Tag Archives: President Joe Biden

World turns on Israel after drone strike on World Central Kitchen convoy killing seven

World-Central-Kitchen-transport

Important Takeaways:

  • The world turns on Israel after World Central Kitchen slaughter: International fury grows with Biden saying he is ‘outraged and heartbroken’ as IDF is accused of war crimes and aid worker death toll exceeds that of any other conflict
  • After long standing support of Israel in its war with Hamas terrorists, President Joe Biden is joining a chorus of world leaders furious over the drone strikes that killed aid workers in Gaza, including one American.
  • Biden issued a statement claiming Israel ‘has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians’ as thousands of Palestinians are caught in the crosshairs of war and left without food, water and other necessary supplies.
  • The president called for a ‘swift’ investigation to bring accountability to what he said was not a ‘stand alone incident’.
  • Israel apologized for what it called ‘a grave mistake’ and said it is investigating the incident.
  • International outrage ensued after the convoy of aid workers for World Central Kitchen was hit by an Israeli ‘triple tap’ drone strike on Monday, leaving seven dead. The three cars were marked as humanitarian aid and were struck while moving along a route approved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
  • Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador to London and demanded ‘full accountability’ over the deaths. The UK government is also considering suspending arms sales to Israel should an investigation reveal wrongdoing, inside sources have reportedly said.
  • World Central Kitchen was facilitating the provision of supplies brought by sea from Cyprus

Read the original article by clicking here.

Biden extends pause on student loan repayment

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that his administration was extending the pause on student loan repayment for an additional 90 days, citing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments for an additional 90 days – through May 1, 2022 — as we manage the ongoing pandemic and further strengthen our economic recovery”, Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

In August, the Biden administration had extended the pause through Jan. 31, 2022.

“We know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments”, Biden said on Wednesday.

The extension of the pause comes as cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus surge around the United States.

Nearly 41 million borrowers benefited from a freeze on interest accruals and about 27 million borrowers have not had to pay their monthly bills since the forbearance began.

Democratic lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren welcomed Biden’s announcement and continued to call on the administration to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt.

“We continue to call on President Biden to take executive action to cancel $50,000 in student debt, which will help close the racial wealth gap for borrowers and accelerate our economic recovery”, the Democratic lawmakers said in a statement.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Biden visits tornado-stricken Kentucky bringing federal aid, empathy

By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden flew to Kentucky on Wednesday to survey the areas hardest hit by one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in recent U.S. history, a system that killed at least 74 people in the state and at least 14 elsewhere.

Biden, no stranger to tragic personal losses, will reprise his familiar role as consoler in chief, while promising to bring the might of the federal government to rebuild devastated communities that suffered billions of dollars in damage.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear offered a grim update on Tuesday, saying the dead included a dozen children, the youngest of whom was a 2-month-old infant. He added that he expected the death toll to rise in the coming days, with more than 100 still missing.

Biden will visit the Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for a briefing on the storm before continuing on to Mayfield and Dawson Springs, two towns separated by roughly 70 miles (112 km) that were largely flattened by the twisters.

The president will be “surveying storm damage firsthand, (and) making sure that we’re doing everything to deliver assistance as quickly as possible in impacted areas to support recovery efforts,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent search-and-rescue and emergency response teams to Kentucky, along with teams to help survivors register for assistance, Psaki said.

FEMA has also sent dozens of generators into the state, along with 135,000 gallons (511,000 litres) of water, 74,000 meals and thousands of cots, blankets, infant toddler kits and pandemic shelter kits.

Biden has approved federal disaster declarations for Kentucky and the neighboring states of Tennessee and Illinois, offering residents and local officials increased federal aid.

Credit ratings agency DBRS Morningstar said the tornadoes were likely the most severe in the United States since 2011. Insurers are sufficiently prepared to cover claims without significant capital impact, it said in a report.

The trip marks one of the few that Biden, a Democrat, has taken to areas that tilt heavily toward the Republican Party, many of whose voters and leaders have embraced Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that he won the 2020 election. The White House has been careful not to bring politics into the disaster relief efforts, including not focusing on what role, if any, climate change may have played in the tragic events.

“He looks at them as human beings, not as people who have partisan affiliations,” Psaki said. “And in his heart, he has empathy for everything that they’re going through.”

“The message he will send to them directly and clearly tomorrow is: ‘We’re here to help, we want to rebuild, we are going to stand by your side and we’re going to help your leaders do exactly that,'” she added.

Biden lost his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash, and his older son, Beau, died in 2015 after a fight with brain cancer.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, additional reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Heather Timmons, Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis)

Putin and Xi cement partnership in face of Western pressure

By Anastasia Lyrchikova

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia and China should stand firm in rejecting Western interference and defending each other’s security interests, presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping agreed in a video call on Wednesday.

Their conversation, eight days after Putin spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden in a similar format, underscored how shared hostility to the West is bringing Moscow and Beijing closer together.

“At present, certain international forces under the guise of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia, and brutally trampling on international law and recognized norms of international relations,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying.

“China and Russia should increase their joint efforts to more effectively safeguard the security interests of both parties.”

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Xi had offered support to Putin for his push to obtain binding security guarantees for Russia from the West, saying he understood Moscow’s concerns.

He said the pair also expressed their “negative view” of the creation of new military alliances such as the AUKUS partnership between Australia, Britain and the United States and the Indo-Pacific “Quad” of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

PRESSURE

The call highlighted the ways in which Russia and China are drawing on each other for mutual support at a time of high tension in their relations with the West. China is under pressure over human rights and Russia is accused of threatening behavior towards Ukraine.

The Kremlin said Putin briefed Xi on his conversation with Biden, in which the U.S. president warned Russia against invading Ukraine – which Moscow denies it is planning – and Putin set out his demand for security pledges.

“A new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries, based, among other things, on such principles as non-interference in internal affairs and respect for each other’s interests,” Putin told Xi.

He said he looked forward to meeting Xi at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February – an event that the White House last week said U.S. government officials would boycott because of China’s human rights “atrocities” against Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang.

“I would like to note that we invariably support each other on issues of international sports cooperation, including rejection of any attempts to politicize sports and the Olympic movement,” Putin said.

Putin has used Russia’s partnership with China as a way of balancing U.S. influence while striking lucrative deals, especially on energy. He and Xi this year agreed to extend a 20-year friendship and cooperation treaty.

The Russian leader said bilateral trade was up 31% in the first 11 months of this year to $123 billion, and the two countries aimed to exceed $200 billion in the near future.

He said China was becoming an international center for production of Russia’s Sputnik and Sputnik Light vaccines against COVID-19, with contracts signed with six manufacturers to make more than 150 million doses.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Woo and Ella Cao in Beijing; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Russia keeps tensions high over Ukraine while waiting for next Biden move

By Tom Balmforth and Andrey Ostroukh

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia kept up a barrage of hostile rhetoric towards Ukraine on Thursday and compared the crisis there to the most dangerous moment of the Cold War as it waited for U.S. President Joe Biden to invite it to possible talks with NATO countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of moving heavy artillery towards the front line of fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the east of the former Soviet republic and failing to engage in a peace process.

“Negotiations on a peaceful settlement have practically hit a dead end,” ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters, referring to the seven-year conflict between Ukrainian and separatist forces in the eastern Donbass region.

The ministry’s Twitter feed, quoting Zakharova, said: “With the support of NATO countries pumping the country with weapons, Kyiv is building up its contingent on the line of contact in Donbass.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov agreed with a reporter who suggested East-West tensions over Ukraine could turn into a re-run of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war.

“You know, it really could come to that,” Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. “If things continue as they are, it is entirely possible by the logic of events to suddenly wake up and see yourself in something similar.”

The comments came two days after a video call between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin that was intended to help defuse the crisis over Ukraine.

They signaled that Moscow has an interest in keeping tensions high while waiting for the next move from Biden, who has said he plans to hold follow-up talks involving Russia and NATO countries.

Ukraine, which seeks to join NATO, says it fears an invasion by tens of thousands of Russian troops gathered near its border. Moscow says its posture is purely defensive.

“FIGHTING BY OURSELVES”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv expects to be supported by Western military allies even if the United States does not send troops there, an action that Biden has ruled out.

“We will be fighting this war by ourselves,” Kuleba told investors in London. “We know how to fight. We do not need foreign troops fighting for us. But we will appreciate anything that can strengthen our army in terms of military supplies.”

Ukraine’s military accused the Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country of six new violations of a broken-down 2020 ceasefire on Thursday, three of them involving weapons banned under earlier peace deals that Moscow and Kyiv say they are trying to revive.

Interfax quoted a Ukrainian official as saying Kyiv was proposing a humanitarian exchange of up to 60 prisoners by New Year.

In Tuesday’s video call, Biden voiced concern about Russia’s military build-up and told Putin that Moscow would face serious economic consequences if it invaded.

Putin has said talk of an invasion is “provocative” and accused Ukraine and NATO of fanning tensions.

Biden said the next day he hoped for an announcement by Friday of high-level meetings with Russia and major NATO allies to discuss Moscow’s concerns and the possibility of “bringing down the temperature along the eastern front.”

Russia’s Ryabkov described this as a “unilateral” statement, implying the U.S. side had not discussed it with Moscow.

Asked if Russia would object to the participation of other NATO members, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We cannot say, because there is no understanding of how all this will be arranged.”

(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Natalia Zinets, Matthias Williams, Elizabeth Howcroft and Marc Jones; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.S. government opens civil rights probe into police in New York suburb

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department has launched a civil rights inquiry into police practices in yet another U.S. city, investigating possible systemic abuses in the New York suburb of Mount Vernon after receiving tips accusing officers of using excessive force and conducting illegal searches, officials said on Friday.

The department’s Civil Rights Division since President Joe Biden took office in January also has launched investigations into police practices in Minneapolis, Phoenix and Louisville, Kentucky, following protests in many U.S. cities last year against racism and police brutality.

Kristen Clarke, assistant U.S. attorney general for the civil rights division, and Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced the investigation into possible abuses by the city of Mount Vernon, which has a population of roughly 70,000, and its police department.

Clarke said investigators will look at evidence suggesting that Black residents are targeted for “abuse and excessive force,” and that police supervisors may be teaching this targeting.

The inquiry, she said, was prompted by tips and publicly available information.

“We have received information about the repeated use of excessive force, often against individuals who are handcuffed,” Clarke said. “Similarly, reports indicate that officers routinely conducted searches without sufficient legal basis, including strip searches.”

A spokesperson for Mount Vernon said the city was preparing to issue a statement and hold a news conference on the matter.

Biden has made the issue of racial justice a priority in the aftermath of the May 2020 police killing of a Black man named George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who was later convicted of murder.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

Justices debate abortion rights in U.S. Supreme Court showdown

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing arguments in a case on whether to gut abortion rights in America as it weighs Mississippi’s bid to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is hearing at least 70 minutes of oral arguments in the southern state’s appeal to revive its ban on abortion starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts blocked the Republican-backed law.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, challenged the law and has the support of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. A ruling is expected by the end of next June.

Roe v. Wade recognized that the right to personal privacy under the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy. The Supreme Court in a 1992 ruling called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey reaffirmed abortion rights and prohibited laws imposing an “undue burden” on abortion access.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer quoted from the Supreme Court’s Casey ruling, which stated that the court should not bow to political pressure in overturning Roe and that such a ruling would “subvert the court’s legitimacy.”

“The right of a woman to choose, the right to control her own body, has been clearly set since Casey and never challenged. You want us to reject that line of viability and adopt something different,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Sotomayor said Mississippi brought its new challenge purely because of changes on the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative.

“Will this institution survive the stench this creates?” Sotomayor asked, saying that it would give the impression that the Constitution and its interpretation is based purely on politics. “If people think it is all political … how will the court survive?”

Anti-abortion advocates believe they are closer than ever to overturning Roe, a longstanding goal for Christian conservatives.

Mississippi’s is one of a series of restrictive abortion laws passed in Republican-governed states in recent years. The Supreme Court on Nov. 1 heard arguments over a Texas law banning abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy but has not yet issued a ruling.

Hundreds of protesters from both sides of the abortion debate rallied outside the white marble neoclassical courthouse ahead of the arguments. Anti-abortion protesters held huge signs reading “abortion is murder,” some carrying Christian crosses. Abortion rights activists chanted “what do we want? Abortion access. When do we want it? Now.”

FETAL VIABILITY

The Roe and Casey decisions determined that states cannot ban abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb, generally viewed by doctors as between 24 and 28 weeks.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether viability was a central issue in the Roe or Casey rulings.

Mississippi’s 15-week ban directly challenged the viability finding. Even if the court does not explicitly overturn Roe, any ruling letting states ban abortion before fetal viability outside the womb would raise questions about how early states could prohibit the procedure. In the 1992 Casey ruling, the court said Roe’s “central holding” was that viability was the earliest point at which states could ban abortion.

While urging the court to overturn Roe, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, has said the justices could uphold its law by finding that a 15-week ban does not impose an undue burden. Such a ruling would wipe out the viability standard embraced in the Roe and Casey decisions, meaning the justices would have to consider where to draw the line.

Abortion rights advocates have said such a decision would eviscerate Roe, making it easier for conservative states to impose sweeping abortion restrictions.

Mississippi is among 12 states with so-called trigger laws designed to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Additional states also likely would move quickly to curtail abortion access.

If Roe were overturned or limited, large swathes of America could return to an era in which women who want to end a pregnancy face the choice of undergoing a potentially dangerous illegal abortion, traveling long distances to a state where the procedure remains legal and available or buying abortion pills online. The procedure would remain legal in liberal-leaning states, 15 of which have laws protecting abortion rights.

Abortion remains a contentious issue in the United States, as in many countries. In a June Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of U.S. adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in most or all cases.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter, Jan Wolfe and Julia Harte; Editing by Will Dunham)

Harris was briefly first woman to be acting U.S. president as Biden underwent colonoscopy

By Jeff Mason

BETHESDA, Md. (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden briefly transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris Friday as he underwent a colonoscopy, making her the first woman to hold the presidential reins in U.S. history.

Biden, a Democrat, alerted leaders in Congress of the power transfer at 10:10 a.m. EST (1510 GMT) and took back control at 11:35 EST, the White House said.

The president was undergoing a routine physical at the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Biden spoke to Harris and White House chief of staff Ron Klain after the procedure and was “in good spirits.”

Biden’s power transfer occurred while he was under anesthesia for the colonoscopy. Harris worked from her office in the West Wing of the White House during that time, Psaki said.

Harris is the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States; no woman has ever been president in the country’s nearly 250-year history.

The U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment lays out a process for the president to transfer power when he is unable to discharge his duties.

Presidential power has been transferred to the vice president before, when President George W. Bush had colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.

Biden, who turns 79 on Saturday, is the oldest person to take office as U.S. president, leading to high interest in his health and well-being. Although speculation has persisted about whether he will run for re-election in 2024, he has said he expects to seek a second four-year term.

Biden has pledged to be more transparent about his health than predecessor Donald Trump. The Republican visited Walter Reed in 2019 for an undisclosed reason that a former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, later revealed was for a colonoscopy.

Trump once had his doctor brief the press about the president’s health after questions were raised about his mental acuity.

Psaki said the White House would release a comprehensive written summary of Biden’s physical later on Friday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Heather Timmons, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

Biden says U.S. considering diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, President Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday, a move that would be aimed at protesting China’s human rights record, including what Washington says is genocide against minority Muslims.

“Something we’re considering,” Biden said when asked if a diplomatic boycott was under consideration as he sat down for a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A diplomatic boycott would mean that U.S. officials would not attend the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.

A U.S. decision not to send diplomats would be a rebuke of Chinese President Xi Jinping just days after Xi and Biden worked to ease tensions in a virtual summit, their first extensive talks since Biden took office in January.

Activists and members of Congress from both parties have been pressing the Biden administration to diplomatically boycott the event given that the U.S. government accuses China of carrying out a genocide against Muslim ethnic groups in its western Xinjiang region, something that Beijing denies.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told a regular briefing on Thursday that U.S. consideration of a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics was driven by concerns about human rights practices in Xinjiang province.

“There are areas that we do have concerns: human rights abuses,” Psaki told reporters. “We have serious concerns.”

“Certainly there are a range of factors as we look at what our presence would be,” she said, while declining to provide a timeline for a decision.

“I want to leave the president the space to make decisions,” she said.

Sources with knowledge of the administration’s thinking have told Reuters there was a growing consensus within the White House that it should keep U.S. officials away from the Games.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was talking to countries around the world about “how they’re thinking about participation,” but left a deadline for a decision unclear.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators in October proposed an amendment to an annual defense policy bill that would prohibit the U.S. State Department from spending federal funds to “support or facilitate” the attendance of U.S. government employees at the Games.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also called for a diplomatic boycott, saying global leaders who attend would lose their moral authority.

Some Republican lawmakers have been calling for a complete boycott of the Olympics.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas told a news conference on Thursday that a diplomatic boycott of what he called the “genocide Olympics” would be “too little, too late” and said no U.S. athletes, officials, or U.S. corporate sponsors should take part.

Nikki Haley, a Republican former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also had called for a complete boycott, saying attending would send a message that America was willing to turn a blind eye to genocide.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Katharine Jackson and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Bill Berkrot)

Biden, needing a boost, to sign $1 trillion infrastructure bill

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -In need of a political boost, President Joe Biden will sign a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday at a ceremony expected to draw Democrats and some Republicans who were instrumental in getting the legislation passed.

The measure is expected to create jobs across the country by dispersing billions of dollars to state and local governments to fix crumbling bridges and roads, and expanding broadband internet access to millions of Americans.

The White House said on Sunday that Biden named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to supervise implementation of the infrastructure effort.

In addition, Biden signed an executive order before the ceremony directing that materials made in the United States will be given priority in infrastructure projects, the White House said. It also established a task force made up of top Cabinet officials to guide implementation of the legislation.

The ceremony, scheduled to be held on the White House South Lawn to accommodate a big crowd, represents an increasingly rare case where members of both parties are willing to stand together and celebrate a bipartisan achievement.

The bill had become a partisan lightning rod, with Republicans complaining that Democrats who control the House of Representatives delayed its passage to ensure party support for Biden’s $1.75 trillion social policy and climate change legislation, which Republicans reject.

The 13 House Republicans who broke ranks with their party to support the measure have been targeted by former President Donald Trump and some of their own colleagues.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who voted in favor of the bill, told Louisville, Kentucky’s WHAS radio last week that he was not attending the signing ceremony because he has “other things I’ve got to do.”

The phrase “infrastructure week” became a Washington punch line during Trump’s four years in the White House, when plans to focus on investments in America’s roads, railways and other transportation were repeatedly derailed.

Now it is Biden who needs some positive momentum as he struggles to address rising inflation and high gasoline prices that have contributed to a drop in his job approval ratings. The Democratic president and his party are eager to show they can move forward on his agenda ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections when Republicans will seek to regain control of both chambers of Congress.

INFLATION CONCERNS

U.S. consumer prices last week posted their biggest annual gain in 31 years, driven by surges in the cost of gasoline and other goods. Republicans have pounced on inflation worries, arguing that the increase reflects Biden’s sweeping spending agenda.

Biden’s economic advisers defended his policies on Sunday, saying rising inflation was a global issue related to the COVID-19 pandemic, not a result of the administration’s programs.

“There’s no doubt inflation is high right now. It’s affecting Americans’ pocketbooks. It’s affecting their outlook,” Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But it’s important that we put this in context. When the president took office, we were facing an all-out economic crisis.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Deese said in separate television appearances that they expect the infrastructure legislation, as well as the $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” bill, to help bring down inflation.

The “Build Back Better” package includes provisions on childcare and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing and immigration.

Deese said he was confident that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would bring the bill to a vote this week. That will only be a first step, however, as the Senate has not yet taken up the legislation, and Democratic divisions could threaten its chances in that chamber.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Peter Cooney)