A group of more than a hundred Democratic donors and activists Monday sent a letter to President Biden’s campaign warning that progressive anger over Israel’s war in Gaza “increases the chances of a Trump victory.”

The signed letter is the latest sign of Democratic discontent over Mr. Biden’s alignment with the Israeli government in carrying out the war that began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7.

Since then, more than 30,000 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israel, according to Gaza health authorities. Anger over the plight of Palestinians has roiled Democratic politics, with Biden followed by protesters outside many of his public events calling for a ceasefire in the conflict and an end to US military aid to Israel.

The letter’s signatories include a handful of donors who have given six-figure sums to Mr. Biden’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, although a vast majority of donors who signed the letter have given smaller amounts to candidates and has achieved more progressive goals than Mr. Biden, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Among the persons mentioned are Paul Egerman, a financial co-chairman for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign; David and Elizabeth Steinglass, who together donated $1.4 million to Democratic candidates and charities in 2020, including $100,000 to Mr. Biden’s campaign committees; Caroline Gabel, an environmentalist who has given $315,000 to Democrats and $51,000 to Mr. Biden’s campaign committees this election cycle; And George Kruppwho gave $1.2 million to Democrats in 2020 and has donated more than $600,000 to them during the 2024 election cycle.

Mr. Steinglass declined to comment. Mr. Egerman and Ms. Gabel did not respond to messages. Mr. Krupp said in an interview arranged by Mr. Biden’s campaign that while he was angry about Mr. Biden’s stance on Israel, he still planned to co-host a fundraiser for the president in Boston in September to organise.

“I would like to see the president take a tougher stance on humanitarian aid,” Mr. Krupp said. “If he can prevent continued civilian casualties, that would also be a wish of mine.”

Mr. Krupp said he was personally unsure about the letter’s conclusion that the war in Gaza is hurting Mr. Biden politically. The letter deplores Mr. Biden’s support for Israel’s war efforts and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Unfortunately, President Biden has seemingly provided unconditional support for the Israeli operation,” it said. “The Biden administration has supplied armaments, including 2,000-pound bombs that have been used to level entire civilian neighborhoods, causing huge numbers of casualties, with a high percentage of women and children. President Biden has asked Netanyahu to minimize civilian casualties but has not threatened consequences as Netanyahu continues to ignore him.”

The letter goes on to argue that the war is alienating progressive voters from Mr. Biden and fellow Democrats and warns that if the war does not end, it could result in the president losing the November election to former President Donald J. Trump .

“As donors and activists, we have spent significant time and money helping increase turnout among likely Biden voters, especially among young voters and voters of color,” the letter said. “Many of these voters are now wondering whether the Democratic Party shares their values. If they stay home or vote for a third-party candidate, there is a very real danger that President Biden will be defeated in November. The re-election of Donald Trump would be a disaster for our country and a greater disaster for Israel/Palestine, and we fear that the Gaza war increases the likelihood of that. Due to the disillusionment of a crucial part of the Democratic coalition, the war in Gaza increases the chances of a Trump victory.”

About 10 percent of Democratic primary voters voted “uncommitted” in states where that was an option. The “uncommitted” movement has become a proxy for Democrats disillusioned with Mr. Biden’s policies toward Israel, after it started with a group of Arab-American activists in Michigan trying to put public pressure on Mr. Biden to end US support for the war against Israel. attempt.

On Tuesday, the Michigan activists who started the “unoccupied” effort in their state announced they would try to organize a national effort to organize anti-war delegates for the Democratic National Convention in August.

The Biden campaign shrugged off the letter on Tuesday.

“The president shares the goal of an end to violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East,” said campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. “He is working tirelessly toward that goal.”

Among those who distributed the letter and recruited signatories was Liam Connell, a wealthy retiree in the Chicago suburbs. Mr. Connell said he did not want to comment on the letter, which was sent to Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager.

“The letter speaks for itself, and I don’t want to be a spokesperson and do editorial work,” Mr. Connell said. “I have asked others to do the same. The letter was intended as a private communication and was not intended to be released to the press or placed in the public domain.”

Mr. Biden’s campaign has so far raised significantly more money than Mr. Trump’s. Independent groups have pledged more than $1 billion to help elect Mr. Biden and allied Democrats this fall — a sum that dwarfs public pledges from Republicans backing Mr. Trump.

Taylor Robinson And Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

There's one thing a president can do when Congress is an ungovernable mess, election numbers are flashing red, and crises abroad show no signs of resolving themselves. And that thing is: get out of town.

President Biden traveled to New York on Wednesday to headline three fundraisers, where he presented himself as the last line of defense against Donald Trump's reelection and as a committed — if imperfect — leader who had been around long enough to recognize the existential threat posed Mr. Trump poses challenges to democratic institutions, including the presidency.

“It is dangerous for us to engage in this kind of politics because it ultimately drags us all down,” Mr. Biden said at his third reception, where his voice had dropped to a whisper after a day of shaking hands. , taking selfies and giving speeches.

“It's not that I'm that good, but you have to have someone who can beat someone.”

Mr Biden also pre-empted criticism of his age by joking that he was not 81, but “40 times two”. But in the salons and ballrooms of New York City, any enthusiasm for a second Biden term seemed mixed with fear at the thought of a second Mr. Trump term.

“We are here for him, and for the next four years,” said Maureen White, a Democratic donor and host of Biden's third reception of the day, as she stood next to the president. “But we are also here because the consequences of not electing Joe Biden are terrifying.”

Hoping to reach every target, from policy-oriented activists to community health workers bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden campaign hosted three different events on Wednesday. The first was a small, climate-focused panel on the Upper West Side. The second was a large reception with Latino supporters at the Mandarin Oriental.

The third took place in an opulent residence across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Manhattanites, including actor Robert DeNiro, were in attendance, with risotto, chicken satay and coconut shrimp on the menu. A small Israeli flag stood among the artwork.

At each event, Mr. Biden reworked his message for the audience but focused largely on Mr. Trump. Several times, Mr. Biden deviated from his original point in a story about his upbringing or decades in Congress. At the end of the day, he talked about a request to deliver Senator Strom Thurmond's eulogy while talking about the Republican Party.

“They didn't change their views, but there was a sense, as strange as it sounds, of civility,” Mr. Biden said, recounting his work with Mr. Thurmond and other segregationists. “The point is, we've changed dramatically.”

At all three events, Mr. Biden largely stayed away from the Gaza war, and while protests were barely visible from the presidential motorcade, people angry about his support for Israel's campaign against Hamas had gathered to protest at various points in the city ​​to demonstrate.

No president likes protesters, and Mr. Biden was kept away from the people who came to wave Palestinian flags — people who are also part of the base he must keep intact during an election year. Both the president and government officials responded carefully.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New York that protesters had the right to “ensure that their voices are heard in a peaceful manner.” We support that. The president supports that. You hear the president when situations arise.”

At one point, when Mr. Biden arrived at the Mandarin Oriental to speak to a large group of Democrats, many of whom had ties to SOMOS, a Latino-led community health group, had gathered 35 floors below.

A crowd estimated by a police officer at about 100 people gathered at Columbus Circle to protest the Biden administration's support for Israel during the country's war with Hamas. Several voters who consider themselves Democrats or left-leaning and had voted for Biden in 2020 said they felt unhappy with him and were reconsidering their voting rights at all.

Sam Skinner, a 24-year-old who lives in Queens, said he voted for Biden in 2020, but the president's handling of the war made him reconsider whether to vote for him again.

“I do think he is a dangerous person to have as president,” Mr. Skinner said of Mr. Trump, “but right now Biden seems like the danger, actively endangering people's lives.

“I feel like Biden's strategy right now seems to be waiting for Trump to say something super crazy and come across as chaotic,” Mr. Skinner added.

Indeed, the chaos wrought by Republicans was Mr. Biden's main focus. Democratic donors say the strategy is a moneymaker: Mr. Biden's campaign reported having about $46 million in cash on hand at the end of December, compared with $33 million for Mr. Trump's campaign, according to filings filed Wednesday. Federal Election Commission have been filed. .

At several points during his visit to New York, the president blasted Mr. Trump for pressuring Republicans to abandon a deal on the border. He chided Republicans for turning away from supporting Ukraine in its efforts to repel a Russian invasion: “What are we doing? Step back?”

He turned to an oft-repeated story about his decision to enter the 2020 presidential race, which came after Mr. Trump refused to condemn a group of white supremacists who held a rally that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia. And he twice criticized Mr. Trump. Trump's comments following an Iowa school shooting in January, in which the former president told the crowd to “get over” the shooting.

“Just get over it?” Mr. Biden said, raising his voice to a shout. “What the hell is he doing?”

Earlier in the day, protests over Gaza were undetectable from the wood-paneled salon of Larry Linden, a philanthropist and climate activist who was a director of Goldman Sachs. Standing next to the president, Mr. Linden told a crowd of supporters gathered at his Upper West Side home that Mr. Biden “seems to excel at just about everything,” including withdrawing the United States from the coronavirus pandemic, all while maintaining your integrity, decency, faith and sympathy.”

(A smiling Mr. Biden shook his head playfully at the “excels at everything” part.)

In a later email, Mr. Linden praised the president for his efforts to help the environment, saying it was in danger of unraveling if he lost in November.

“He has done more to address the climate challenge than any other president,” Linden wrote. “And his likely opponent has made a loud, public commitment to undermine all these gains, putting the nation and the planet in grave danger.”

Liset Cruz And Julian Roberts-Grmela reporting contributed.

After days of sharp criticism of the UN agency charged with assisting Palestinian civilians, donor countries said on Wednesday they would continue to support the organization under the right circumstances and emphasized its essential role in delivering life-saving aid as widespread famine and disease loom in war. devastated Gaza Strip.

At least 12 countries, including the United States and Germany, the two largest donors, temporarily suspended funding after the Israeli government spread accusations that operatives of the group known as UNRWA took part in the October 7 attacks.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, emphasized on Wednesday that the funding pause for the agency was temporary and praised the agency's work, comments that suggested there may be a willingness among donors to address the funding crisis to solve.

“We know that this agency is providing life-saving services under incredibly challenging conditions in Gaza and contributing to regional stability and security,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

“For this reason, and in the interests of millions of Palestinian citizens who rely on UNRWA's services, it is critical that the UN takes swift and decisive action to hold to account all those who commit atrocities and to strengthen oversight of UNRWA operations and begin restoring human rights. donor confidence.”

Based on telephone conversations, Israel accused 12 UN employees of taking part in the October 7 attacks, in which one allegedly kidnapped a woman and another took part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people were killed. Nine of the 12 employees have been fired, the agency said, and two are dead.

The Israeli government views UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, as a front for Hamas and has been calling for its abandonment for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that position on Wednesday: “The time has come when the international community and the UN itself must understand that UNRWA's mission must end,” he said in a video on social media. “UNRWA is self-perpetuating. It seeks to perpetuate the issue of Palestinian refugees.”

Still, some military leaders say they fear that, without UNRWA, responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza would likely fall to the Israeli government, although Mr. Netanyahu suggested other U.N. agencies and aid groups could take over the job.

As diplomats pushed for an extended pause in fighting in Gaza on Friday, the Israeli army battled Hamas militants in the north and south of the territory, where Israeli forces say many Hamas militants are in tunnels. The military confirmed Tuesday that it is pumping seawater into the underground network to flush out militants, a tactic that many experts doubt will work and could damage sensitive infrastructure.

An American-led ceasefire initiative is being studied by both Hamas and Israel this week.

“The proposal on the table is strong and compelling,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said on Wednesday. “It provides a much longer humanitarian pause than we saw in November and would allow us to get the hostages out and more life-saving food and water into Gaza.” A week-long lull in fighting in November provided an opportunity for humanitarian aid to Gaza and included an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

The United Nations has said the suspension of funding from major donors could jeopardize UNRWA's work within weeks. Martin Griffiths, the UN's top humanitarian official, told the Security Council meeting on Wednesday that its operations in Gaza were “entirely dependent on the adequate financing and operational functioning of UNRWA.”

Withholding funding for the “alleged actions of a few individuals,” he said, was a “matter of extraordinary disproportionality.”

The U.N. said last week it had launched an investigation into UNRWA and that it would take at least four weeks, according to two diplomats familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters . The UN Secretary General António Guterres conveyed that message to donor countries in New York this week, one of the diplomats said.

That time frame would be faster than normal. Investigations conducted by the UN's top audit body, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, typically last many months and include interviews with staff members, site visits and a forensic examination of UN-issued computers, phones and other equipment, Vladimir Dzuro said, a former senior researcher in the office.

UN agencies including UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization warned in a joint statement this week that any pause in UNRWA funding would have “catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza.” For weeks, U.N. leaders have warned that ordinary people trapped in the war zone face hunger and widespread disease.

“Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is dangerous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza,” the statement said.

Donor countries have made individual decisions to suspend aid to UNRWA, and it is not clear whether they would act jointly in response to the UN investigation.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Sebastian Fischer, said this week that the government would wait to see what the investigation reveals before making a decision. Still, Mr. Fischer said, the investigation is important because UNRWA's work is so important. “We will not abandon the Palestinian civilian population,” he told reporters.

A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, did not say Tuesday when the U.S. government might make a decision on resuming funding for the agency. But he downplayed the immediate significance of the suspension, saying the State Department had already transferred all but $300,000 of the approximately $121 million budgeted for UNRWA.

The European Union, which has pledged $114 million to UNRWA in 2022, has not suspended funding, and its top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said on Wednesday it was crucial to “irreplaceable role.”

Norway, a donor that has also not suspended aid, will try to convince other donors to consider the broader implications of a cut to UNRWA, the country's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said.

He said it was worrying that for some donor countries, allegations of wrongdoing by a dozen of the agency's staff had become a reason to suspend funding. This approach “in a sense amounts to a collective punishment of millions of Palestinians,” he said.

His argument echoed the views of some aid agency officials, who have noted that donors have historically maintained funding for U.N. missions and agencies even when investigations found staff members had committed serious crimes.

Nikki Haley lost to Iowa. Then she lost New Hampshire. Now some of the biggest donors in the Republican Party — a Trump-resistant donor class that has been fueling its candidacy for months — are at least opening the door to former President Donald J. Trump.

A network of some of the nation's wealthiest Republican donors gathered this week at a winter meeting in Florida, held by the American Opportunity Alliance, and heard from top aides to both Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley. The meeting on Monday and Tuesday was one of the first significant steps for some of these donors in Mr. Trump's halting return to reality, after aides to Mr. Trump did not receive such an invitation to the group's fall retreat.

Ms. Haley has a series of fundraisers in the coming days, one of which will be held in New York City on Tuesday evening. Money will not be an obstacle to her candidacy. But privately, some of the party's top donors — including some who support Ms. Haley — say they are ready for the fight to end in order to focus on President Biden, conceding that Ms. Haley has little chance of overtaking Mr. Trump without an unforeseen event.

At the American Opportunity Alliance retreat, Ms. Haley had far more support than Mr. Trump. Kenneth Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund executive and major Republican donor who attended the retreat, gave $5 million to her super PAC this month, according to a person close to him.

Before Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida withdrew from the race, he and his allies had expected Mr. Griffin's support because the investor had given him generously in the past. But Mr. Griffin was disappointed by what he saw as an incompetent campaign coupled with deep policy mistakes, such as Mr. DeSantis' description of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” according to several people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Griffin had been waiting for a younger candidate who could challenge Mr. Trump, and it took him months before he decided to back Ms. Haley. He praised Ms. Haley in a statement to reporters, saying that “America would be well served by having someone with her foreign policy credentials and policy priorities in the White House.”

But speaking at an event earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Griffin admitted that her path was “narrower” than it was two months ago, before Mr. Trump won Iowa and New Hampshire. The $5 million he contributed to Ms. Haley's super PAC, while a significant amount by normal accounting, is a relatively modest donation for Mr. Griffin. In 2022 he has spent $50 million in an effort to defeat Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat.

Another donor, Las Vegas developer Robert Bigelow, is not part of the AOA network but had backed Mr. DeSantis with a $20 million donation to his super PAC. This week he said he was giving the same amount to Trump.

Olivia Perez-Cubas, spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, said: “No one said this would be easy, but we continue to run a smart campaign that will ensure Republicans don't continue to lose. Nikki is the only thing standing in the way of a rematch between Trump and Biden, something 70 percent of Americans do not want.”

Susie Wiles, a top adviser to Mr. Trump's campaign, told the AOA meeting at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Florida, a simple story, using graphs, that depicted Mr. Trump as the inevitable Republican nominee. She described to donors how he would win in the fall and said the campaign would welcome support from the party's top donors, according to three people familiar with the event.

Ms. Wiles' invitation to the AOA event marked the first time the group, which holds two meetings a year, had hosted a representative from the Trump camp during the 2024 primaries. At their fall meeting last year in Dallas, only advisers to Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina were invited. Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott have since withdrawn from the presidential race.

Ms. Haley's campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, gave what two people described as an impassioned pitch at the AOA meeting, calling her candidate an alternative to a chaotic and unpopular presidential candidate who could set off a domino effect of losses in the House and the Senate for the party. November.

Ms. Ankney laid out what she portrayed as damning facts about Trump's candidacy. Her litany included the $83.3 million Trump was ordered to pay last week in a defamation lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom an earlier jury found he had sexually abused, according to the people familiar with her comments .

Ms. Ankney acknowledged that Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations, faced an uphill battle to defeat Mr. Trump. But she insisted that Ms. Haley stay in the race as long as she had money and momentum, the people said.

Ms. Haley has longstanding ties to a number of donors to the American Opportunity Alliance, and the network does not move in lockstep. Nevertheless, Ms. Wiles' presentation to the group of largely Trump-resistant donors reflects that many of them are finally, after much whining and whining, entering the acceptance phase of the grieving cycle. Whether those offended by Mr. Trump decide to join him, sit out the primaries or stay on the sidelines in a general election remains to be seen.

Ms. Wiles' presentation came just days after the former president threatened to freeze all major donors giving to Ms. Haley in a post on his social media website, Truth Social. Ms. Wiles acknowledged her candidate's comments, but mentioned the various ways her team had tried to get Mr. Trump's nomination done as quickly as possible. For example, she highlighted how the Trump team had worked behind the scenes, with a team of experienced strategists, to get the Republican parties to change the rules so he could gather as many delegates as possible.

She also promoted the Trump campaign's powerful online fundraising operation and questioned Ms. Haley's general election prospects. She said she doubted the former president's die-hard base would vote for Ms. Haley. Mr. Trump has criticized Ms. Haley for appealing to Democrats and independents in open primaries, and his advisers have said she crossed a line by saying this weekend that she had confidence in the New York jury that found Ms. Carroll had slandered. .

The presentations and their reception by the gathered donors were described by three people people who attended or were briefed on it and who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.

The winter meeting of the group – founded a decade ago by wealthy investors including Paul Singer and Mr. Griffin, both hedge fund magnates – came at a crucial time in the Republican primaries. Trump, fresh off decisive victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, hopes to crush Ms. Haley in her home state of South Carolina in the Feb. 24 primaries, likely dealing a fatal blow to her candidacy.

For the Trump team, which is simultaneously fighting the four criminal charges Mr. Trump was charged with in 2023, spending money on Ms. Haley during the month of February, weeks before any of the trials can begin, is an unwelcome proposition.

This week's event was, as several people described it, much less confrontational than the last AOA meeting. During that meeting, the DeSantis team in particular faced questions that, according to those present, bordered on hostility.

An ally of Ms. Haley, who spoke anonymously because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss the event, praised Ms. Wiles for appearing before a skeptical audience.

“The bridge was never burned,” said a senior Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, when asked in an interview about the Trump campaign's stance toward major Republican donors like Mr. Singer and Mr. Griffin, who opposed the Mr Trump have resisted.

“The bridge is there,” Mr. LaCivita added. “It's up to them whether they want to cross. These are all smart people. They know there is no path to victory, no matter what Nikki and co are. invent.”

The attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia filed suit against the NCAA on Wednesday, saying the agency that regulates college athletics has no right to block the increasingly common practice of wealthy boosters paying to attract top recruits.

The business suit was filed a day after the revelation that the NCAA was investigating the University of Tennessee football program for recruiting violations involving a donor group that arranges to pay athletes. It could spark a broad legal battle over the nature of college athletics, which is in the midst of a rapid transition from a tightly controlled amateur system to an unfettered professional market.

The driving force behind that change has been donor collectives, which are groups of alumni and other boosters who donate money used to compensate elite athletes, sometimes in amounts approaching professional levels. They're doing this by taking advantage of the NCAA's new name-image-likeness, or NIL, rules, which were intended to let athletes pay for endorsements but in practice allow almost anyone to pay them , and for pretty much any reason.

In fact, the collectives pay salaries disguised as endorsements, and now play a central role in the process of pursuing players in football, basketball and other sports.

The lawsuit seeks to strike down one of the few NCAA rules limiting these collectives — and one of the last vestiges of the amateur model.

That rule means that collectives cannot recruit high school students or transfer students to the school of their choice by offering them money.

The attorneys general, who addressed the issue before the NCAA made specific allegations against the University of Tennessee, said the restriction amounted to an unlawful restraint of trade. They argue that collectives should have the freedom to outbid each other for recruits, as schools do for top coaches.

“This NIL recruiting ban restricts competition,” the attorneys general said in the lawsuit, claiming the cap “artificially reduces the NIL compensation that college athletes could otherwise receive in an open market.”

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

The lawsuit was filed by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican appointee who has often taken conservative legal positions during his 17 months in office. Tuesday's reports of the NCAA's investigation into the University of Tennessee prompted a blistering response from the school and sparked outrage among its fan base.

The donor collective at the center of the Tennessee case paid to fly a high school quarterback to campus on a private jet, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Tennessee collective released a statement saying it had followed NCAA rules, and that his contract with the quarterback — which reportedly allowed him to earn $8 million — did not require him to attend Tennessee.

Virginia's participation in the lawsuit raised the possibility that a number of other states with high-profile state college athletics programs could join the legal action. Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares is an elected Republican.

Collectives first emerged in 2021, when the NCAA — after losing a series of lawsuits that eroded its regulatory authority — declined to challenge a series of state laws that allowed players to profit from their name, image and likeness.

For much of the time since then, there was little evidence that the NCAA wanted to police these collectives. The New York Times has counted more than 140 collectives now operating in schools across the country, with budgets that can reach $10 million or more.

In just a few years, college coaches and players say, the money offered by collectives has become the dominant factor in recruiting and retaining athletes. For example, last year the University of Iowa starting quarterback told The Times that he transferred from the University of Michigan after the Iowa collective made him a written offer outlining what he would be paid.

University athletics officials have complained that the NCAA allowed the name-image-likeness system to become a pay-for-play system in disguise.

Many state laws, including one enacted in Tennessee nearly two years ago, mirror the NCAA's ban on pay-for-play payments. Tennessee law states that compensation cannot be provided in exchange for athletic performance in order to “maintain a clear separation between amateur intercollegiate athletics and professional sports.”

That contrasted with the Tennessee attorney general's argument in Wednesday's lawsuit, which appeared to accept that collectives paid players to play for their schools. The attorney general said athletes had the right to maximize these payments by surveying schools to find out where they would be paid the most.

“Very few collegiate athletes go 'pro' in their sport, and thus their NIL value is highest during their short collegiate careers,” the lawsuit said. “Their ability to negotiate the best NIL deal is critical.”

The result was a windfall for many players, but also a chaotic market that lacked the rules, unions and minimum wages that govern labor markets in professional sports. In this semi-underground free-agent market, college athletes had little sense of their true value.

In recent weeks, the NCAA has also shown some signs that it wants to rein in collectives.

NCAA President Charlie Baker has proposed that schools be allowed to enter into NIL agreements directly with athletes — a move that could reduce the impact of collectives and could be codified by the association later this year. A top NCAA committee this month proposed other rules that would tighten regulations, including requiring athletes to report deals worth more than $600 and forcing schools to further distance themselves from boosters found to be involved in misconduct .

The NCAA's enforcement division has fined Florida State University after a football coach there brought a potential transfer student to meet with a collective. And the University of Florida is under investigation, where a collective offered a high school quarterback $13.85 million but then didn't pay.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to make a legal ruling that would allow these types of transactions, ushering in an era in which college athletes are treated like professionals even before they enter college.

Germany, Britain and at least four other countries said on Saturday they were suspending funding for the United Nations agency, which provides food, water and essential services to Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Many of them are said to be on the brink of starvation after 16 weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.

The countries joined the United States, which said Friday it would withhold funding from the group, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), after a dozen of its associates were accused by Israel of taking part in the attacks. October 7.

The United Nations has not made public the details of the allegations against the UNRWA staff, who have been fired, but a senior UN official briefed on the allegations called them “extremely serious and heinous.”

The Israeli military said in a statement on Saturday that its intelligence services had prepared a case “incriminating several UNRWA employees for their alleged involvement in the massacre, along with evidence pointing to the use of UNRWA facilities for terrorist purposes.” What that involvement entailed was not further explained.

In announcing the funding pause, the United States, the agency's largest donor, said it was reviewing the allegations “and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.”

The governments of Australia, Canada, Finland and Iceland also said they were suspending funding for the agency.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the suspension “collective punishment” for Gaza and warned that if funding was not restored it would have a negative impact on the humanitarian aid program.

“It is shocking to see the agency's funds being suspended in response to allegations against a small group of employees,” he said in a statement, “especially given the immediate action UNRWA took in terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent, independent organization. research.”

US intelligence agencies have been aware for months of vague allegations that some of UNRWA's 13,000 employees may have collaborated with Hamas or even may have been involved in the October 7 terror attack. Only this week, U.S. officials said, did the United Nations and Israel share detailed, specific intelligence with the State Department and the White House, including the names of those fired.

U.S. officials said the harsh U.S. statement and action to withhold funding to the aid agency was not the result of any formal assessment of Israel's intelligence services by U.S. spy agencies. Officials said the U.N. aid agency's decision to fire the individuals was proof that the information provided by the Israelis was compelling.

Some donor countries, such as Ireland and Norway, said the agency's work was too important to stop.

Micheál Martin, Ireland's foreign minister, wrote on social media that UNRWA staff had provided life-saving assistance “at incredible personal cost.”

Norway said the allegations against the staffers, if true, were “completely unacceptable” but said the organization was the “main humanitarian organization” in Gaza and, like Ireland, pledged continued support.

“We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for,” the Norwegian delegation to the Palestinian Authority said on social media.

Israel's accusations against the twelve UN employees are the latest episode of decades-long friction between Israel and UNRWA.

Israelis say UNRWA's existence separate from the broader UN refugee protection system prevents Palestinian refugees from establishing roots elsewhere in the Middle East. There have also been frequent clashes between Israel and UNRWA over what the agency's schools teach their students, and over UNRWA's relationship with Hamas.

On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the decisions of the United States and Canada, calling on UNRWA to stop its work in Gaza after the Israeli military campaign there was over.

Israel aims to ensure that “UNRWA will not be part of the war the day after,” Mr. Katz said on social media, referring to the end of the war.

But the suspension of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in funding could not have come at a worse time for Gazans, who face continued bombardment by the Israeli army and a widening humanitarian catastrophe of hunger and disease, complicated by winter circumstances. conditions.

The agency, one of the largest employers in the enclave, has been a crucial lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza for decades. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the country has played an even more crucial role in providing food, water, aid and services.

Nearly 600,000 Palestinian residents of the territory face catastrophic hunger and starvation in Gaza, according to the World Food Program. According to Gaza health authorities, more than 25,000 people have been killed in the area since the war began in October, a toll that does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that troops passed through Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza and which Israel has called a Hamas stronghold, and that it had killed “numerous terrorists in several clashes.” It came the day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to provide more aid and prevent genocide in the enclave, but declined to call for an end to its campaign.

The ongoing fighting and the cold have worsened the plight of hundreds of thousands of Gazans who were on the run and for whom finding safety was elusive. Israel has ordered civilians sheltering in several densely populated neighborhoods of Khan Younis to flee, and fighting has reached the vicinity of at least two hospitals: Nasser Hospital, a large medical complex, and Al-Amal Hospital, run by the Palestinian Red Crescent. .

On Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the area near Al-Amal for the sixth day in a row, the Red Crescent said. About 7,000 displaced Palestinians are sheltering in hospital, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent.

UN officials are particularly concerned about how they will finance the 150 UNRWA shelters housing some 1.2 million displaced Gazans, the official said, as well as UNRWA's ability to distribute aid. UNRWA is the lead group coordinating the aid trucks that enter Gaza every day with humanitarian aid.

UNRWA has consistently emphasized its neutrality and at times criticized Hamas call militants because they use the facilities to store weapons.

In 2021, UNRWA reappointed its Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, after he was believed to have complimented the “tremendous sophistication” of Israeli attacks on Gaza during a brief war that year. Late last year, the group accused Hamas of “removing fuel and medical equipment from the agency's compound in Gaza City,” before later removing the posts following a backlash.

In 2005, then-head of UNRWA Peter Hansen said it was likely that UNRWA staff included Hamas members and supporters, given the extent of support for Hamas within the broader Gaza population. function.

Yet experts say that amid these tensions, some Israeli security officials privately accept the benefits of UNRWA's existence.

“The view of the Israeli security establishment has long been that UNRWA is ultimately preferable to what they think the alternative would be without UNRWA,” says Anne Irfan, author of a book on UNRWA and Palestinian refugees. “It provides services that would otherwise really fall under the jurisdiction of the occupying power under international law.

Thomas Voller, Victoria KimAnd Gaya Gupta reporting contributed.

Former President Donald J. Trump effectively threatened Nikki Haley's donors with excommunication from his political movement on Wednesday night, declaring that he would reject contributions from anyone who donated to her primary campaign.

“When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate's 'Donors' immediately came to me wanting to 'help'.” he wrote on his social media platform. “This is standard in politics, but not with me anymore.”

He then added, using his insulting nickname for Ms. Haley: “Anyone who makes a 'contribution' to Birdbrain will be permanently expelled from the MAGA camp from this point forward. We don't want them and won't accept them because we put America first and ALWAYS WILL!”

Mr. Trump took the position not long after Ms. Haley held a rally in North Charleston, S.C., as the primary campaign moves to that state from New Hampshire. At that rally, Ms. Haley told supporters that she had raised $1 million in the past day, after pledging that she would stay in the race despite her loss in New Hampshire.

“Well, in that case…donate here,” Mrs. Haley wrote to X in reply, with a link to her fundraising page. A spokeswoman for her campaign said Thursday that after Mr. Trump's post, “We saw a surge in donations.” When asked for numbers, she did not respond.

Ms. Haley's campaign also promptly began selling T-shirts that read “Barred.” Forever.”

Ms. Haley has the support of a number of major donors, who began to coalesce around her late last year as they concluded she was the most viable alternative to Mr. Trump. Her backers include the political network of billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, one of the richest and most powerful forces in Republican politics in recent years.

Until shortly before the New Hampshire primary, Trump had often ignored Ms. Haley. But in the days leading up to the vote, he began attacking her mercilessly. He also began using (and butchering) her first name, Nimarata, and falsely implying that she was not born in the United States, the same racist playbook he used against former President Barack Obama.

Although Mr. Trump's new threat about Ms. Haley's donors was likely empty — politicians in close general elections tend not to withhold large contributions — his post reflected his anger at Ms. Haley for not dropping out and ceding the nomination to him like him, and Many elected Republicans are trying to declare the race over.

But Mr. Trump's warning ignored the fact that to win in November, he will have to earn the support of many of the voters currently supporting Ms. Haley — the independent and college-educated voters who do not have much power in the Republican primaries . but who will be essential in the general election.