CBS News
Biden touts hostage talks that could yield 6-week cease-fire between Israel and Hamas
Washington — President Biden said Monday the U.S. is working to negotiate a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas that would pause fighting in Gaza for at least six weeks.
In White House remarks alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan, Mr. Biden said the deal “would bring an immediate and sustained period of calm to Gaza for at least six weeks, which we could then take the time to build something more enduring.”
“Over the past month I’ve had calls with Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to push this forward,” Mr. Biden said. “The key elements of the deal are on the table. There are gaps that remain but I’ve encouraged Israeli leaders to keep working to achieve the deal. The United States will do everything possible to make it happen.”
Mr. Biden also said the U.S. did not know how many of the hostages being held by the terrorist group are still alive.
“The anguish that their families are enduring, week after week, month after month is unimaginable,” he said. “And it’s a top priority for the United States to bring them home.”
The president has dispatched the CIA director, William Burns, to Cairo for further hostage talks this week after Hamas provided a new set of terms to the Qatari government, CBS News reported.
King Abdullah has pushed for a cease-fire in Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. After meeting with Mr. Biden at the White House, the Jordanian leader called for a “lasting cease-fire now.”
“This war must end,” he said, also calling for immediate and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Their meeting comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in Rafah, a crowded city in southern Gaza near Egypt’s border. Israel says Rafah is Hamas’s last remaining stronghold, but more than one million displaced Palestinians are estimated to have taken refuge there after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
Mr. Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend, telling him that Israel “should not proceed” with an invasion of Rafah unless it had a “credible” plan for ensuring the safety of the people sheltering there.
Mr. Biden reiterated that in his remarks from the White House.
“Many people there have been displaced, displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah, exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected,” Mr. Biden said. “We’ve also been clear from the start, we oppose any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.”
Abdullah condemned Israel’s military operation, saying “it is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe.”
“We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah,” Abdullah said. “The situation is already unbearable for over a million people who have been pushed into Rafah since the war started. We cannot stand by and let this continue.”
CBS News
How Harris and Trump are spending election night
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Page Not Found: 404 Not Found
404 Not Found – CBS News
The page cannot be found
The page may have been removed, had its name changed, or is just temporarily unavailable.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Fact checking Election Day 2024 claims about voter fraud, ballot counting and more
Throughout Election Day and night, CBS News’ Confirmed team will be fact checking reports of threats around voting today, voter fraud, election hacking, and more as the nation votes and waits to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States., CBS News’ full coverage of the election is here.
False: Elon Musk claimed Google intentionally manipulating search results in favor of Harris
X owner Elon Musk posted, then deleted, a screen recording comparing the Google searches. The post reached over 2.5 million views before its removal, with other posts garnering thousands of views.
Details: Google said searches for “where to vote for Harris” yielded a polling location map because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas, not because of bias for the Democratic candidate.
Searching for “where to vote for Trump” returned news articles and standard search results, while “where to vote for Vance” produced a similar polling locations map because Vance is the name of a county in North Carolina.
Google adjusted its algorithm Tuesday to prevent candidate-related queries from returning polling maps. Google trends data show that searching “where to vote” is a much more common query than searching where to vote for either Trump or Harris.
By Julia Ingram and Layla Ferris
False: Social media posts claim Milwaukee mayor, a Democrat, said the city’s votes would not be counted on election night
On X, users claimed that the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee said at a news conference that Milwaukee would not be counting ballots tonight.
Details: Votes in Milwaukee will be tabulated tonight despite posts on the social media platform X that have pushed a false claim that Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said votes in the city won’t be counted on election night.
In reality, vote counting started Tuesday morning and will continue late into Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the city’s so-called “central count” location, according to Johnson’s communications director, Jeff Fleming.
“They’ve already started tabulating, and had tabulated thousands of ballots by this afternoon,” Fleming said. “The vote totals exceeded our original projections, so the workload at central count is higher than expected.”
Milwaukee’s votes can take longer to count for several reasons, Barry Burden, Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, said.
“It’s the biggest city, and it has the most ballots, and it also counts absentee ballots at a central location,” Burden said. “That’ll be after midnight, 1 (a.m.) or 2 a.m.”
The city’s more than 200 election workers started counting votes at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Fleming said. They’ll continue the tabulation overnight, and ballots will be delivered to county clerks either the next day or the day after, depending on local rules.
By Chris Hacker
Spreadsheet error corrected: GOP U.S. House candidate says Harris County, Texas, early vote results showed big drops and spikes in early voting
U.S. House candidate Caroline Kane, a Republican running in Texas’ 7th District, posted on X Monday that Harris County’s early vote results showed significant drops and spikes in the number of early voters for several voting locations between Sunday and Monday, which should not be possible.
Details: Election officials said a misaligned spreadsheet caused the publicly reported early vote totals in Harris County to appear incorrectly. Local officials have corrected the document posted online by Kane. They noted the spreadsheet was labeled “unofficial” and said the error would not impact the official vote tally.
In a statement, the Office of the Harris County Clerk said, “In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.”
“I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied,” the statement from the clerk’s office concluded.
By Jui Sarwate
Software malfunction prevented some voters from scanning ballots in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Voting hours extended to 10 p.m. in the county.
Details: Local courts have extended voting hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Cambria County, Pennsylvania after local officials said a “software malfunction” prevented voters from scanning their ballots early Tuesday morning.
Voters are using paper ballots as technicians review the issue.
“All votes will be counted and we continue to encourage everyone to vote,” the county commissioner’s office said in a press release.
According to the county’s petition to extend voting hours, the malfunction “caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State said it is in contact with Cambria County and is “committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”
Cambria County, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, has a population of approximately 131,000. Trump won the county 68% to 31% in 2020, and he won by a similar margin in 2016.
By Steve Reilly, Julia Ingram, Layla Ferris
False: Non-citizens encouraged to vote in Philadelphia
Conservative commentator James O’Keefe claimed non-citizens are being encouraged to vote in Philadelphia.
Details: Philadelphia officials said allegations by commentator James O’Keefe that non-citizens are being encouraged to vote are incorrect. O’Keefe posted a new video on Monday claiming Election Clerk Milton Jamerson and Ceiba, a local non-profit, advised voting with an ITIN number, regardless of citizenship.
The video received 1.6 million views on X as of Tuesday, and was reposted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said it was “the smoking gun of attempted election theft.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said the report was incorrect and non-citizens are not eligible to vote in Philadelphia. ITINs are for tax purposes and not linked to voting eligibility. Ceiba called O’Keefe’s claims “unfounded and based on harmful stereotypes.”
By Joanne Stocker and Emmet Lyons