The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they happen.
Michigan man sentenced to prison for violent social media threats against Jews
A 20-year-old Michigan man who admitted using social media to make violent threats against Jewish people is sentenced to a year and a day in prison, far short of what prosecutors had recommended.
A sentence exceeding a year makes someone eligible for good conduct credits and a shorter stay in federal custody.
Seann Pietila, who has been locked up since June, was accused of using Instagram to spread neo-Nazi ideology, discuss plans to kill people and praise mass shooters.
Pietila admitted that he told someone last summer about a plan to kill or injure Jewish people and wanted to post the attack online. The FBI said Pietila also had written the name of the Shaarey Zedek congregation in East Lansing, near Michigan State University, on his phone along with a 2024 date.
“He never sent the note to anyone or posted it in a public forum,” defense attorney Scott Tilton said.
Pietila moved to the Lansing area from the Upper Peninsula when he was 16 years old. Tilton said he’s had cognitive issues as well as depression and anxiety.
“Mr. Pietila understands that his words have meaning, his messages were harmful, and that there are consequences for his actions,” Tilton said in a court filing.
Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of nearly three years. But US District Judge Robert Jonker settles on 366 days, along with $10,648 in restitution to the synagogue for security. Pietila will get credit for nearly nine months already spent in jail.
Trump wins North Dakota caucuses, racking up another win going into Super Tuesday
BISMARCK, North Dakota — Donald Trump wins the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday, adding to his string of victories heading into Super Tuesday.
The former president finished first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, ahead of former UN ambassador Nikki Haley. The results resumes Trump’s winning streak, which was briefly interrupted on Sunday when Haley notched her first victory of the campaign in the District of Columbia’s primary.
The White House hopefuls now turn their attention to Super Tuesday, when results will pour in from 16 states in contests that amount to the single biggest delegate haul of any day in the presidential primary. Trump and US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, are dominating their races and are on track to winning their nominations later this month.
Under North Dakota’s rules, candidates are eligible to win delegates if they finish with at least 20% of the vote. However, a candidate who wins at least 60% of the vote receives all of the state’s 29 delegates.
Four candidates were on the ballot, including Trump and Nikki Haley. The other candidates, who have received little attention, were Florida businessman David Stuckenberg and Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley, who recently ended his campaign.
North Dakota’s Democratic-NPL Party is holding a presidential primary almost entirely by mail, with mail-in voting from February 20 to March 30, and limited in-person voting for residents of Indian reservations. US President Joe Biden, Representative Dean Phillips and six others are on the ballot.
A third party will count ballots in Fargo on March 30, with results available on the party’s website afterward.
Indepdenent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont won the Democratic caucuses in 2016 and 2020.
Far-left activists accost AOC, demanding she call Israel’s war on Hamas ‘genocide’
Far-left, pro-Palestinian protesters accosted Democratic Squad Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her way out of a movie theater in Brooklyn with her fiancée, demanding that she brand Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza a “genocide.”
Footage shows Ocasio-Cortez angrily telling the handful of hecklers that she has in fact done so, though it was not clear when. In a late January interview, she went as far as to say that a growing number of Americans view the term to accurately describe the situation in Gaza and that they shouldn’t be dismissed.
Monday’s incident appeared to highlight the radical nature of many of the anti-Israel demonstrators in the US, who are turning on some of the most progressive members of Congress, including ones like Ocasio-Cortez who have been very vocal in their criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause.
“You refuse to call it a genocide,” one of the protesters is heard shouting at Ocasio-Cortez as she leaves the theater. “It’s not okay that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it.”
“You’re lying!” Ocasio-Cortez shouts back, later adding that she doesn’t want to engage with those filming her because she’s convinced they’ll only partially publish her response and take her remarks out of context.
“I already said that it was. And y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t. Over and over again. It’s f—ed up man. And you’re not helping these people,” Ocasio-Cortez says as she walks away.
#NYC "You refuse to call it a genocide" – handful of protesters chase after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a Brooklyn movie theater, "You gonna cut it and take it out of context, I already said that it was" – AOC responded to protesters claims on refusing word "Genocide" , "This is… pic.twitter.com/mipmA5EHu9
— FreedomNews.Tv FNTV (@FreedomNTV) March 5, 2024
3 Red Sea data cables cut amid continued Houthi attacks in vital waterway
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Three cables under the Red Sea that provide global internet and telecommunications have been cut as the waterway remains a target of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials say.
What cut the lines remains unclear. There has been concern about the cables being targeted in the Houthi campaign, which the rebels describe as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have denied attacking the lines, however.
While global shipping has already been disrupted through the Red Sea, a crucial route for cargo and energy shipments from Asia and the Middle East to Europe, the sabotage of telecommunication lines could further escalate the monthslong crisis.
The cut lines include Asia-Africa-Europe 1, the Europe India Gateway, Seacom and TGN-Gulf, Hong Kong-based HGC Global Communications says. It describes the cuts as affecting 25% of the traffic flowing through the Red Sea. It describes the Red Sea route as crucial for data moving from Asia to Europe and said it had begun rerouting traffic.
HGC Global Communications describes the Seacom-TGN-Gulf line as being two separate cables when it is actually one at the area of the cut, according to Tim Stronge, a subsea cable expert with TeleGeography, a Washington-based telecommunications market research company.
Responding to questions from The Associated Press, Seacom says that “initial testing indicates the affected segment lies within Yemeni maritime jurisdictions in the Southern Red Sea.” It says it’s rerouting the traffic that it was able to change, though some services were down.
Tata Communications, part of the Indian conglomerate and behind the Seacom-TGN-Gulf line, tells AP that it “initiated immediate and appropriate remedial actions” after the line was cut.
“We invest in various cable consortiums to increase our diversity and hence in such situations of a cable cut or snag, we are able to automatically reroute our services,” Tata says.
Other firms behind those lines, which provide data to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, didn’t respond to AP’s queries.
IDF says probing 10-year-old Palestinian boy’s death in West Bank clashes
The IDF says it is investigating the death of a Palestinian boy amid clashes in a West Bank village.
Earlier today, Palestinian media and the Yesh Din rights group reported that a 10-year-old boy, Amr Mohamed Najjar, was shot dead by IDF troops in Burin, close to Nablus.
In response to a query, the IDF says troops were operating in Burin when several suspects began to hurl stones at them.
The IDF says the soldiers returned fire, and a short while later it received reports of a Palestinian minor being hit.
“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation,” the IDF says.