile. Emotions are running strong. Resolving the impasse might seem a matter best left to the British.

Yet Vance’s itinerary seemed designed to insert and assert himself into the middle of the melee—and to favor the most extreme anti-immigration, pro-Russian factions. Vance deputed as his “British sherpa” a Cambridge academic disdainful of Ukraine and those Conservatives who have supported its cause. Vance met with Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigration Reform Party, and with Robert Jenrick, an anti-immigration activist seeking to topple the faltering Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch.

Vance tried to muscle his way into German politics in the same way earlier in the year. On February 14, scarcely a week before Germany held its federal elections, Vance delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference that sounded to German ears like an outright administration endorsement of the Alternative for Germany, another anti-immigration, pro-Russian far-right party. Vance scolded Germans for excluding the Alternative for Germany from public forums like the one where he was speaking. And indeed, Germany for obvious historical reasons restricts some forms of expression by the anti-democratic extremes of far right and far left. These German rules differ from American conceptions of free speech. Yet the recent American practice where the president of the United States threatens media corporations with reprisals unless they make multimillion-dollar payoffs to the president and his family must seem equally alien to German ideas of rights and liberties. German politicians don’t come to the United States to criticize the Trump shakedown system on American soil. Vance did not return the courtesy. In this case, at least, his intervention failed. While the AfD gained 20 percent of the popular vote, it did not do well enough to block the traditional parties from forming a center-right coalition committed to European unity and the defense of Ukraine against Russia.

In Canada in April and in Australia in May, anti-Trump sentiment defeated mainstream conservative parties that were tainted and discredited by Trump’s attacks on Australian and Canadian sovereignty and trade.

Proper conservatism has always been rooted in the local. But as conservatism has transmuted into Trumpism, that sense of the local has been lost. MAGA has developed into a truly global political movement, as ready to be franchised across national lines as a fast-food chain.

Far-right parties copy Trump’s slogans and Vance’s sarcastic, trollish rhetorical style. The message is everywhere the same, regardless of local conditions: blame immigrants for crime, disorder, housing prices, and anything else voters might be discontented about; reject vaccinations and promote quack remedies; back Russia and vilify Ukraine. The globalist quality of MAGA authoritarianism is powerfully symbolized by the willingness of the American Conservative Political Action Conference to lease its brand to far-right movements across Europe and Asia who want to host their own events in Budapest, Tokyo, or Warsaw. And everywhere, the message is amplified by social-media channels that seem to regard extremism as the pathway to engagement—and fear retaliation from Donald Trump if they ever try to diminish the volume of anger and disinformation.

Americans often try to seek the origins of Trumpism in their unique national past: episodes like McCarthyism in the 1950s or the overthrow of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It’s at least equally important to recognize what is not unique about Trumpism. The United States is not the only society confronting reactionary authoritarian grabs for power. The Trump movement, as the biggest and richest, acts as a kind of patron to all the others. But the smaller movements contribute to the common project. So much of what Trump and Vance say, so much content from their mass-media and social-media allies, originates not in the United States, but from their Hungarian, British, and German movement affiliates.

Those movements appreciate that they have a lot in common. They are learning to cooperate against their common adversaries. Those adversaries need to develop at least equal awareness, before it’s too late.

Article originally published at The Atlanti

WAR ON D.E.I.

Trump administration cuts grants for minority-serving colleges, declaring them unconstitutional

COLLIN BINKLEY
Wed, September 10, 2025 



FILE - Pedestrians cross University Ave on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., July 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is ending several grant programs reserved for colleges that have large numbers of minority students, saying they amount to illegal discrimination by tying federal money to racial quotas.

In a shift upending decades of precedent, the Education Department said Wednesday it now believes it’s unconstitutional to award federal grants using eligibility requirements based on racial or ethnic enrollment levels. The agency said it’s holding back a total of $350 million in grants budgeted for this year and called on Congress to “reenvision” the programs for future years.

More than $250 million of that figure was budgeted for the government's Hispanic-Serving Institution program, which offers grants to colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding that Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students.

Several smaller programs are also being cut, including $22 million for schools where at least 40% of students are Black, along with programs reserved for schools with certain enrollment levels of Asian American, Pacific Islander or Native American students. The programs have traditionally received bipartisan support in Congress and were created to address longstanding racial disparities in education.

Not included in the cuts is federal funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which are open to all students regardless of race.

“Diversity is not merely the presence of a skin color,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Wednesday. “Stereotyping an individual based on immutable characteristics diminishes the full picture of that person’s life and contributions, including their character, resiliency, and merit.”

McMahon added that she aims to work with Congress to repurpose the funding for institutions that serve “underprepared or under-resourced” students without using quotas. She did not elaborate on plans to repurpose the $350 million.

The government’s gnts for Hispanic-Serving Institutions are being challenged in a federal lawsuit brought by the state of Tennessee and the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions. Tennessee argues that all of its public universities serve Hispanic students, but none meet the “arbitrary ethnic threshold” to be eligible for the grants.

The Justice Department declined to defend the grants in the lawsuit, saying in a July memo that the 25% enrollment requirement violates the Constitution.

In court filings, a national association of Hispanic-Serving Institutions said the grants are legal and help put its members on an even playing field.

More than 500 colleges and universities are designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, making them eligible for the grants. It includes flagship campuses like the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona, along with many community colleges and smaller institutions.

The new cuts drew backlash from Democrats in Congress.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Trump is “putting politics ahead of students simply looking to get ahead.” She drew attention to the government's current funding bill, a stopgap measure passed in March that gives the administration more flexibility to redirect federal funding.

“This is another important reminder of why Congress needs to pass funding bills, like the one the Senate marked up this summer, that ensure Congress — not Donald Trump or Linda McMahon — decides how limited taxpayer dollars are spent,” Murray said in a statement.

The Education Department said it will still release about $132 million for similar grant programs that are considered mandatory, meaning their levels are dictated by existing laws. Even so, the department said it “continues to consider the underlying legal issues associated with the mandatory funding mechanism in these programs.”

Former President Joe Biden made Hispanic universities a priority, signing an executive action last year that promised a new presidential advisory board and increased funding. President Donald Trump revoked the order on his first day back in office earlier this year.

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Exclusive: Trump Admin Ends $350M Grants for ‘Hispanic-Serving Institutions'

Philip Wegmann
Wed, September 10, 2025 

AP

The Trump administration will cut a federal program that provides funding to colleges and universities with large Hispanic student populations, as well as numerous other discretionary grants designed to support minority serving institutions of higher education, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

It is the result of recent legal wrangling and the latest in Trumps ongoing crusade to overhaul academia.

The Department of Justice previously declined to defend the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program against a legal challenge brought by Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions. The longstanding federal initiative, HSI, has made additional grants available to colleges where more than 25% of the student body is Hispanic. But in a July letter to Congress, the DOJ deemed that effort a discriminatory and unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendments Due Process Clause.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon agrees with that assessment, and now the Department of Education intends to broaden the aperture by ending HSI funding, as well as at least half a dozen major education grants that determine eligibility by race.

"To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that illegally restrict eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas," McMahon said in a statement.

Added the education secretary: "The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas and will continue fighting to ensure that students are judged as individuals, not prejudged by their membership of a racial group."

A senior administration official, who declined to speak on the record, clarified that the change would not affect historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which do not rely on racial quotas as part of admissions.

The Education Department has already singled out seven major federal grant programs intended to help minority students at Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American, and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions.

The administration believes programs that restricted eligibility on racial lines violated the Constitution and served as a vehicle for advancing so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The administration expects $350 million in annual savings from the cuts. The monies are expected to be reallocated toward other programs that align with "administration priorities."

But there is only so much that the administration can do on its own. Congress passed, and then President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, signed into law legislation that created the assistance program for HSIs. They simultaneously set aside other grants for other minority serving institutions. As a result, the Education Department can reprogram discretionary funds, but McMahons hands are tied with respect to certain mandatory spending.

All the same, this kind of budgetary overhaul would have been politically unthinkable to most Republicans pre-Trump. It would have been impossible prior to a landmark 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court that found race considerations in university admissions unconstitutional. A sea-change moment, the ruling bowled over affirmative action programs that had been a pillar of higher education.

The move by McMahon to end the minority students grants is a direct downstream result of the court case. The DOJ specifically cited the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in its letter to Speaker Johnson announcing its decision not to defend the Hispanic college program.

"For too long," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in that decision, universities "have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individuals identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."

This has given the Trump administration a free hand in efforts to uproot affirmative action from the academy.

When Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions filed suit to challenge the HSI program earlier this year, Francisca Fajana, Director of Racial Justice Strategy at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, condemned the lawsuit as "a direct attempt to erase programs that remedy racial and ethnic disparities and strip away essential resources from institutions that serve Latino students."

At the time, Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, countered that "no student or institution should be denied opportunity because they fall on the wrong side of an ethnic quota."

A presidential jet and a massive US airbase didn’t shield Qatar from Israel’s attack.

 America’s Arab allies are taking note

Analysis by Paula Hancocks, CNN
Wed, September 10, 2025 

Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, pictured on Wednesday, condemned Israel's "criminal" attack on the capital Doha. - Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

Qatar would have been forgiven for thinking it was immune from Israeli attack.

The tiny Gulf state is a key US ally that welcomed President Donald Trump just four months ago; red carpets were laid, billion-dollar deals were done and a controversial presidential aircraft bequeathed.

As for its role as mediator to end the war in Gaza, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani personally met with Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya on Monday to push for the new US-led ceasefire and hostage deal. Hamas’ response was expected at a follow-up meeting Tuesday evening; a couple of hours before that answer, Israeli jets struck a residential building in Doha, killing five Hamas members and a Qatari security official.

The sense of shock and betrayal is palpable in the Qatari capital. The vocabulary being used by Qatar’s prime minister is strong, evocative and damning, a departure from his usual composed response to the incessant twists and turns of trying to end the 23-month war in Gaza.

In an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson Wednesday, he described the attack as “state terror” and warned the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “killed any hope” for the hostages and undermined “any chance of peace.” He also said the Israeli leader must be “brought to justice,” accusing him of breaking “every international law.”

A country with no diplomatic ties to Israel invited its delegations to come and negotiate indirectly with Hamas; an endeavor appreciated by President Trump, who spoke of Doha “bravely taking risks with us to broker peace.”

Qatar is also considered to have taken a hit on America’s behalf when Iran struck the Al Udeid military base in June of this year, the largest US military facility in the region. Tehran said it was in response to US strikes on its nuclear facilities. Doha issued strong condemnation but little more.
Questioning the pivot to America

The message taken from this strike does not end at Qatar’s borders. Nations across the Gulf, who for decades have actively pivoted toward the US, politically and financially, may now be questioning the assumed benefits of that choice.

US security guarantees were implicit in deals done and memoranda signed. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE pledged an eye-watering $3 trillion in deals during Trump’s May visit, their side of the deal upheld.

US President Donald Trump, shown in Doha, Qatar, on May 14, was "very unhappy" with Israel's strikes against the Gulf state, which has been a key player in negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza. - Brian Snyder/ReutersMore

“I think those nations will be wondering what they can do in order to deter future attacks,” said HA Hellyer, scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “but also, what sort of security architecture they need to now invest in instead of relying on a partner that hasn’t been able to protect them even from one of its own allies.”

The damage to the trust between the US and its Gulf partners has been done, though to what extent is not yet clear and rests largely on President Trump’s reassurances to his allies and public messaging to Israel. A wider question should be what kind of discouraging effect this will have on future mediation efforts.

While Qatar has not closed the door on mediating peace in Gaza, the talks are at best in limbo, at worst lying in the embers of Israel’s most recent assassination attempt.

Hasan Alhasan, Senior Fellow of Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said, “This is the kind of risk not many countries in the region will be willing to stomach in return for a mediating role.”

Qatar and Egypt have long been mediators between Israel and Hamas. Oman has facilitated talks between Iran and the US and more successfully between the US and the Houthis. The UAE has facilitated prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine. Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a venue for peace talks on several different conflicts.

The leaders of every one of those countries will be watching President Trump’s response closely in the face of what appears to be US impotence in the Middle East. And a belief long voiced by many in the region of Israel’s intention to sabotage peace talks has only been fortified by Tuesday’s strikes.

‘Gulf region at risk’: Qatar seeks ‘collective response’ to Israeli attack

Al Jazeera
Wed, September 10, 2025

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Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has said that there must be a “collective response” to Israel’s attack on the Qatari capital Doha, as Arab leaders rushed to the Gulf nation to express solidarity.

“There is a response that will happen from the region. This response is currently under consultation and discussion with other partners in the region,” he told US media outlet CNN on Wednesday, adding that “the entire Gulf region is at risk”.

“We are hoping for something meaningful that deters Israel from continuing this bullying,” Sheikh Mohammed added, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of leading the region into “chaos”.

“We understand some sort of regional meeting will be held here in Qatar. We know that the countries have pulled together their own legal team. They are looking at all legal avenues to have Netanyahu tried for breaking international law,” Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said.

“So yeah, the pressure is definitely mounting on Israel, not only from Qatar, but obviously on a regional and a wider international level. And that’s what I think he’s obviously trying to do in giving these very forceful statements to the US network, CNN.”

Smoke rises from an explosion caused by an Israeli strike in Doha on September 9, 2025 [UGC via AP Photo]

The Israeli military targeted Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday as they were meeting to discuss the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal put forth by US President Donald Trump. At least seven people were killed in the attack, but Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination bid. Qatar says two of its security officers were killed in the attack that has drawn global condemnation.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Israel’s attack in a phone call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “These strikes are unacceptable. I condemn them. I reaffirmed France’s commitment to the sovereignty and security of Qatar,” he posted on X.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year. On Wednesday, Israel killed 35 people in an attack on Yemen.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said on Wednesday that Israel’s strike on Qatar is a warning to oil-rich Gulf countries that they would not be spared in the future if armed groups in the region are defeated.

“We are on the side of Qatar that was subjected to an aggression and we also stand with the Palestinian resistance,” Naim Kassem said. He added that the Israeli strike is part of its attempts to create a “Greater Israel” in large parts of the Middle East.

The “Greater Israel” concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis is understood to refer to an expansionist vision that lays claim to the occupied West Bank, Gaza, parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza by numerous rights groups, but that has not stopped it from its brutal campaign of bombardment. On Wednesday, Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 72 people, taking the total number of Palestinians killed since October 2023 to more than 64,656. Israel has intensified its assault to capture Gaza City – home to more than one million Palestinians.

Sheikh Mohammed, the Qatari prime minister, also said that the Israeli strike was aimed at undermining “any chance of peace” in Gaza.

“Everything about the meeting is very well known to the Israelis and the Americans. It’s not something that we are hiding,” he said of the presence of Hamas officials in Qatar.

“I think that what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu did yesterday – he just killed any hope for those [Israeli] hostages,” Sheikh Mohammed said about the 20 captives believed to be still alive in Gaza.

Netanyahu appears unfazed

However, Netanyahu appears unfazed by the criticism from global leaders, including the UN secretary-general.

On Wednesday, the Israeli prime minister threatened further attacks on Qatar. “I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will,” Netanyahu said.

Israel has assassinated many of Hamas’s top military and political leaders in the last two years, such as top political leader Yahya Sinwar; military commander Mohammed Deif, one of the founders of the Qassam Brigades in the 1990s; and political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran.

Qatar has condemned Netanyahu’s “reckless” comments regarding Qatar’s hosting of the Hamas office. “Netanyahu is fully aware that the hosting of the Hamas office took place within the framework of Qatar’s mediation efforts requested by the United States and Israel,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

It also called out “the shameful attempt therein to justify the cowardly attack that targeted Qatari territory, as well as the explicit threats of future violations of state sovereignty”.

Netanyahu’s threats came despite the US President Donald Trump on Tuesday saying no further attacks would happen on Qatari soil.

The attack on Tuesday was the first such attack by Israel on Qatar, which has been a key mediator in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas and hosts the region’s largest United States military base, Al Udeid airbase, which hosts US troops.

The Qatari prime minister, who is also the foreign minister of the Gulf nation, has dubbed Israel’s targeting of Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday “state terrorism”.

“I have no words to express how enraged we are from such an action … we are betrayed,” he said in the interview with the cable network.

Netanyahu “needs to be brought to justice. He’s the one who’s wanted at the International Criminal Court. He broke every international law,” Sheikh Mohammed said, referring to the arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister for war crimes.

A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, September 9, 2025 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Arab states express solidarity with Qatar

Meanwhile, Gulf leaders have visited Doha to rally around Qatar, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan calling the Israeli action “criminal” and a threat to regional stability.

In a meeting on Wednesday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha, Sheikh Al Nahyan reaffirmed his country’s “resolute solidarity with Qatar and its steadfast support for all measures taken to safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people”, according to the UAE state media outlet WAM.

“He [Sheikh Al Nahyan] stressed that the criminal attack constituted a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and of all international laws and norms, warning that such actions threaten the region’s security, stability, and prospects for peace,” WAM added.

The crown princes of Kuwait and Jordan also travelled to Doha on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, will arrive in Doha on Thursday.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, is received by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, emir of Qatar, as he arrives at Doha International Airport, in Doha, Qatar [Abdulla Al Bedwawi/Handout via Reuters]More

“We will stand with the State of Qatar in all measures it takes, without limits, and we will harness all our capabilities for that,” Prince Mohammed said in an address to the Shura Council on Wednesday.

“We reject and condemn the attacks of the Israeli occupation in the region, the latest of which was the brutal aggression against the State of Qatar,” the crown prince added.

“This requires Arab, Islamic, and international action to confront this aggression and to take international measures to stop the occupation authority and deter it from its criminal practices aimed at destabilising the region’s security and stability.”

In a brief interview with reporters on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he was “not thrilled” about Israel’s strike.

“This was a decision made by [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Still, it remains unclear whether the Trump administration had been caught off guard, whether the US had indicated even tacit approval for such a strike, or if the attack could represent a rupture in Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel.

Independent Middle East Analyst Adam Shapiro said if the US was not made aware of the attack, it was not “something new”.

“I think this is just simply the way Israel continually acts as the tail wagging the US dog, doing what it wishes, when it wishes, and getting what it wants, according to a double standard,” he told Al Jazeera.

Qatar says Netanyahu must be 'brought to justice' over strikes

Ali CHOUKEIR
Wed, September 10, 2025 


The nearly two-year Gaza war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million (Omar AL-QATTAA)Omar AL-QATTAA/AFP/AFPMore


Qatar's prime minister warned Wednesday that an unprecedented Israeli strike in Doha targeting Hamas killed hope for Gaza hostages, calling for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to be "brought to justice".

His comments came a day after deadly strikes targeted Hamas leaders in Qatar -- a US ally -- a first in the oil-rich Gulf that rattled a region long shielded from conflict.

"I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told CNN.

Doha is "reassessing everything" around their involvement in future ceasefire talks and discussing next steps with Washington, he added in comments cited in CNN's live blog after an interview with the broadcaster.

The attack, just three months after Iran launched a retaliatory strike on a US airbase in Qatar, also cast serious doubt on Qatar-mediated Gaza ceasefire talks and undermined security reassurances to the Gulf from key ally Washington.

Earlier Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed that Israel would "act against its enemies anywhere" while Netanyahu urged Qatar to expel Hamas officials or hold them to account, "because if you don't, we will".

Qatar has hosted Hamas's political bureau since 2012 with Washington's blessing, and has been a key mediator in Gaza talks alongside Egypt and the United States.

Israel's military said it struck Huthi targets in Yemen on Wednesday, including in the capital Sanaa, killing 35 people according to the rebels.

Palestinian militant group Hamas said six people were killed in Tuesday's strikes in Qatar, but its senior leaders had survived, affirming "the enemy's failure to assassinate our brothers in the negotiating delegation".

The White House said Trump did not agree with Israel's decision to take military action.

Trump said he was not notified in advance and when he heard, asked his envoy Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar immediately -- but the attack had already started.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, sought to justify the decision, telling an Israeli radio station: "It was not an attack on Qatar; it was an attack on Hamas."


- 'Shaken conscience of world' -

Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said Israel "represents a real danger to the security and stability of the region".

"It is in an open war with everyone, not just with the Palestinian people," he said.

In Gaza City on Wednesday, the Israeli military destroyed another high-rise building as it intensified its assault on the territory's largest urban centre, despite mounting calls to end its campaign.

The military issued an evacuation warning to those living in and around the Tiba 2 tower, before later saying it had "struck a high-rise building that was used by the Hamas terrorist organisation".

AFP images showed huge plumes of smoke billowing into the sky as the residential tower in western Gaza City crashed to the ground.

In the aftermath, young girls rushed to pick dust-covered dough out of the rubble.

Siham Abu al-Foul told AFP she couldn't take anything with her when the army issued the evacuation orders.

"They brought down the tower and we came running and there was nothing left... Everything we fixed in two years was gone in a minute."

The Israeli military said it had struck 360 targets since Friday and vowed that it would "increase the pace of targeted strikes" in the Gaza City area in the coming days.

The Gaza war has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million, with the United Nations last month declaring a famine in Gaza City and its surroundings.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she would push to sanction "extremist" Israeli ministers and curb trade ties over the dire situation.

"What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world," she said.


- 'Not thrilled' -

Israel's targeting of Hamas leaders in Qatar sparked international condemnation.

Trump said he was not notified in advance of the Israeli strikes and was "not thrilled about the whole situation".

"I view Qatar as a strong Ally and friend of the U.S., and feel very badly about the location of the attack," he said in a social media post, adding Hamas's elimination was still a "worthy goal".

Canada said it was reassessing its relationship with Israel following the Doha strikes.

Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the assault, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,656 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.


In exclusive CNN interview, Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages

Max Saltman, Caitlin Danaher, Mitchell McCluskey, Mostafa Salem, 

CNN
Wed, September 10, 2025

Scroll back up to restore default view.

Qatar’s prime minister excoriated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an exclusive interview with CNN on Wednesday, calling Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Doha “barbaric.”

“We were thinking that we are dealing with civilized people,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “That’s the way we are dealing with others. And the action that (Netanyahu) took – I cannot describe it, but it’s a barbaric action.”

Al-Thani added that he believes Israel’s strike on Doha on Tuesday “killed any hope” for the hostages remaining in Gaza.

“I was meeting one of the hostage’s families the morning of the attack,” Al-Thani said. “They are counting on this (ceasefire) mediation, they have no other hope for that.”

“I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages,” the prime minister said.

The attack in Doha was nothing less than “state terror,” Al-Thani told CNN. The prime minister had used the same term on Tuesday when he took the podium at a news conference and laid into Israel for its actions.

During that news conference, Al-Thani was visibly angry. He expressed the same outrage Wednesday, some thirty-six hours after the strike.

“I have no words to express how enraged we are from such an action. … This is state terror,” Al-Thani told CNN. “We are betrayed.”
‘No official declaration’ on Hamas negotiator after strike

Al-Thani notably did not reveal the fate of Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, following Israel’s attack targeting the group’s leadership in Doha on Tuesday.

When asked by CNN on the whereabouts of the chief negotiator, Al-Thani said that “until now … there is no official declaration.”

Hamas had initially said five of its members were killed in the strike, but it failed to assassinate the negotiating delegation.

A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday. - Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Al-Thani said a 22-year-old Qatari security officer was killed in the attack.

“We are trying to identify if there is any other one missing. … There are Qataris who are in a very dangerous situation,” he added.

Al-Thani said he could not predict what Hamas’ response to the latest US principles for a ceasefire would have been had Israel not struck Doha, but said that he believed that Israel and Hamas “are going to run out of chances” to secure a ceasefire.
Qatar ‘reassessing’ mediation

Shortly after the strike, Al-Thani had told reporters that Qatar would not be deterred in its mediation efforts. However, the prime minister said Wednesday that Netanyahu has “undermined any chance of stability, any chance of peace” by targeting Hamas leadership in the Qatari capital.

“I’ve been rethinking, even about the entire process for the last few weeks, that Netanyahu was just wasting our time,” Al-Thani said.

“He wasn’t serious about anything,” he added, as he dismissed recent talks as “meaningless.”

Al-Thani added the Qataris are “reassessing everything” around their involvement in any future ceasefire talks, and added they are in a “very detailed conversation” with the United States government on how to proceed.

Qatar, which hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, is a major American ally. US President Donald Trump was informed of the strike only shortly before it began — and not by Israel itself, but by Chairman of the Joint Staff General Dan Caine, according to a US official.

Trump immediately told White House special envoy Steve Witkoff to brief Qatar, according to another US official. Witkoff has a longstanding relationship with the Qataris.

Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the October 7 hostages and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem, on Saturday. - Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

While Trump stopped short of condemning the attack, on Tuesday his spokesperson said that the president was concerned. Al-Thani told CNN on Wednesday that the United States has expressed their support for Qatar “on many occasions.”

“I’m following up with all the US officials in order to see what kind of actions can be taken as we speak,” Al-Thani added.

This weekend, the US proposed a new ceasefire framework. Trump said Israel had agreed to its terms and that it was “time for Hamas to accept as well.”

Qatar’s prime minister pressed Hamas to “respond positively” to this proposal in a meeting in Doha, according to an official familiar with that discussion.

Hamas was then due to respond Tuesday evening to the proposal, a diplomat briefed on the talks told CNN, before Israel’s strike on Doha.
A regional response

Qatar hopes that there will be a “collective response” to Israel’s strike on Hamas officials in Doha, Al-Thani said.

“There is a response that will happen from the region. This response is currently under consultation and discussion with other partners in the region,” Al-Thani said.

Al-Thani stated that an Arab-Islamic summit will be held in Doha in the coming days, where the participants will decide on a course of action.

However, Al-Thani said that Qatar will not ask other regional partners to respond in a particular way.

“There is a collective response that should happen from the region,” Al-Thani said, “We are hoping for something meaningful that deters Israel from continuing this bullying.”

 CNN.com


Bowen: Diplomacy in ruins after Israel strikes Hamas leaders in Qatar

Jeremy Bowen - International editor

BBC
Tue, September 9, 2025


[Reuters]


Almost exactly a year ago I interviewed the Hamas leader and chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya in Doha. I met him in a house not far from the building that Israel attacked on Tuesday afternoon.

From the beginning of the war in Gaza, al-Hayya had been the chief Hamas negotiator, sending and receiving messages to the Israelis and Americans via Qatari and Egyptian intermediaries.

At moments where ceasefires were thought likely, al-Hayya, along with the men who were also targeted this afternoon, were only a short distance from the Israeli and American delegations. When they were attacked, al-Hayya and the other top Hamas leaders were discussing the latest American diplomatic proposals to end the war in Gaza and free the remaining Israeli hostages.

Israel's swift declaration of what it had done immediately fuelled speculation on social media that the latest American proposals were simply a ruse to get the Hamas leadership in one place where they could be targeted.

Follow live: Israel strikes Qatar's capital

What do we know about Israel's attack in Doha?

On 3rd October last year, as Khalil al-Hayya walked into the venue for our meeting in a modest, low-rise villa, I was surprised that he had so little security. We had to give up our phones, and a couple of bodyguards came with him into the house.

Outside plain clothes Qatari police sat smoking in an SUV. That was it. A hundred bodyguards could not have stopped an air strike, but al-Hayya and his people were relaxed and confident.

The point was that Qatar was supposed to be safe, and they felt secure enough to move around relatively openly.

A few months earlier, on 31 July 2024, Israel had assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader in Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

With the war in Gaza raging, I had wondered whether it might be dangerous to sit in the same room as Khalil al-Hayya. But like him, I thought Qatar was off limits.

In the last few decades Qatar has tried to carve itself a position as the Switzerland of the Middle East, a place where even enemies could make deals.

The Americans negotiated with the Afghan Taliban in Doha. And in the almost two years since the attacks on 7th October 2023, Qatar has been the centre of the diplomatic efforts to negotiate ceasefires and perhaps even an end to the war.

The peace efforts, driven by President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, were faltering badly. But now they are in ruins. In the words of one senior western diplomat "there is no diplomacy."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis that their enemies will never be able to sleep easy and are paying the price for ordering the 7th October attacks.

Hamas leader and chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya [Reuters]

The Israeli offensive in Gaza is gathering pace. A few hours before the attack on Doha, the Israeli military, the IDF, told all Palestinians in Gaza City to leave and move south. It's thought something like one million civilians could be affected.

In his televised comments Netanyahu told Palestinians in Gaza "don't be derailed by these killers. Stand up for your rights and your future. Make peace with us. Accept President Trump's proposal. Don't worry, you can do it, and we can promise you a different future, but you've got to take these people out of the way. If you do, there is no limit to our common future."

If Palestinians in Gaza are able to hear his words, they will ring very hollow. Israel has destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of them, as well as hospitals, universities and schools.

With Gaza already gripped by starvation, famine in Gaza City itself and a humanitarian catastrophe across the territory the forced movement of many more people will only increase Israel's lethal pressure on civilians.

Israel has already killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom were civilians. Netanyahu himself faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and Israel is being investigated by the International Court of Justice for genocide.

The attack in Doha is a sign that Netanyahu and his government will press forward as hard as they can all fronts, not just Gaza. They are confident that with American support, their military can enforce their will.

The Doha attack earned a rare rebuke from the White House. Qatar is a valuable ally, that hosts a huge US military base and is a major investor in the US.

But Netanyahu appears to be calculating that Donald Trump, the only leader he feels he must listen to, will content himself with the diplomatic equivalent of a rap over the knuckles.

Israel's offensive in Gaza continues. And as the planned recognition of Palestinian independence at the UN later this month by the UK, France, Canada, Australia and other western countries approaches, Netanyahu's ultra nationalist cabinet allies will redouble calls to respond with the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank.


Who is Khalil al-Hayya, who else was targeted in Israel’s attack on Qatar?

Al Jazeera Staff
Tue, September 9, 2025 

Israel’s military described its attack on a residential complex in central Doha, Qatar, as a “precise” attack.

In an official statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian movement Hamas said the attack killed five of its members, and a Qatari officer, but did not eliminate its negotiating delegation or any of its senior leadership.

Here is what we know about the victims, and the senior leaders who were targeted – but who appear to have survived the attack:
Who is Khalil al-Hayya?

Reports say the strike targeted senior Hamas figures, including Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator.
Al-Hayya rose in importance after the killings of top Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, and military commander Mohammed Deif last year. Sinwar, who had taken charge in Gaza after Haniyeh’s death, was killed later in 2024.

With those losses, al-Hayya is now one of five leaders steering Hamas’s leadership council.

The leadership council is the temporary, five-member ruling committee formed in late 2024 to govern the group during the war.

Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya sits at a mourning house for assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, [File: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya has been part of Hamas since it was established in 1987. He became especially important on the diplomatic front, based mainly in Qatar, which became the main hub for mediation with other countries, including Israel, Egypt, and the United States.

Operating outside Gaza allowed him to travel and coordinate between neighbouring countries without the constraints of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Al-Hayya has also led Hamas’s delegations in mediated talks with Israel to try to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal.

Al-Hayya’s family has suffered as a result of Israeli attacks: During the 2014 war, an Israeli strike destroyed the house of his eldest son, Osama, killing him, his wife, and three of their children, and during Tuesday’s attack, his son, Humam, was killed.
Who else is believed to have been targeted, and who was killed during the attack?

According to reports, Zaher Jabarin is also believed to have been a target of Israel’s attack. He currently serves as the movement’s chief financial administrator.

In 1993, Israel arrested Jabarin and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He spent almost two decades in prison before being released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange.

Following his release, Jabarin rose quickly through Hamas’s ranks. He became head of the group’s financial bureau, managing and overseeing an extensive investment and funding network. He currently also heads Hamas in the occupied West Bank, and is one of the five members of the leadership council.

Those killed during Israel’s attack in Qatar were:

Jihad Labad – director of al-Hayya’s office


Humam al-Hayya – al-Hayya’s son


Abdullah Abdul Wahid – bodyguard


Moamen Hassouna – bodyguard


Ahmed al-Mamluk – bodyguard

The sixth person killed, according to Qatar, was Corporal Bader Saad Mohammed al-Humaidi al-Dosari, a member of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya).
Who are the current leaders of Hamas?

With many of Hamas’s leadership killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the group formed a five-man leadership council – which includes al-Hayya and Jabarin – and also has a senior military figure in Gaza.

Izz al-Din al-Haddad

Al-Haddad became the most senior Hamas military leader in the Gaza Strip after Sinwar’s death. Israel considers him one of the masterminds behind October 7 and has placed him on its most-wanted list. He is not a member of the five-man leadership council.

Khaled Meshaal

Khaled Meshaal, 68, has been a senior political leader of Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, since the 1990s. In 1997, Israeli agents attempted to inject a slow-acting lethal chemical into his ear on a public street in Jordan, but the operation was botched, and the men were soon arrested. He is now based in Qatar, serving on the leadership council.

“It is true that in reality, there will be an entity or a state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land,” Meshaal has said. “But I won’t deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it.”

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during an interview [File: Fadi Al-Assaad/Reuters]

Mohammad Darwish

He is also based in Qatar, and is the nominal head of Hamas’s leadership council. According to reports, in early 2025, he met Turkiye’s President Erdogan and publicly endorsed the idea of a technocratic or national unity government for post-war Gaza.
Nizar Awadallah

Awadallah is a long-time Hamas leader. He is seen as one of Hamas’s original members and has held several important positions, including in its armed wing. Since the October 7 attacks, he has not spoken publicly or appeared in the media.

Exclusive-India explores rare-earth deal with Myanmar rebels after Chinese curbs

Neha Arora and Naw Betty Han
Tue, September 9, 2025

FILE PHOTO: Rare earths at Laboratory of Physics and Material studies (LPEM) in Paris

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is working to obtain rare-earth samples from Myanmar with the assistance of a powerful rebel group, according to four people familiar with the matter, as it seeks alternative supplies of a strategic resource tightly controlled by China.

India's Ministry of Mines asked state-owned and private firms to explore collecting and transporting samples from mines in northeastern Myanmar that are under the control of the Kachin Independence Army, three of the people said.

State-owned miner IREL and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials - which received government funding last year for the commercial manufacturing of rare-earth magnets - were among those involved in the discussions, the sources said.

New Delhi hopes to test the samples in domestic labs to ensure they contain sufficient levels of heavy rare earths that can be processed into magnets used in electronic vehicles and other advanced equipment, according to the people.

The ministry made the request - signalling a rare instance of Delhi engaging with a non-state actor - at an online meeting in July, according to two of the people. The meeting was attended by representatives from IREL, Midwest and at least one other company, one of the sources said.

The KIA has started gathering samples for India's analysis, said the fourth person, who is an official with the armed group. The rebels have also agreed to assess if bulk exports to India are possible, according to the KIA official, who like the other sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Details of India's engagement with the KIA are reported by Reuters for the first time.

India's foreign and mining ministries did not respond to Reuters' questions. IREL and Midwest also did not return requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the KIA did not respond to calls and messages.

CHINESE CONTROL

Although rare earths are relatively abundant, China has near-absolute control over the technology that processes the minerals into magnets.

Beijing has sharply restricted exports of processed rare earths to major economies like India this year as it seeks to shore up geopolitical leverage amid its trade war with the United States.

Delhi has made moves to shore up supplies. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Aug. 31 that he had discussed rare-earth mining during a meeting in China with Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, whose forces are battling the KIA. He did not elaborate.

No deal was publicly announced and the junta did not return a request for comment.

India is also seeking to address its lack of industrial-scale facilities to process rare-earth elements to high purity levels. IREL has sought partnerships with Japanese and Korean companies to begin commercial production of rare-earth magnets, Reuters reported last month.

Asked by Reuters about India's engagement with the KIA, an Indian official familiar with deliberations in Delhi said that the country's interest in critical minerals was not a secret. "We naturally encourage commercial cooperation on a business-to-business basis for securing rare earth minerals from available suppliers globally," the official said, without directly referencing interactions with the rebel group.

IREL sent a team to Kachin state in December to study resources, Reuters previously reported. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has also heard proposals for tapping Myanmar's supplies of rare earths, including one that would involve cooperation with India, the news agency reported.

China has an ongoing relationship with the KIA, which also supplies Beijing with heavy rare earths, said Angshuman Choudhury, a Singapore-based independent analyst of India-Myanmar relations.

"If China is liaising with the KIA to secure access to rare earths, why should India be left behind?" he said. "That competition also frames this outreach."

A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said in response to Reuters' questions that Beijing was not aware of the KIA potentially working with India, but "all relevant parties in northern Myanmar appreciate and thank China for its constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the region."

LONG-TERM DEAL?

The KIA was formed in 1961 to secure the autonomy of Myanmar's minority Kachin community and has since expanded to become one of the most formidable armed groups in the country.

After Myanmar's military ousted an elected civilian government in a 2021 coup, triggering a nationwide uprising, the KIA emerged as a bulwark of the resistance against the China-backed junta.

Last year, it seized from junta-aligned forces the Chipwe-Pangwa mining belt in Kachin state that produces the bulk of the global supply of heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium.

While the KIA continues to supply China with the minerals, their relationship has run into friction over the KIA's ongoing battle with junta troops over the strategically vital town of Bhamo.

Beijing sees the junta as a guarantor of stability in its backyard and has pressured the KIA to back down. The militia, in turn, is ramping up engagement with neighbouring India.

Officials in Delhi are interested in a long-term arrangement with the KIA to build a supply route for rare earths but there are concerns over the logistical challenges of bringing large quantities of the material across remote and under-developed mountainous regions, two of the people said.

Minerals are transported to nearby China via a road network.

IREL is involved in some of those discussions, but it wants a private company to take responsibility for the transportation, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Even if the KIA and India were able to work out an arrangement over sending rare earths to India, the parties would face challenges processing the minerals without Chinese assistance, said Belgium-based rare-earths expert Nabeel Mancheri.

"Theoretically, if India gets these materials, they could separate and make useful products," he said. "But it would take time to scale this up to produce meaningful quantities catering to international markets."

(Additional reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal in Bangkok, Shivam Patel in New Delhi, Shoon Naing, Rishika Sadam and the Beijing newsroom; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Katerina Ang)