Blinken visits West Bank, Zelenskyy rejects stalemate claims: Weekend Rundown

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday visited the occupied West Bank, where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Blinken’s visit follows fraught meetings with Arab leaders in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where he was pressed repeatedly to call for a cease-fire in Gaza by a senior Palestinian official and diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

An Israeli strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip killed at least 47 people and wounded dozens of others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Telecommunications in Gaza have entered their third near-total blackout since the invasion began, according to a connectivity expert and a Gazan who works in the industry.

Blinken also made an unannounced trip to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani. They discussed the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the need to prevent the conflict from spreading, including in Iraq. Blinken also mentioned the need to ensure that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced outside of Gaza throughout the war. 

Follow NBC News’ live coverage here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an exclusive interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” rejected the notion that his country’s war with Russia had reached a stalemate, stressed that Kyiv needs more air defense systems and declared that his military has not wavered in its fight.

“I don’t think that this is a stalemate, this attack on the part of the Russian army,” he told Kristen Welker. “They thought they would checkmate us, but this didn’t happen.”

Amid an escalating war in the Middle East, Zelenskyy also accused Russia of sponsoring Hamas in its war with Israel, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to see the world destabilized.”

As protests over the Israel-Hamas war continue on campuses across the country, a little-known 2019 presidential executive order is expected to fuel a flood of student lawsuits against universities.

In 2019, President Donald Trump signed an order instructing federal officials to expand the interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism” as a form of discrimination based on race, color and national origin — prohibited behavior for programs that get federal funding.

Lawyers say they have received an overwhelming number of calls from across the country from Jewish college students and their parents requesting representation in Title VI claims.

More than two months after the devastating Lahaina wildfires, which killed at least 97 people, survivors say the trauma is as real now as the day it sent hundreds of people fleeing for their lives.

Residents say they are haunted by a pervasive anguish. Many have trouble eating, sleeping or getting out of bed, and they experience nightmares or flashbacks triggered by noises like the sound of a fire engine or a gust of strong wind. They describe a profound sadness, or heaviness — what Native Hawaiians call “kaumaha.”

West Maui is officially reopening to tourists this month amid what local health care professionals and residents describe as an unprecedented mental health crisis as residents spiral into despair and crushing grief, straining an overburdened behavioral health system.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president at a rally in Des Moines on Monday, sources close to both governors told NBC News. Reynolds’ endorsement is a major boost for DeSantis, who has gone all in on Iowa since he launched his bid for the GOP nomination in May. 

DeSantis’ campaign believes beating Trump in Iowa — or at least coming close — is the way to block the former president from running away with the Republican nomination, and DeSantis is pooling most of his resources to try to achieve that goal. In October, the campaign moved a third of its staff to Iowa from Tallahassee, Florida. It also used a significant part of its cash on hand to make a $2 million ad buy in the state.

You can watch the full “Meet the Press” roundtable about how Reynolds’ endorsement could affect his campaign here.

New speaker in the spotlight: Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., has gone from an obscure House backbencher to one-on-one meetings with world leaders and dealing with two wars and another potential government shutdown.

Abortion rights: In Mississippi’s gubernatorial election Tuesday, both the Republican incumbent and the Democratic challenger support the state’s abortion ban. Abortion-rights supporters are wrestling with what to do.

Voters aren’t buying ‘Bidenomics’: Despite some rosy indicators, such as a low jobless rate, the underlying policies that Bidenomics purports to describe have left voters cold, polling shows.

Rural voters: President Joe Biden is struggling to win back rural voters who have increasingly turned away from Democrats in recent years. Inflation has hit rural households harder than the rest of the country.

The Supreme Court’s striking down affirmative action programs had experts worried that enrollment at elite colleges could drop for Black and Latino students.

But African American students at Ivy League schools are concerned about a more nuanced shift: Admissions officers may be missing or ignoring the difference between descendants of enslaved people whose families have faced centuries of educational and economic racial disparities and Black immigrant families who still face racism but are likely to be less tied to generational economic hurdles that can make elite educations unobtainable.

Many students and experts in the area of college admissions told NBC News their colleges have overlooked the widening gap. A sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania said, “The Black population on campus is already so small, but the African American population is even smaller.”

Charlie Baker knew he was taking the NCAA’s top job in one of the institution’s most volatile periods. But Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, admits even he was unprepared for sudden news in August that virtually the entire membership of the Pac-12 would be jumping to other conferences.

“The speed with which the Pac-12 sort of came apart was an enormous surprise to everybody,” Baker said in an exclusive interview ahead of a new college basketball season.

Kourtney Kardashian Barker gave birth last week to her first child with her husband, Travis Barker, two sources close to Kardashian Barker said.

Kardashian Barker, who married Barker, the drummer for Blink-182, last year and announced her pregnancy in June, welcomed a boy.

The couple had documented Kardashian Barker’s struggle to get pregnant on the Hulu television series “The Kardashians.” The show followed her journey as she started IVF treatments. She later announced that she had stopped the process and would leave her family planning in God’s hands.

• Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia set a course record to win the New York City Marathon men’s race Sunday, while Hellen Obiri of Kenya pulled away in the final 400 meters to take the women’s title.
• Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin will return to Cincinnati Sunday night, about 10 months after he collapsed and nearly died during a nationally televised game.
• China wants its pandas back. With loan contracts expiring, some of the last black-and-white bears in the U.S. zoos are heading home.
• A San Jose, California, police officer was fired after an investigation revealed he had sent “disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias,” the police chief said Friday.
• Tyson Foods is recalling nearly 30,000 pounds of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets after some consumers reported finding small metal pieces.
• U.S. veterans known as the “Flying Tigers,” whose combat and missions in China helped change the course of the World War II fight against Japan, were welcomed back to China this week.
• Al Pacino and Noor Alfallah have reach an agreement to share joint legal custody of their 4-month old son, Roman Alfallah Pacino.
• If you want to achieve your goals, get angry, a new study says.