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Israeli Attorney General Warns Netanyahu Defied Conflict of Interest Rule

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
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Israeli Attorney General Warns Netanyahu Defied Conflict of Interest Rule

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)

Israel's attorney general on Friday warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he has violated the Supreme Court's conflict of interest ruling, which barred him from direct involvement in his government's divisive plans for a judicial overhaul.

Netanyahu’s far-right government has barreled ahead with plans to weaken the Supreme Court and grant politicians less judicial oversight in their policymaking despite massive protests from across Israeli society.

On Thursday, just hours after his coalition passed a law that would protect the Israeli leader from being deemed unfit to rule because of his corruption trial and claims of a conflict of interest, Netanyahu defiantly pledged to proceed with the overhaul.

Netanyahu contended that stripping the attorney general of the power to remove him from office was necessary to clear the way for him to participate in the negotiations on the judicial overhaul in spite of her instructions, and try to “mend the rift” in the polarized nation, The Associated Press reported.

“Until today my hands were tied,” Netanyahu said in a prime-time TV address Thursday, referring to the change in the law on removing a prime minister.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara thoroughly disagreed, sharply criticizing him in a letter Friday for violating a conflict of interest agreement that had allowed him to continue leading the country while charged with corruption, bribery and breach of trust. The deal Netanyahu was pressed to sign in 2020 prevented him from being involved in legislative issues or key judicial appointments that could affect his ongoing trial.

“Your statement last night and any further actions by you that violate that agreement are completely illegal and in conflict of interest,” Baharav-Miara wrote in Friday's letter. “The legal situation is clear — you must avoid any involvement in measures to change the judicial system.”

The contentious law that makes it harder to remove Netanyahu from office, passed late Wednesday by a slim majority of 61 in the 120-seat parliament, does not undo the court's earlier conflict of interest ruling, Baharav-Miara said. The consequences of Netanyahu's violations of the agreement were not immediately clear.

Netanyahu, on an official visit to Britain, did not immediately respond to her letter.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a good governance organization, warned of a constitutional crisis. It pledged to file a petition urging that Netanyahu be held in contempt of court. “A prime minister who does not obey the court and its orders is an anarchist,” the group said.

Supporters of the judicial overhaul say it will restore power to elected legislators and make the courts less interventionist. Critics say the move upends Israel’s system of checks and balances and pushes it toward autocracy.

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World

US Seizes Shipment Headed to Iran with Military-Related items

An arms shipment belonging to Iran seized by the US in May 2021. AP file photo
An arms shipment belonging to Iran seized by the US in May 2021. AP file photo
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US Seizes Shipment Headed to Iran with Military-Related items

An arms shipment belonging to Iran seized by the US in May 2021. AP file photo
An arms shipment belonging to Iran seized by the US in May 2021. AP file photo

A US special operations team raided a dual-use items ship in the Indian Ocean last month and seized military-related articles headed to Iran, US officials told The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper said the ship’s cargo consists of components potentially useful for the Iranian conventional weapons.

A US special operations team in the Indian Ocean raided a ship headed to Iran from China last month and seized military-related articles, the Journal said citing US officials.

US forces boarded the ship several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, according to the newspaper, which added the vessel was later allowed to proceed.

It said the shipment consisted of dual-use items — ones with potential applications in civilian and military fields — that could be used in Iran’s missile program.

The report cited a US official as saying US intelligence indicated the shipment was headed for Iranian companies known to be intermediaries for the country’s missile development efforts.

The action was part of a campaign by the US Defense Department to cut off Iran’s covert arms supply networks.

A US official told The New York Times that “the rare operation at sea aimed at blocking Tehran from rebuilding its military arsenal.”

In a separate incident, Iran seized an oil tanker it claimed was illegally transporting Iranian fuel in the Gulf of Oman, Iranian media said overnight Friday to Saturday. Tehran’s move came amid suggestions it was a retaliatory measure against another country.

Iranian media said 18 crew members from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were on board the oil tanker.

“An oil tanker carrying six million liters of contraband diesel fuel has been boarded off the coast of the Sea of Oman,” the Fars news agency said, quoting an official from the southern province of Hormozgan.

“The vessel had disabled all its navigation systems.”

Iranian forces regularly announce the interception of ships it says are illegally transporting fuel in the Gulf.

Mojtaba Ghahramani, head of the Judiciary in Hormozgan Province, said Iran has seized a foreign oil tanker in the Sea of Oman. He claimed the operation targeted fuel smuggling networks and their operators.

He confirmed to state television that the tanker was carrying 6 million liters of diesel in the Sea of Oman, and was intercepted in Iranian territorial waters near Jask.

Ghahramani added that the vessel was operating without valid maritime travel documents or a cargo manifest for its fuel shipment. All navigation and auxiliary systems aboard the ship had been deliberately turned off, he said.

The information has not yet been confirmed by independent sources. State broadcaster did not mention the name of the vessel or give its nationality on its website.

According to Ghahramani, the tanker carried a crew of 18, composed of nationals from India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

The latest interception came two days after the United States seized the oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

According to Washington, the ship’s captain was transporting oil from Venezuela and Iran. The US Treasury sanctioned Venezuela in 2022 for alleged ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.

“The seizure of this vessel highlights our successful efforts to impose costs on the governments of Venezuela and Iran,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement on Friday.

Sources told Reuters that the US is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil.

Iran seized an oil tanker in Gulf waters last month “for carrying an unauthorized cargo.”

World

Germany Says Foils Plot to Attack Christmas Market

Visitors participate in a game at the Christmas market and fairground in the Jardin des Tuileries gardens in central Paris, on December 13, 2025. (Photo by Anna KURTH / AFP)
Visitors participate in a game at the Christmas market and fairground in the Jardin des Tuileries gardens in central Paris, on December 13, 2025. (Photo by Anna KURTH / AFP)
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Germany Says Foils Plot to Attack Christmas Market

Visitors participate in a game at the Christmas market and fairground in the Jardin des Tuileries gardens in central Paris, on December 13, 2025. (Photo by Anna KURTH / AFP)
Visitors participate in a game at the Christmas market and fairground in the Jardin des Tuileries gardens in central Paris, on December 13, 2025. (Photo by Anna KURTH / AFP)

German authorities said Saturday they had arrested five men on suspicion of involvement in a plot to plough a vehicle into people at a Christmas market.

Officials have been on high alert during the festive season, after a deadly car-ramming attack at a market in the city of Magdeburg last Christmas shocked the nation.

Police and prosecutors said they had detained an Egyptian, three Moroccans and a Syrian on Friday over the plan to carry out the attack in southern Bavaria state.

Investigators suspect "an Islamist motive" for the plot, according to the statement.

All the suspects were brought before a magistrate on Saturday after their arrest and are in custody.

Joachim Herrmann, state interior minister in Bavaria, told Bild the "excellent cooperation between our security services" had helped to prevent "a potentially Islamist-motivated attack".

Authorities did not say where the suspects were arrested.

It was also not clear when the attack was supposed to take place, how detailed the plans were, and which market was to be targeted.

Last year's attack in Magdeburg, which saw a car barrel through a crowded market, killed six people and wounded more than 300.

Some cities have cancelled the beloved winter tradition because of the mounting costs and complexity of ensuring security.

Magdeburg's Christmas market went ahead this year but only received approval shortly before opening.

World

US Police Search Brown University after Shooter Kills 2

Police S.W.A.T. team members gather inside Brown University's Sciences Library after a shooting Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Police S.W.A.T. team members gather inside Brown University's Sciences Library after a shooting Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
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US Police Search Brown University after Shooter Kills 2

Police S.W.A.T. team members gather inside Brown University's Sciences Library after a shooting Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Police S.W.A.T. team members gather inside Brown University's Sciences Library after a shooting Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

A shooter dressed in black killed at least two people and wounded nine others at Brown University on Saturday during final exams on the Ivy League campus, authorities said, and police were searching for the suspect.

University President Christina Paxson said she was told that 10 people who were shot were students. Another person was injured by fragments from the shooting, but it was not clear if that victim was a student, she said.

Officers scattered across the campus and into an affluent neighborhood filled with historic and stately brick homes, searching academic buildings, backyards and porches late into the night after the shooting erupted in the afternoon, The Associated Press reported.

The suspect was a man in dark clothing who was last seen leaving the engineering building where the attack happened, said Timothy O’Hara, deputy chief of Providence police.

Security footage showed the suspect walking away from the building, but his face was not visible. Some witnesses reported that the man, who could be in his 30s, may have been wearing a camouflage mask, O’Hara said.

Investigators were not yet sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom where he opened fire. Outer doors of the building were unlocked, but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence’s mayor said.

Hunt for suspect quiets city streets Authorities believe the shooter used a handgun, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The unthinkable has happened,” said Democratic Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, who vowed that all resources were being deployed to catch the suspect.

Mayor Brett Smiley said a shelter-in-place remained in effect and encouraged people living near the campus to stay inside or not return home until it is lifted.

Streets that normally bustle with activity on weekends were eerily quiet.

“The Brown community’s heart is breaking, and Providence’s heart is breaking along with it,” Smiley said.

Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the building’s lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she sheltered for several hours.

Nine people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where one was in critical condition, said Kelly Brennan, a spokesperson for the hospital. Six required intensive care but were not getting worse, and two were stable, she said.

Police evacuated buildings University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, but later said that was not the case. The mayor said a person preliminarily thought to be involved was detained but was later determined to have no involvement.

Nearly five hours after the shooting, officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness center.

The shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. According to the university’s website, the building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices.

Engineering design exams were underway there when the shooting occurred.
Former ‘Survivor’ contestant had just left the building Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was a finalist earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.

The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.

Biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm directly across the street from the building when he heard sirens and received a text about an active shooter shortly after 4 p.m.

“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as a half-dozen armed officers in tactical gear surrounded his dorm.

Students hid under desks and inside stores Students in a nearby lab hid under desks and turned off the lights after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.

Brown, the seventh oldest higher education institution in the US, is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students. Tuition, housing and other fees run to nearly $100,000 per year, according to the university.

President Donald Trump told reporters that he had been briefed and “all we can do right now is pray for the victims.”