First Thing: Biden calls for urgent funding for Israel and Ukraine

US president said Americans must not walk away from their role as a ‘beacon to the world’ in rare Oval Office address. Plus, Britney Spears details 2008 breakdown in memoir

Good morning.

Joe Biden has drawn a direct, provocative link between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel as he urged Americans not to walk away from their role as “a beacon to the world”.

In only the second Oval Office address of his presidency, Biden said he would ask Congress to provide aid for both Israel and Ukraine and denounced the scourge of antisemitism and Islamophobia at home.

The president’s 15-minute address sought to weave the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts together to convince war-weary voters and hardline Republicans of America’s obligations. It is a conflation that will make some uneasy, especially as Israel, with vastly superior military power, prepares for a ground invasion of Gaza.

In Israel, security officials have signalled their readiness to embark on a ground offensive into Gaza that they say will be far more comprehensive and ferocious than any previous conflict with Hamas.

What did Biden say? “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy,” said Biden, sitting at the Resolute desk with flags, family photos, gold curtains and a darkened window behind him.

What else is happening? Thirteen people, among them five children, have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The Palestinian Red Crescent also said 13 people had been killed. The ministry said in a statement: “The Israeli occupation army committed a massacre from Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem during its attack yesterday, with the death toll reaching 13 martyrs, among them five children.”

US House in chaos as Jordan schedules third vote and interim speaker plan fails

The leaderless House was plunged deeper into chaos yesterday after Republicans refused to coalesce around a speaker and a plan to empower an interim speaker collapsed.

The party’s embattled candidate for speaker, congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, vowed to press ahead, scheduling a long-delayed third vote on his nomination for Friday morning.

But angry and exhausted, the House Republican conference ended the day of fiery closed-door sessions no closer to breaking the impasse that has immobilized the chamber for a 17th day.

Jordan, a Donald Trump loyalist who led the congressional effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and now chairs the House judiciary committee, has lost two consecutive votes to secure the speakership and did not appear to have the 217 votes he needs to win the gavel in a floor vote by yesterday evening.

What happened earlier yesterday? Earlier in the day, Jordan had briefly reversed course and backed a novel, bipartisan proposal to expand the authority of the temporary speaker, a position currently held by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, for the next several months as Jordan worked to shore up support for his bid. But a group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan “asinine” and arguing that it would effectively cede control of the floor to Democrats.

US army charges Travis King with desertion for fleeing to North Korea

The US army has charged Pte Travis King with crimes ranging from desertion, for running into North Korea in July, to assault against fellow soldiers and solicitation of child abuse images.

The army’s case against King, set out in documents seen by Reuters, includes eight distinct charges under the uniform code of military justice, setting up a substantial legal battle for the 23-year-old soldier after his release from North Korean custody in September.

The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement provided by a family spokesperson, King’s mother, Claudine Gates, expressed her unconditional love and asked that her son “be afforded the presumption of innocence”.

What else did his mum say? She said: “The man I raised, the man I dropped off at boot camp, the man who spent the holidays with me before deploying, did not drink. A mother knows her son, and I believe something happened to mine while he was deployed. The army promised to investigate what happened at Camp Humphreys and I await the results.”

In other news …

A Pentagon report on China’s military power says Beijing is exceeding previous projections of how quickly it is building up its nuclear weapons arsenal and is “almost certainly” learning lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine about what a conflict over Taiwan might look like.

Migrant workers in Dubai have been working in dangerously hot temperatures to get conference facilities ready for world leaders attending this year’s international Cop28 climate talks, according to a new investigation. The report highlights evidence of workers from Africa and Asia labouring in 107F heat in Dubai to build conference facilities.

Some birds have developed immunity to avian flu, according to scientists who say there are “encouraging signs” that the deadly virus could kill fewer birds this winter. The current H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which started in 2021, has been the worst recorded, and is thought to have killed millions of wild birds.

Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats from India amid a dispute over the murder of a Sikh separatist, the foreign minister, Melanie Joly, announced, adding that Ottawa would not take retaliatory steps. Tensions arose after Justin Trudeau said there was credible evidence of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder in June of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Don’t miss this: ‘Out of my mind with grief’ – Britney Spears details 2008 breakdown in memoir

Britney Spears has revealed more details about her breakdown in 2007 and 2008 in her forthcoming memoir The Woman in Me. Spears writes that during several of her public episodes – including shaving her head and attacking a paparazzo’s car – she was suffering from postnatal depression, grief after the death of her aunt and a custody battle with her ex-husband Kevin Federline. She describes herself as “out of my mind with grief”.

Spears writes: “I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child.”

Climate check: Climate activists force Fed chair Jerome Powell off stage in New York

The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, was escorted out of an event yesterday afternoon after a group of climate protesters briefly took the stage before he was due to give a speech. He returned to the stage after a 15-minute delay. At the Economic Club of New York, protesters stormed the stage holding a banner that read “Fed Is Burning: Money, Futures, Planet” and chanting “Off fossil finance!” Security officials cleared protesters from the room before Powell came back on. The protesters were with the climate activist group Climate Defiance, which focuses on disruptive direct action through strikes, blockades and mass occupation to raise awareness about fossil fuels.

Meanwhile in London, Greta Thunberg took part in climate protests for the second time this week, protesting outside the JP Morgan headquarters in Canary Wharf after being arrested and subsequently charged with a public order offence after a protest on Tuesday.

Last Thing: Some Halloween costumes could break strike rules, US actors’ union warns members

Spiders are in but Spider-Man is out, after the US actors’ union Sag-Aftra warned its members that dressing up as their favourite film or television characters this Halloween could break strike rules. Now into its fourth month, the actors’ strike shows no sign of resolution, after talks broke down again on 11 October. The union issued a guide yesterday to its 160,000 members to ensure they don’t “inadvertently break strike rules” on Halloween. It is expected that the film character Barbie and TV character Wednesday Addams will be two of the most popular Halloween costumes this year, but the union is urging members to eschew characters played by real people and instead take inspiration from animated television shows, which are not included in Sag-Aftra’s remit.

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