Day: March 1, 2024

DeSantis Vetoes Blanket Social Media Ban for Youths Under 16

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday vetoed a sweeping social media bill that would have effectively barred Florida residents under the age of 16 from opening accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, even if their parents permitted them to do so.

In a post on X, Mr. DeSantis said he had vetoed the teen social media ban bill because the state’s Legislature was “about to produce a different, superior bill” that recognized parents’ rights. Last week, the governor had suggested the measure went too far by superseding the authority of parents.

Soon after the news of the veto, Paul Renner, a Republican who is the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, said in a post on X that the new bill would be “an even stronger product to protect our children against online harms.”

While several states have recently passed laws requiring parental consent for children’s social media accounts, the Florida measure that Mr. DeSantis vetoed was designed as a more blanket ban. It would have required certain social networks to verify users’ ages, prevent people under 16 from signing up for accounts and terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users.

Parents’ groups including the Florida Parent-Teacher Association had urged Mr. DeSantis to veto the bill after the state’s Legislature passed it last week.

The bill would almost certainly have faced constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information. It also would have likely ignited online protests from teenagers who rely on social apps to communicate with friends and family, express themselves creatively, keep up with news and follow political, sports, food and fashion trends.

NetChoice, a trade group representing Meta, Snap, TikTok and other tech companies, said it welcomed Mr. DeSantis’s veto. In an email, Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s vice president and general counsel, said the measure, if signed, would have “replaced parents with government and Silicon Valley.” He added that the bill’s provision requiring social media sites to verify users’ ages would have led to “data collection on a scale never before seen in the state.”

Now Florida lawmakers are planning to amend a different bill that would regulate sexually explicit online material “harmful to minors,” adding provisions to restrict certain social networks that have “addictive features,” like endless content scrolls.

That bill would require pornography websites to verify users’ ages and keep out those under 18. Over the last two years, Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi and other states have enacted similar laws.

In his post on X, Mr. Renner said the amended bill would “empower parents to control what their children can access online while also protecting minors from the harm caused by addictive social media platforms.”

The Supreme Court is weighing free speech challenges to other social media laws, in cases that could reshape the internet. One of those cases involves a 2021 Florida statute, currently on hold, that would prohibit platforms like Facebook and X from permanently barring political candidates. (NetChoice is one of two tech trade groups challenging the state laws in the Supreme Court cases.)

But the Florida teen social media ban bill that Mr. DeSantis vetoed on Friday went further, representing one of the most restrictive measures that a state legislature has passed so far amid an escalating national effort to crack down on services like TikTok and Instagram in the name of child safety.

Over the last 18 months, other states have passed new online safety rules that would still allow younger teens to use social media.

Utah, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio last year passed laws that would compel social networks to verify users’ ages and obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to children under 16 or 18. In 2022, California passed a law that would require social networks and video game apps used by minors to turn on the highest privacy settings — and turn off certain features like auto-playing videos — by default for those young people.

The crackdown on social media stands out for being unusually bipartisan. California, a Democratic-led state, and Utah, a Republican-led state, each recently enacted landmark laws that take different approaches to protecting young people online. Separately, Florida last year became the first state to require public schools to ban student cellphone use during class time.

Balancing new social media restrictions with free speech rights can be tricky. NetChoice has successfully sued to halt the new laws in Arkansas, California and Ohio. Judges in those cases said the children’s online safety statutes most likely impinged on NetChoice members’ free speech rights to distribute information as well as young people’s rights to have access to it.

Mr. DeSantis said last week that he was “wrestling” with the Florida bill and weighing it against parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s online activities.

“You’ve got to strike that proper balance when you are looking at these things between policy that is helping parents get to where they want to go versus policy that may be outright overruling parents,” he said.

Hunter Biden’s Testimony in GOP Impeachment Inquiry: 6 Takeaways

After years of pursuing Hunter Biden, the president’s son, Republicans finally got their chance to question him during a more than six-hour interview on Wednesday, as they hunted for evidence to try to impeach his father.

Republicans quickly released a 229-page transcript of the interview, which depicts Hunter Biden as eager to confront G.O.P. lawmakers over their accusations that he and his father had committed wrongdoing through his international business deals.

Despite pending criminal charges against him, Mr. Biden, 54, never invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Instead he sparred with Republicans, criticizing their questions while offering explanations — often ones that were exceedingly unflattering to himself — for his actions.

Throughout the interview, Mr. Biden maintained that his father had never been involved in his business deals, and insisted that blame for his misdeeds should not fall on the elder Mr. Biden.

“My mistakes and my shortcomings are my own and not my father’s,” Hunter Biden testified.

Here are 10 takeaways from his long-awaited testimony.

He described himself as “an absolute ass and idiot.”

Throughout the session, Hunter Biden’s determination to defend his father appeared matched only by his willingness to acknowledge his own personal failings in blunt and sometimes colorful terms.

Addressing one of the most attention-grabbing bits of evidence the Republican inquiry has produced, he offered an innocent explanation — though one that played up his own foibles — for a text from 2017 in which he appeared to use the presence of his father as a way to pressure a Chinese potential business partner to move ahead with a proposed energy deal.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” Mr. Biden wrote in the WhatsApp message.

In the deposition, Hunter Biden said he did not remember sending such a message, but that if he had, he must have been either high or drunk at the time. He added that the message appeared to have been sent to the wrong person, who had the same surname as the potential business partner, and that his father had not actually been in the room.

“I take full responsibility for being an absolute ass and idiot when I sent this message, if I did send this message,” he said.

Days after the message, an entity jointly controlled by Hunter Biden was wired $5 million, according to House Republicans. Mr. Biden also criticized the I.R.S. agents who had brought the WhatsApp messages to Congress, saying they had conflated two different sets of messages to produce misleading evidence.

He explained why and how he had sent money to family members.

Hunter Biden testified that the money he had sent to family members was merely him sharing some of his own income to help cover their expenses, including reimbursements. Republicans have said the transactions show that the Biden family received profits from his international business deals.

He said he would typically ask his business partner, Rob Walker, to send portions of the money he had earned to different family members. When Republicans suggested that there was something untoward about the payments, such as those to his uncle and sister-in-law because the money wasn’t first sent to Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden explained that he had only been trying to save money.

“I sometimes can be, oxymoronically, cheap. It’s to save on two wire transfers,” Mr. Biden explained, adding he would tell Mr. Walker: “Please just wire it directly to Hallie; please just wire it directly to Uncle Jim. But it’s all my money, and it’s none to my dad.”

There never was any “10 held by H for the big guy.”

Mr. Biden told Republicans that the suggestion in a now-famous message sent by a business associate, James Gilliar, that he cut his father in on business deals — “10 held by H for the big guy?” Mr. Gilliar wrote — had been quickly rejected.

“I truly don’t know what the hell that James was talking about,” Mr. Biden told investigators, adding: “I think that it was pie in the sky. Like, ‘Joe Biden’s out of the office. Maybe we’ll be able to get him involved.’ ”

But Hunter Biden said he believed the idea was “absolutely ridiculous,” adding, “And so I shut it down.”

He defended dining and speaking by phone with his father in the presence of business associates.

Mr. Biden acknowledged that his father had occasionally attended meals where business associates were present, but he denied that they had discussed business. For instance, he said, the elder Mr. Biden attended one dinner at Cafe Milano that was a presentation for the U.N. World Food Program, where he sat next to Father Alexander Karloutsos of the Greek Orthodox Church.

“My dad did not come for dinner; he came and sat down at the presentations. He sat down next to Father Alex, who he’s known for almost 42 years, who was a close family friend,” Hunter Biden said. “And I believe that he probably had a Coca-Cola and a bowl of spaghetti.”

Then he said his father had finished eating, shaken hands, hugged a couple of people and walked out.

Hunter Biden also defended his habit of putting his father on speakerphone when he was meeting with business associates, a pattern that his former business partner Devon Archer had highlighted in earlier testimony. He said it was something he had done all his life, whether with family members, friends or associates.

“I’m surprised my dad hasn’t called me right now, and if he did, I would put him on speakerphone to say hi to you,” Hunter Biden said at the deposition, adding: “You always pick up the phone. It’s something that we always do.”

He said he couldn’t remember or didn’t know key details.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his admissions of drug use over the years, Hunter Biden testified that he couldn’t remember key details central to Republicans’ allegations against him. He said he could not recall certain events or details about two dozen times during the more than six-hour interview.

For instance, Mr. Biden said he couldn’t recall dropping off a laptop central to the Republicans’ case at a Delaware repair shop — and suggested he might not have done so — or a lunch at the Four Seasons with business partners that his father allegedly had attended.

He also suggested he had been kept in the dark about some of his and his partners’ business practices, such as who had paid for a $142,000 sports car that he had received. Mr. Archer previously testified it had been paid for by a Kazakh businessman.

“I received a car and I know why I received a car,” Hunter Biden said, adding: “It was payment. It was a cockamamie way to do it, but that’s what my understanding was.”

He sparred heatedly with Republicans.

Lengthy parts of the interview focused on Hunter Biden’s well-documented drug addiction, but he took particular umbrage when Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations that include illicit drug use, sought to question him about it.

“Were you on drugs when you were on the Burisma board?” Mr. Gaetz asked, referring to a Ukrainian energy company that has been central to Republican accusations.

“Mr. Gaetz, look me in the eye. You really think that’s appropriate?” Mr. Biden replied, adding: “Of all the people sitting around this table, do you think that’s appropriate to ask me?”

It was one of several confrontational moments during the closed-door interview.

In another, Mr. Biden blasted Republicans for not subjecting former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has substantial international business dealings, to the same scrutiny.

“Unlike Jared Kushner, I’ve never received money from a foreign government,” he said. “When Jared Kushner flies over to Saudi Arabia, picks up $2 billion, comes back, and puts it in his pocket, OK?” He continued, referring to Mr. Trump, “And he is running for president of the United States. You guys have any problem with that?”

Mr. Gaetz interjected that the deposition clock had stopped.

“No, the clock has not stopped,” Mr. Biden pushed on. “Do you guys have any problem with that? I’m asking.”

Republicans shifted the interview to another topic.

Cease-Fire Demand Grows Amid Questions Around Gaza Aid Convoy Deaths

World leaders on Friday intensified their demands on Israel to get more aid into Gaza and provide more answers about the deaths of scores of Palestinians in a scene of chaos surrounding a humanitarian convoy its forces were securing.

Many questions remained unanswered as the Israeli military and Gazan officials offered divergent accounts of one of the deadliest known disasters involving civilians in the nearly five-month war. Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, called on the Israeli military to “fully explain” the killings in northern Gaza on Thursday and joined the calls for a cease-fire that would allow for the release of Israeli hostages and for more aid to enter the territory.

“People in Gaza are closer to death than to life,” she said on social media. “More humanitarian aid must come in. Immediately.”

France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, called for an independent investigation and said the deadly chaos surrounding the convoy was the result of a humanitarian catastrophe that has left Gazans “fighting for food.”

“What is happening is indefensible and unjustifiable,” Mr. Séjourné told France Inter on Friday. “Israel must be able to hear it and it must stop.”

The disaster unfolded Thursday morning as thousands of hungry people gathered near a food convoy in Gaza City, with Israeli troops and tanks nearby. It was a scene increasingly common in Gaza, where Palestinians fighting starvation amid Israel’s war against Hamas are regularly massing around the relatively small number of aid trucks being allowed into the territory.

What happened next is still unclear. Gazan health officials say that Israeli troops fired on the crowd, killing more than 100 people and injuring 700 others in what they called “a massacre.” An Israeli military spokesman said that soldiers had opened fire “when the mob moved in a manner which endangered them.” The military said most of the deaths had been caused by trampling and that people had also been run over by the aid trucks.

Neither account could be independently verified, and partial drone video footage released by the Israeli military, along with social media videos of the scene analyzed by The New York Times, do not fully explain the sequence of events. Videos show people crawling and ducking for cover. A hospital in Gaza City said it had received bodies of at least a dozen people who had been shot and had treated more than 100 people with gunshot wounds.

An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, told Britain’s Channel 4 that soldiers had been providing security for the convoy, which involved private vehicles distributing food supplies from international donors. Israel has come under growing international pressure to facilitate more aid deliveries as groups including the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians — the main group distributing humanitarian supplies in Gaza — say it has become too lawless and chaotic to operate in much of the territory, especially the north.

Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that regardless of how they had died, it was clear that people were killed or injured while trying to get food for their families.

“That cannot happen,” she said. “Desperate civilians trying to feed their starving families should not be shot at.”

She urged Israel to open more border crossings to facilitate aid reaching northern Gaza and to ease customs restrictions that she said leave flour sitting in ports while people near starvation.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on world leaders to impose sanctions on Israel to force it to protect civilians and ensure their humanitarian needs, arguing that it was obligated to do so under international law as an occupying power.

“They completely denied the truth of the massacre that they committed against unarmed civilians exhausted by hunger and thirst as a result of racist policies,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Refugees International, an advocacy group, demanded an immediate independent investigation into the disaster and called on the United States to pause military aid to Israel until those responsible are held accountable.

“There is nothing that can justify the killing of civilians desperate to receive lifesaving relief for their families,” the group said in a statement.

Menendez Ally Pleads Guilty in Bribery Case and Agrees to Cooperate

Jose Uribe, a former New Jersey insurance broker charged in what prosecutors have described as a broad bribery scheme involving Senator Robert Menendez, pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan.

Mr. Uribe had been accused of providing Nadine Menendez, the senator’s wife, with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Mr. Menendez’s efforts to intercede in an insurance fraud investigation in New Jersey.

As part of his guilty plea, Mr. Uribe also agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors in their investigation, according to a formal plea agreement signed by Mr. Uribe, his lawyer and prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Uribe is expected to “truthfully and completely disclose all information with respect to the activities of himself and others concerning all matters about which this office inquires of him,” the agreement states.

Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, his wife and two other businessmen have pleaded not guilty and are facing trial in May.

Mr. Uribe admitted providing the car “with the intent to influence an official act” as he pleaded guilty to seven counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.

The car, according to prosecutors, was one of the first bribes provided to the senator and Ms. Menendez during a yearslong conspiracy. They have also been accused in three successive indictments with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars and bars of gold bullion in exchange for the senator’s willingness to provide political favors and to help the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

The Mercedes replaced a vehicle that police records show Ms. Menendez was driving in December 2018 when she struck and killed a pedestrian, Richard Koop, in Bogota, N.J. Ms. Menendez, who married Mr. Menendez in 2020, was dating the senator at the time of the crash.

She was not tested for drugs or alcohol and was not charged with wrongdoing.

Months later, after obtaining the new car from Mr. Uribe, she sent a text message to Mr. Menendez.

“Congratulations mon amour de la vie,” she wrote, according to the indictment. “We are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes.”

The car was given in exchange for Mr. Menendez’s efforts to disrupt a New Jersey insurance fraud case involving two of Mr. Uribe’s associates, according to prosecutors.

“The deal is to kill and stop all investigation,” Mr. Uribe wrote in a message to another defendant, according to the indictment.

In exchange for the $60,0000 car, prosecutors said, Mr. Menendez attempted to use “advice and pressure” to influence a top official in the New Jersey attorney general’s office — during a phone call and an in-person meeting.

Mr. Menendez’s lawyers have disputed the allegations and said that information prosecutors have gathered during the investigation that was favorable to the senator has been ignored. They have also argued that because the senator had no authority over the state prosecutor, any attempts to pressure the official could not — even if they happened — be considered official acts, the threshold needed to prove public corruption.

The judge, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court, set Mr. Uribe’s sentencing for June 14, which means it could come during the trial of Mr. Menendez and his three remaining co-defendants, which is scheduled to start on May 6.

Mr. Uribe entered his guilty plea Friday morning in an unannounced proceeding before Judge Stein.

Mr. Uribe’s lawyer, Daniel J. Fetterman, declined to comment, as did Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Ms. Menendez’s lawyers declined to comment.

Lawyers for Mr. Menendez have argued that warrants permitting searches of the couple’s home and electronic devices were overbroad and granted by magistrate judges who were misled by prosecutors.

They have asked Judge Stein to rule that items and information found during the searches are inadmissible. Mr. Menendez’s lawyers, who had no immediate comment about Mr. Uribe’s guilty plea, have also asked the judge to dismiss the indictment, saying overzealous prosecutors were criminalizing normal legislative activity and flouting constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress.

What Elon Musk and Sam Altman Said About Each Other

(Mr. Musk wrote back: “Thanks Sam!”)

In the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast, in March 2023:

“He’s a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him — he has a style that is not a style that I’d want to have for myself. But I think he does really care, and he is feeling very stressed about what the future’s going to look like for humanity.”

In the “In Good Company” podcast, in September:

“Elon was definitely a talent magnet and attention magnet, for sure, and also just like has some real superpowers that were super helpful to us in those early days, aside from all of those things.”

What Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman said about A.I. in joint appearances:

In a conversation atVanity Fair’s New Establishment, in October 2015:

Mr. Altman: “The happy vision of the future is humans and A.I. in a symbiotic relationship, distributed A.I., sort of empowers a lot of individuals, not this single A.I. that kind of governs everything we all do that’s a million times smarter than any other entity.

Mr. Musk: “I agree with what Sam said. We are effectively already a human machine collective symbiot, like a giant cyborg.”

In an interview Mr. Altmanconducted with Mr. Musk, in September 2016:

Mr. Altman: “Speaking of really important problems — A.I. — you have been outspoken about A.I. Could you talk about what you think the positive future for A.I. looks like and how we get there?”

Mr. Musk: “So I think we must have democratization of A.I. technology, make it widely available, and that’s the reason that obviously you, me, and the rest of the team, created OpenAI was to help with the, help spread out A.I. technology so it doesn’t get concentrated in the hands of a few.”

Cade Metz contributed reporting.

Questions still surround the convoy disaster as clamor grows for a cease-fire.

“People in Gaza are closer to death than to life,” she said on social media. “More humanitarian aid must come in. Immediately.”

“What is happening is indefensible and unjustifiable,” Mr. Séjourné told France Inter on Friday. “Israel must be able to hear it and it must stop.”

“That cannot happen,” she said. “Desperate civilians trying to feed their starving families should not be shot at.”

She urged Israel to open more border crossings to facilitate aid reaching northern Gaza and to ease customs restrictions that she said leave flour sitting in ports while people near starvation.

“There is nothing that can justify the killing of civilians desperate to receive lifesaving relief for their families,” the group said in a statement.

McConnell’s Early Decision to Step Aside Fuels G.O.P. Fight to Succeed Him

The decision by Senator Mitch McConnell to step away from leadership at the end of the year has thrown Senate Republicans into an extended, potentially disruptive nine-month battle to succeed him in the middle of a presidential race and a campaign for control of the chamber.

A contest that had been simmering in the background was suddenly thrust front and center this week by Mr. McConnell’s earlier-than-expected announcement that he would not seek to remain his party’s leader. The contenders immediately began wooing their colleagues for the chance to become the first new face of their party in the Senate in almost two decades.

“It is a lot of runway,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said about the months remaining before the party’s first seriously contested leadership race since Mr. McConnell took over in 2007. “But it is what it is. So you just have to adapt.”

Congressional leadership contests are the most inside of inside games on Capitol Hill, with the secret-ballot outcomes determined by personal relationships, grudges and who lawmakers see as the best option for their own ambitions as much as serious policy positions or the state of the institution. The true electorate is not even known yet, since those voting for next year’s leader will include anyone who wins a seat in November — and exclude anyone who loses.

That reality was underscored on Friday morning when Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the former No. 2 Republican, enthusiastically endorsed Kari Lake, the Republican front-runner in Arizona’s Senate race. Mr. Cornyn, the only one so far to officially announce that he is running, has tried to get off to a quick start in his drive to replace Mr. McConnell, with an all-out push to his 48 Senate colleagues and beyond.

“I’ve called them all,” Mr. Cornyn said in an interview. “I’ve called them all and met with a number of them personally. Most of them say, ‘Well, you know, we’d like to have a more extended conversation.’”

While Mr. Cornyn intimated that he had already secured commitments, most Senate Republicans are going to hold back on any pledges, hoping to wring the most out of their leadership vote and squeeze the contenders by playing them off against one another. There is a long way to go.

And the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump looms over the race. The decision by Mr. McConnell, who does not speak to Mr. Trump, to step aside was a tacit acknowledgment that he had fallen too far out of step with the MAGA base of the party that reveres the former president to remain as leader. Mr. Thune has also been harshly critical of Mr. Trump, as has Mr. Cornyn — though both have endorsed him in recent weeks.

It is quite possible that the two Johns — Mr. Thune and Mr. Cornyn — will be joined by a third, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Senate Republican who has indicated a strong interest in rising in leadership and has recently positioned himself to the right of his two most likely opponents. Though he has not declared his intentions, he endorsed and appeared in Arizona with Ms. Lake this week. He has maintained strong ties to Mr. Trump.

Another name being circulated is that of Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, making him responsible for the party’s effort to capture the Senate. A strong showing in November could make him a viable candidate with a built-in base of support from those he helped secure seats as well as other grateful colleagues. He, too, is close to Mr. Trump.

The far-right reaches of Senate Republicans may also put forward a candidate — or at least try to leverage their bloc of votes to win concessions from the others, as archconservatives in the House did in the leadership struggle across the Rotunda. Some want to see another try by Senator Rick Scott of Florida, whom Mr. McConnell easily dispatched in a leadership election in 2022.

“I ran 14 months ago because I think we have to have change,” Mr. Scott said, though he did not declare his own candidacy. “I think there’s going to be a lot of people.”

The leadership fight promises to be a distraction at a minimum as the contenders jockey for position and could be more if matters get testy — though the candidates say they expect to stay civil, at least publicly.

“I don’t expect any animosity between the members,” Mr. Cornyn said. “I respect my colleagues. I think John Thune will be in the race, and John’s a good senator and a friend of mine.”

Given the time remaining until the election, some senators have suggested that it would be better if Mr. McConnell gave up the leadership reins more quickly and forced the internal contest sooner. But so far that seems unlikely as he appears determined to wait until after the election.

The traditionally conservative Mr. Thune is considered a straight shooter and was seen as doing a capable job when Mr. McConnell was sidelined last year after a fall. Mr. Cornyn, a former head of the Senate campaign organization, is known for his fund-raising prowess. Allies say he has already amassed $13 million for Republican candidates this election cycle.

All the contenders and their colleagues say they are interested in ways to respond to widespread unrest about how the Senate works — or does not work — and better empower individual senators after much of the decision-making has been concentrated for years in the leadership suite of Mr. McConnell, where he reigned supreme.

“It’s a lot of listening,” Mr. Thune said about his meetings with colleagues. “Obviously it’s a new era and a reset. People have a lot of ideas about how to make the place work better and improve the work we do around here.”

“A lot of the anger and the frustration you hear from senators is because they’re basically being treated like potted plants,” Mr. Cornyn said. “They don’t get to participate either in the committee markups or in an open amendment process on the floor. And I’d like to change that.”

Whoever emerges from the leadership battle is in for a tough job in what will almost certainly remain a Senate narrowly split between Democrats and Republicans, with a widening divide between those on the G.O.P.’s far right and those who remain right of center.

“I admire people who want to do it, because it takes time away from your family and is hard,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who said he had no interest in leadership. “I’d rather fight a polar bear with a knife.”

Six Takeaways From Hunter Biden’s Testimony

Throughout the interview, Mr. Biden maintained that his father had never been involved in his business deals, and insisted that blame for his misdeeds should not fall on the elder Mr. Biden.

“My mistakes and my shortcomings are my own and not my father’s,” Hunter Biden testified.

Here are 10 takeaways from his long-awaited testimony.

He described himself as “an absolute ass and idiot.”

Throughout the session, Hunter Biden’s determination to defend his father appeared matched only by his willingness to acknowledge his own personal failings in blunt and sometimes colorful terms.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” Mr. Biden wrote in the WhatsApp message.

“I take full responsibility for being an absolute ass and idiot when I sent this message, if I did send this message,” he said.

He explained why and how he had sent money to family members.

There never was any “10 held by H for the big guy.”

But Hunter Biden said he believed the idea was “absolutely ridiculous,” adding, “And so I shut it down.”

He defended dining and speaking by phone with his father in the presence of business associates.

Then he said his father had finished eating, shaken hands, hugged a couple of people and walked out.

He said he couldn’t remember or didn’t know key details.

“I received a car and I know why I received a car,” Hunter Biden said, adding: “It was payment. It was a cockamamie way to do it, but that’s what my understanding was.”

He sparred heatedly with Republicans.

“Were you on drugs when you were on the Burisma board?” Mr. Gaetz asked, referring to a Ukrainian energy company that has been central to Republican accusations.

“Mr. Gaetz, look me in the eye. You really think that’s appropriate?” Mr. Biden replied, adding: “Of all the people sitting around this table, do you think that’s appropriate to ask me?”

It was one of several confrontational moments during the closed-door interview.

In another, Mr. Biden blasted Republicans for not subjecting former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has substantial international business dealings, to the same scrutiny.

Mr. Gaetz interjected that the deposition clock had stopped.

“No, the clock has not stopped,” Mr. Biden pushed on. “Do you guys have any problem with that? I’m asking.”

Republicans shifted the interview to another topic.

Biden Says U.S. Will Airdrop Aid Into Gaza

They went out in the thousands, camping overnight along the coastal road in the cold Gaza night — making small fires to keep warm — huddled together waiting for supplies to come so they could feed their families.

What they encountered was death and injury, as Israeli forces opened fire toward hungry, desperate Palestinians who surged forward when aid trucks finally arrived in the predawn dark on Thursday, according to three eyewitnesses and a doctor who treated the wounded.

“I saw things I never ever thought I would see,” said Mohammed Al-Sholi, who had camped out overnight for a chance at getting food for his family. “I saw people falling to the ground after being shot and others simply took the food items that were with them and continued running for their lives.”

More than 100 Palestinians were killed Thursday morning, Gazan health officials said, when Israeli forces opened fire as huge crowds of people thronged around the aid trucks. Mr. Al-Sholi and two other witnesses said in telephone interviews that they saw Israeli forces firing directly at people as they tried to reach the convoy. A doctor at a nearby hospital described seeing scores of people with gunshot wounds.

An Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, acknowledged that Israeli troops had opened fire “when a mob moved in a matter which endangered them” without giving details.

But he denied the soldiers had fired at people who were trying to get food. “We did not fire on those seeking aid, despite the accusations,” he said. Most of the deaths were caused by trampling in a stampede, Admiral Hagari said, and some people were hit by aid trucks.

Enormous groups of people have camped out for aid or raced to convoys in recent weeks, hoping for some deliverance from the severe hunger that has gripped northern Gaza through nearly five months of an Israeli offensive that has included intense bombardment, a siege and a ground invasion.

Mr. Al-Sholi, a 34-year-old taxi drive, said he was compelled to join the thousands of people gathered near the Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza City because he and his family, including three young children, are surviving off little but the spices, minced wheat and wild greens that they can find.

On Wednesday, he had heard that people had received bags of flour from aid trucks, and there were rumors that another convoy was coming. So on Thursday, around 7 p.m., he went to the Nabulsi roundabout with friends to wait.

He said he had never seen so many people gathered in one place. Others described tens of thousands of people waiting.

“Right before the trucks arrived, a tank started to move toward us, it was around 3:30 a.m. and fired few shots in the air,” Mr. Al-Sholi said in a phone interview. “That tank fired at least one shell. It was dark and I ran back toward a destroyed building and took shelter there.”

When the aid trucks arrived soon after, people ran toward them in desperation, and the gunfire started, the witnesses said.

“As usual, when the aid trucks arrived, people ran toward them to get food and drink and whatever else they could get,” said Mohammad Hamoudeh, a photographer in Gaza City. But when people reached the trucks, he said, “the tanks started firing directly at the people.”

He added, “I saw them firing direct machine gun fire.”

Mr. Hamoudeh said that, despite the fear and panic at the scene, many still rushed to the supplies. “People were terrified but not everyone, there were those who risked death just so they could get food,” he said. “They just want to live.”

The witnesses said that the tanks fired shells toward people even after they began to run away. They said tanks arrived between 3 and 4 a.m. and started firing regularly toward the Gazans, stopping at around until about 7 a.m.

The Israeli military did not respond to questions about whether Israeli tanks opened fire before or after the aid trucks arrived. Admiral Hagari said the trucks had neared Gaza City around 4:45 a.m.

Partial drone video footage released by the Israeli military, along with social media videos of the scene analyzed by The New York Times, do not fully explain the sequence of events. Videos show panic, including people ducking for cover and taking food from trucks.

Mr. Al-Sholi described chaos as ran from the aid trucks and people around him were hit.

“I saw people falling to the ground,” Mr. Al-Sholi said. “The man next to me was shot in the arm with a bullet and lost his finger immediately.”

As he fled, he said, he saw about 30 people on the ground, either killed or wounded. One of those killed was his cousin, who was shot while running with a bag of flour, he said. About 150 meters away from one of the tanks, he recalled seeing a boy, about 12 years old, lying on the ground with his face covered with blood. Some people were also run over by the aid trucks, he said.

A third witness, a journalist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Israeli military, said the Israeli fire was so intense it was difficult to get to the wounded.

The tanks didn’t stop firing until around 7 a.m. but they did not pull back. People started dragging or carrying the dead and wounded, saying the Muslim declaration of faith as they did so fearing the tanks would start firing again, said Mr. Hamoudeh.

About a mile away ambulances had gathered, unable to get any closer, for fear of being fired on by Israeli forces. Some people carried or brought the wounded to them on donkey carts, or took them to hospitals on their own

Palestinians being treated at Kamal Edwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, after Israeli soldiers opened fire at the scene of an aid convoy where Gazans sought supplies.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Around 150 wounded people and 12 of those killed arrived at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said Dr. Eid Sabbah, the head of nursing there. He said about 95 percent of the injuries were gunshot wounds in the chest and abdomen.

Many of the wounded were in critical condition and required surgery but the hospital, like the few others still functioning in Gaza, suffered from a lack of electricity, fuel, medical equipment and medicines.

Medical staff were only able to perform 20 operations, with painkillers but without anesthesia, in their three equipped operating rooms, Dr. Sabbah said. Like food supplies, medical aid has become scarce over the last four months, leaving the few hospitals still operating struggling to treat patients beyond first aid.

Dr. Sabbah warned that many of the wounded from Thursday’s shooting could not be properly treated in their hospital.

“In the I.C.U. there are patients who need specializations and medicines and need complicated surgeries,” he said. “Their only hope is to be transferred outside of Gaza to be treated.”

Nader Ibrahim contributed reporting.

—Raja Abdulrahim and Abu Bakr Bashir