No more! Earlier this week, some 3,500 bombs that were meant to be delivered to Israel did not actually make it there. President Joe Biden, long a major arms supplier to Israel, decided that the best way to make his opposition to the Rafah invasion known would be to temporarily stem the flow of weapons.

Biden also "said on Wednesday that he would also block the delivery of artillery shells that could be fired into the urban neighborhoods of Rafah," per The New York Times. Note that the Biden administration is not pausing all arms shipments, but rather trying to exert specific pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rethink the Rafah offensive.

"Israel…took control of the Gaza side of a key border crossing to Egypt on Tuesday, securing a strategic corridor as negotiators met in Cairo for talks on a truce and hostage releases," reported The Wall Street Journal. "The seizure of the crossing closed a critical gateway for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, prompting the U.S. to renew calls to reopen the gate."

Bear in mind, also, that the Rafah invasion was not merely to attempt to starve the remaining Gazans in the region through blocking humanitarian aid; an estimated 5,000–8,000 Hamas fighters are believed to be hiding in that city in southern Gaza. The Israeli offensive, which has been smaller in scope than originally thought, aims to stamp them out. It remains to be seen whether the Biden administration exerting pressure in this way will affect Israeli military actions—or how the Rafah offensive is perceived on a national stage.

Many Republicans in Congress reacted unfavorably to this unilateral action by the Biden administration. "It wasn't the Israelis that started this conflict. And I'm just very concerned that we do not try to micromanage Israel's right to defend itself against the terrorist group backed by Iran," said Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) at an Appropriations subcommittee hearing yesterday.

Of course, the Biden administration is really just interested in using leverage. Once a humanitarian plan for getting refugees safely out of Rafah is communicated by Israel, the White House says the weapons shipments will likely resume.

Climate Guy Gavin: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who continues to very convincingly swear that he's not running for president, seems to be eyeing the climate-concerned demographic of voters.

All the way back in 2020, when the grid faced blackouts and the state was roiled by wildfires, Newsom pinned blame on climate change, and majorly misrepresented his prioritization of wildfire management strategies like controlled burns.

During a visit to China last year, Newsom made headlines over a glitzy new partnership between California and Shanghai, which Newsom's press office said are "teaming up to fight the climate crisis by cleaning up ports and reducing emissions from the transportation sector." (Whether this has any real effect on emissions coming out of Shanghai seems beside the point.) During an audience with Pope Francis scheduled for next week, Newsom is expected to emphasize how "global temperatures [are] hurtling towards alarming new heights." This is his talk track, possibly responding to the fact that a far greater percentage of California's likely voters tell pollsters that "stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost" compared with a decade ago.

"A key part of his strategy has been to ascribe high gas prices and utility bills to corporate greed and gouging while beating back proposals that he believes go too far like Proposition 30, which would have raised taxes on the rich in 2022 to funnel money to electric vehicles," reported Politico. Phrased differently: Newsom does not want to alienate his French Laundry dining companions, and other rich donors who may be considering fleeing the high-tax state, but is very much trying to position himself as someone who takes climate change seriously.

Something to watch in the event that Newsom gets elevated out of his Biden-surrogate position and into the presidential campaign spotlight at any point, whether by the cruel tricks of nature or simple patience.

Scenes from New York: 

Over the weekend, a cruise ship appears to have accidentally killed and dragged a 44-foot endangered Sei whale through the East River. Upon being discovered, the whale was towed to New Jersey for a necropsy.

More whales have been living in the waters surrounding New York City for the last few years—I saw whales from Queens' Rockaway Beach two days ago, which is not totally uncommon here—and meeting all kinds of disturbing fates as a result.

"The increase in beached whales could be an indication that the whale population as a whole is growing. Or, less optimistically, rising water temperatures could be changing the hunting and migration patterns of whales, pushing them into areas where they're more likely to become injured by human activity," reported Curbed last year.

QUICK HITS

• "Saudi authorities have permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for a futuristic desert city being built by dozens of Western companies," an ex–intelligence officer told the BBC.
• Do you feel the Burgumentum?
• It looks like Congress might take another stab at a border deal, sure to please no one.
• Sweetgreen is introducing beef to its menu. Some people are worried it won't hit its climate goals as a result.
• Lots of people are criticizing Ann Coulter's blatant bigotry toward Vivek Ramaswamy during a recent podcast appearance in which Coulter went on Ramaswamy's show. What they're missing, though, is that Coulter's entire argument is that "the core around which the nation's values are formed is the WASP" (wrong!) and that she thinks we need more selective criteria as to which immigrants we let in—ignoring the contradiction present where Ramaswamy himself fits the criteria she describes, yet is still discriminated against by Coulter.

.@AnnCoulter told me flat-out to my face that she couldn't vote for me "because you're an Indian," even though she agreed with me more than most other candidates. I disagree with her but respect she had the guts to speak her mind. It was a riveting hour. The TRUTH podcast is back https://t.co/neVjKSs6e9

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) May 8, 2024

• Pro-Palestine protesters at Princeton don't seem to grasp that their victimhood mentality is getting in the way of their message being taken seriously:

NEW: Pro-Palestine protester at Princeton says she is "literally shaking" because she is starving and "immunocompromised."

The woman accused the school of purposely "physically weakening" her and her peers.

"This is absolutely unfair. My peers and I, we are starving. We are… pic.twitter.com/54TL9lIKOV

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 8, 2024

The post Biden, the Arms Supplier appeared first on Reason.com.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing back against claims that he sought to include a special exemption in a new minimum wage law to help a longtime friend and donor—but the governor's objections only underline how the entire law was a giveaway to his political allies.

Starting next month, fast-food chains operating in California will have to pay workers at least $20 per hour, even though the minimum wage for other jobs in the state will remain at $16 per hour. Newsom signed the bill to create that higher wage mandate, but the law includes a special carve-out seemingly tailored to exempt Panera Bread (and other chains that sell bread as a standalone menu item). Newsom had pushed for that exemption, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, as a favor to Greg Flynn, owner and CEO of the Flynn Restaurant Group, which operates 24 Panera locations in the Golden State.

After the story took off in the media, a spokesman for the governor's office claimed the allegation of favoritism was false. Newsom "never met with Flynn about this bill and this story is absurd," wrote Alex Stack in a statement to Reason and other media outlets that covered the story. "Our legal team has reviewed and it appears Panera is not exempt from the law."

The first claim might be true in only the narrowest sense. The Associated Press has confirmed that Flynn met with the governor's staff regarding the minimum wage bill and that he suggested exempting "restaurants like bakeries, bagel shops and delis" from the higher minimum wage law. Flynn denied speaking to Newsom directly, but it certainly appears that he attempted to exercise some influence over the lawmaking process.

Meanwhile, the governor's office's claim that the exemption doesn't apply to Panera only raises other questions—like, why is that exemption there at all?

That's a question that reporters in Sacramento have seemingly been trying to answer for months. Asked directly about the bakery exemption at a press conference last year, Newsom said it was "part of the sausage making" of the legislative process. In the wake of the Bloomberg story, Newsom's office has not offered a better explanation for the carve-out. Until that changes, the questions will persist.

"If [Newsom] is unable to provide a better justification for this carve-out, it raises serious questions about the integrity of his administration," a group of Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter requesting that state Attorney General Rob Bonta investigate the matter.

Newsom's explanations about the carve-out seem to be "falling apart in real time, particularly because Californians are accustomed to watching this administration hand out favors to its friends," Will Swaim, president of the California Policy Center, tells Reason. 

Swaim drew a parallel to the aftermath of the passage of California's Assembly Bill (AB) 5 in 2019, which effectively banned freelancing in many industries. After newspapers complained that the law would make it more difficult for them to use freelance labor, Newsom backed a short-term and then a longer-term exemption for the industry.

Of course, the debate over the narrow bakery exemption to the minimum wage law seems to miss the larger point: the entire law is a bizarre exemption from the state's existing minimum wage statute. Maybe a special interest and personal friend influenced that one section of the new law, but there is no doubt that other special interests—labor unions that give huge campaign contributions—are the reason why the rest of the law singles out fast food restaurants while effectively exempting other employers.

In short: Newsom's claims that special interests didn't influence one part of the bill would be more believable if special interests hadn't obviously influenced the entire bill.

"This was a bad bill to begin with—imposing an unsupportable minimum wage on businesses that operate on razor-thin margins has already raised menu prices and accelerated layoffs in the industry," says Swaim. "Its victims will be small franchisees who don't have Panera's pull and workers who are now facing mass layoffs."

The post Of Course Special Interests Shaped California's New Minimum Wage Law appeared first on Reason.com.