By Vivek Shankar and Matthew Mpoke Bigg Israeli warplanes pounded targets in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Monday as its military told about 110,000 people sheltering there to leave, heightening fears among Palestinians that Israel was inching closer to invading the city in defiance of international pressure. On Monday night, the Israeli military said it was “conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah.” Earlier in the day, the military dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah ordering people to evacuate temporarily to what it described as a humanitaria ..read more

By The Star Staff The creation of a strategic diesel reserve on the island as a measure to mitigate the effects of interruptions in the diesel supply chain caused by the impact of a major storm is feasible and the relevant agencies should be ordered, through legislation, to develop a plan for the reserve distribution of diesel in cases of emergency. That was the conclusion of the Senate Innovation, Telecommunications & Infrastructure and Government committees with regard to Senate Resolution 659, which ordered an investigation into the feasibility of creating a strategic diesel reser ..read more

By Alan Feuer, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan rebuked the former president Monday for mounting “a direct attack on the rule of law,” holding him in contempt of court for a second time and threatening to jail him if he continued to break a gag order that bans him from attacking jurors. In a moment of remarkable courtroom drama, Judge Juan M. Merchan addressed Trump personally from the bench, saying that if there were further violations, he might bypass financial penalties and place the former president ..read more

By Matthew Eadie and Rachel Richardson The war in the Gaza Strip, combined with tensions over student protests in the past several weeks, had an unmistakable presence at some commencement ceremonies on Sunday. At Fenway Park in Boston, home of the Boston Red Sox, about 4,000 undergraduate students of Northeastern University and nearly 30,000 attendees gathered for a graduation ceremony. It came at a tense time, just over one week after 98 people were arrested — including 29 students and six faculty or staff members — when police cleared out a pro-Palestinian encampment built on campus la ..read more

U.S. stock indexes rose on Monday, extending gains made last week on investors betting on a greater chance of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this year. The benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit three-week highs after data on Friday showed U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in April, taking pressure off the U.S. central bank to keep rates higher for longer. “The economic news has been just right. It’s still eliciting signs of underlying strength in the economy that should allow earnings growth to continue to foster an environment where stock prices can advance ..read more

By The Star Staff Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Monday that he has not yet made a final determination on whether he will amend or repeal Act 10 of 2024 related to the net metering program. The Financial Oversight and Management Board gave the government until Tuesday to repeal the law, which would ban the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau from changing the commonwealth’s net metering and energy distribution policy until at least 2031. “That letter is under evaluation,” the governor said. “We have not taken a position, but I have to say that I signed that law, and all the legislators voted i ..read more

By The Star Staff Mayors Association President Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz and a group of fellow mayors, along with a legal team, met Monday to discuss the dispute with LUMA Energy, as neither the private operator of the island’s electricity transmission and distribution system nor its contractors are paying municipal construction taxes. The towns oppose government plans to issue a decree exempting LUMA Energy from paying certain taxes. Hernández Ortiz said the proposed tax exemption can not be approved because it does not comply with the fiscal plan in that it would drive up the municip ..read more

By The Star Staff Celeste Benítez Rivera, a journalist, professor, and one of the most influential women in Puerto Rican politics, died Sunday. She was 89 years old. Former governor Alejandro García Padilla confirmed her passing. “One of the bells in the conscience of the Puerto Rican people is silenced forever,” García Padilla said in a written statement. “Humanist, educator and politician, thorough woman, Celeste Benítez always knew how to identify the country’s best interests to seek to achieve them,” he said. “Defender of noble causes, Professor Benítez will be missed by us for her ..read more

By The Star Staff Last Thursday the island House of Representatives approved House Bill 2024 to establish the “Recognition of Soldiers Held as Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Law,” which orders the display of the flag to be adopted for such purposes in certain public buildings, resolves to raise awareness of the significance of “POW/MIA Soldiers Recognition Day” in the school communities of the Puerto Rico Department of Education, and declares the third Friday of each September as POW/MIA Soldiers Recognition Day. The measure, which was filed by Rep. Luis R. “Narmito” Ortiz Lugo ..read more

By Emily Cochrane, Matthew Eadie and Shawn Hubler The University of California, Los Angeles, said Sunday that it had created a new campus safety position as the school moves to reopen this week and examines what led to clashes between demonstrators. The appointment of Rick Braziel, a former chief of the Sacramento Police Department and a well-known policing expert, to oversee the school police department comes as the UCLA administration and other schools across the country face backlash over an aggressive police response to pro-Palestinian demonstrators on university property. John Thom ..read more