Britain’s opposition Labour Party reversed course on Monday, deciding to pull support for Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali after more comments deriding Israel and Jews came to light. 

The Labour Party initially spent days defending Azhar Ali as a candidate in a Feb. 29 special election for the House of Commons seat representing Rochdale, a constituency in northwest England, after the Daily Mail published remarks he made during a local party meeting last year claiming Israel allowed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack to happen as a pretext to invade Gaza.

Ali, who was selected as the Labour candidate last month, apologized, and senior Labour figures called the comments ‘totally unacceptable,’ but the party did not immediately suspend him. After increasing pressure, however, Labour said Monday that while it was too late to replace Ali on the ballot, the party had ‘withdrawn its support’ for him.

‘We understand that these are highly unusual circumstances, but it is vital that any candidate put forward by Labour fully represents its aims and values,’ the party said in a statement.

The Daily Mail published a longer recording Monday in which Ali is allegedly heard blaming ‘people in the media from certain Jewish quarters’ for Andy McDonald’s suspension last year. 

The Labour Party suspended McDonald, MP for Middlesbrough, after he used the phrase ‘from the river and the sea,’ which calls for the erasure of the Jewish state, in a speech at a pro-Palestinian rally, the BBC reported. The man believed to be Ali on the recording goes on to insist Israel plotted to ‘get rid of [Palestinians] from Gaza’ and ‘grab’ the land.

Ali will still remain on the ballot despite the antisemitic remarks. He was suspended from Labour pending an investigation, meaning that he would sit as an independent lawmaker if he is elected.

Since taking the helm of Labour in 2020, leader Keir Starmer has steered the social democratic party back toward the political middle ground after the divisive tenure of predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist who advocated nationalization of key industries and infrastructure.

The party now has a double-digit poll lead over the governing Conservatives, with an election due to be held this year, according to the Associated Press. 

Starmer vowed to repair relations with Britain’s Jewish community and vowed to root out antisemitism that was alleged to have tainted the party under Corbyn, a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 after he claimed opponents had exaggerated the scale of antisemitism in the party for ‘political reasons.’

Ali had been the front-runner to win the election, caused by the death of the previous Labour lawmaker.

Other candidates include George Galloway, a former Labour lawmaker who now represents the tiny Workers Party and is campaigning against Labour’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. The party has criticized Israel’s conduct of the war and the toll on Palestinian civilians but has not called for an immediate cease-fire.

Britain’s Conservative government said Monday that it was imposing sanctions on four Israeli settlers accused of committing human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Mexican authorities have arrested six members of a drug gang in connection to the brutal slaying of at least eight people in Cancun.

Officials said the arrests were made after the horrifying discovery of five dismembered bodies inside a taxi on Jan. 29 this year. The victims were not identified by the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Quintana Roo. 

Prosecutors alleged the six suspects hacked up five people with a machete and dumped three other victims in a shallow grave. Mexican police seized drugs from the group, including marijuana, cocaine and crack, as well as two firearms exclusively used by the military, two motorcycles allegedly used to transport the mutilated bodies, and two cars including one that was reported stolen, authorities said.

The attorney general’s office also announced the arrest of 23 people who allegedly operated a fake tour agency as cover for a drug operation in Cancun.

The drug ring allegedly operated a ‘call center’ that offered tourist trips and sports equipment in the popular resort city on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. That business served as a facade to carry out activities related to drug dealing, prosecutors said. Drug deals would allegedly be made over the phone and then delivered via motorcycle.

A day earlier, prosecutors confirmed that an American woman and a man from Belize were shot to death on Feb. 9 in an apparent dispute between drug dealers at a beach club in the resort city of Tulum, south of Cancun.

The Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office said the woman had no connection to the man, an alleged drug dealer, and was unfortunately caught in the crossfire.

Prosecutors said the dead man had transparent bags containing white powder that resembled cocaine on his person, transparent bags with red and orange pills and a transparent bag containing brown granulated powder. They have identified suspects in the shooting who are now wanted by authorities. 

The illegal drug trade is a source of ongoing violence and danger to tourists in the state of Quintana Roo.

Last year, Mexican authorities closed down 23 pharmacies at Caribbean coast resorts after a research report warned drug stores were selling fake opioids to foreigners. 

Officials said a four-day raid targeted drugstores in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum accused of pushing pills passed off as oxycodone, Percocet and Adderall without prescriptions. 

The raid came months after the U.S. State Department warned travelers about counterfeit pills sold at pharmacies in Mexico that often contain fentanyl.

Foreign tourists visiting resorts near Cancun have been killed in drug disputes before.

In 2021 in Tulum, two tourists — one German and a California travel blogger born in India — were killed while eating at a restaurant. They apparently were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers.

Last year, the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert warning travelers to ‘exercise increased situational awareness’ especially after dark, at Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum.

Even so, Mexico’s tourism industry is booming along the Caribbean coast. Government figures show foreign tourists spent almost $31 billion in Mexico in 2023, an increase of 10% from 2022. Nearly half of all foreigners who travel to Mexico go to Cancun. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre revealed Tuesday that it was President Biden’s idea to hold what has since become a widely criticized press conference following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on his handling of classified documents. 

Jean-Pierre, speaking at the White House press briefing, said ‘it was the president’s idea’ to appear last Thursday in front of the media to defend himself from the findings in Hur’s report, which described the 81-year-old as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

During the barrage of questions, Biden at one point raised his voice at a reporter and later made a gaffe by referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi as the ‘president of Mexico.’ 

‘He wanted to, it was his idea,’ Jean-Pierre said when asked Tuesday about how the unexpected event came to be. She then deflected when a reporter asked ‘did anyone advise him against it?’ 

‘I’m not going to get into private conversations that the president has. The president is the president of the United States,’ Jean-Pierre shot back. ‘If he says he wants to speak to directly to the American people, he’s going to do that.’ 

She also said Tuesday that the White House counsel is looking into the public release of the transcripts of Biden’s conversations with Hur. 

At the press conference last week, Biden appeared visibly angered when responding to claims in Hur’s report that Biden did not remember when his son Beau died. 

Hur, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents, concluded he would not bring charges against him in part because a jury would find him to be a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,’ despite the acknowledgment that the documents were ‘willfully’ obtained by Biden both as vice president and as a senator.  

The press conference has since been panned by the media, with outlets such as Axios calling it a ‘vivid display of an elderly, irritable man struggling on a public stage.’ 

Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark and Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report. 

President Biden’s new campaign account garnered more than 67,000 TikTok followers in the first day since joining the Chinese-owned app he banned over national security concerns. 

The @bidenhq account’s following had jumped even higher to nearly 82,000 followers as of Tuesday morning, with more than 681,300 likes. 

That’s still a far cry from Biden’s 37.8 million followers on his campaign account on X, formerly Twitter. 

‘Lol hey guys,’ the first TikTok video on the account, published during the Super Bowl game Sunday, read in the caption. Biden, in khaki slacks and a navy sweater, stood with his hands in his pockets as he was asked a series of questions. Asked ‘Chiefs or Niners?,’ Biden responded, ‘Two great quarterbacks, hard to decide, but if I didn’t say I was for the Eagles, then I’d be sleeping alone. My wife’s a Philly girl.’ When challenged on if he preferred the game or commercials or the game or the halftime show, Biden responded game twice. 

‘Jason Kelce or Travis Kelce?’ someone questioned from behind the camera. ‘Mama Kelce. I understand she makes great chocolate chip cookies,’ Biden said. 

‘Deviously plotting to rig the season so the Chiefs would make the Super Bowl? Or are the Chiefs just being a good football team?’ the voice asked again. 

‘I’d get in trouble if I told you,’ Biden responded, as the video cuts briefly to the Dark Brandon meme.

‘Trump or Biden?’ he’s asked, as the screen shows a side by side of Trump, a bit sunburned, in a Make America Great Again hat and polo, next to Biden seen smiling and wearing a suit in his official headshot. ‘Are you kidding?’ the president chuckles, concluding the video. ‘Biden.’

Biden’s reelection campaign on Monday defended its new TikTok account as a vital way to boost its appeal with young voters, even as his administration continued to raise security concerns about whether the popular social media app might be sharing user data with China’s communist government.

Biden in 2022 signed legislation banning the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.

With 150 million U.S. users, TikTok is best known for quick snippets of viral dance routines. But Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., posted on X that Biden’s campaign is ‘bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices.’

‘The President’s TikTok debut last night — with more than 5 million views and counting — is proof positive of both our commitment and success in finding new, innovative ways to reach voters in an evolving, fragmented, and increasingly personalized media environment,’ Biden reelection deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said in a statement Monday. 

The Biden campaign said it had been mulling establishing a TikTok account for months and had ultimately done so at the urging of youth activists and organizations, who argued that the app was key to reaching young voters. The campaign said it is using a separate cellphone to engage on TikTok in order to isolate using the app from other workstreams and communications, including emails. The campaign said it was taking additional steps but declined to name them, citing security concerns.

At the White House, though, national security spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that ‘there are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices and there’s been no change to our policy not to allow that.’ Kirby referred most questions about TikTok to the Biden campaign and ducked a more general query about whether it was wise to use the app at all. He said the potential security issues ‘have to do with concerns about the preservation of data and potential misuse of that data and privacy information by foreign actors.’

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she is not in contact with the campaign and had no advance warning that its TikTok account was going live.

Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with that country’s authoritarian government. Separately, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing the app for years while trying unsuccessfully to force TikTok ownership to divest from its parent company. The White House said Monday the review is ongoing.

Another three videos had been added to Biden’s TikTok by Tuesday morning. ‘Weird brag,’ one was captioned, including clips of former President Trump championing the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Another video captioned ‘lol’ showed Biden making a joke about his memory at a D.C. conference Monday, taking a jab at Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report.

The latest video on the account was captioned, ‘He really said that…,’ and showed Trump at a recent South Carolina rally stating he’d encourage Russia to do ‘whatever the hell they want’ if U.S. allies did not pay their fair share into NATO. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.