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A 62-year-old man known as the “Cross-Country Killer” is set to be executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Thursday.Glen Rogers is to be put to death at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the November 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs.Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two children, was stabbed to death and her body was found in a hotel bathtub.Rogers was also convicted of the murder that same year of Sandra Gallagher, 33, in California and was a suspect in the murders of at least two other women, one in Mississippi and another Louisiana.There have been 15 executions in the United States this year: 11 by lethal injection; two by firing squad; and two using nitrogen gas.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday warned of the possibility of “more persistent” supply shocks, as US central bankers met for talks against a backdrop of uncertainty kicked up by Donald Trump’s tariff rollout.The US president’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs has caused a surge in volatility, with sharp movements in both US and global financial markets.Before a de-escalation this week,steep US tariffs on China and retaliatory measures by Beijing also raised fears of potentially major trade disruptions between the two countries.”We may be entering a period of more frequent, and potentially more persistent, supply shocks — a difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks,” Powell told his colleagues in Washington. Powell’s remarks acknowledged the post-pandemic supply shock, when temporary supply chain problems caused a surge in inflation that the Fed has previously admitted it was too late to address.In the speech, which came at the start of the Fed’s first public strategy review for five years, Powell said the economic landscape had changed since the last meeting, when interest rates were far lower than they are today.The Fed’s key lending rate currently sits at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent as the policymakers look to cool inflation without pushing up unemployment. “Longer-term interest rates are a good deal higher now, driven largely by real rates given the stability of longer-term inflation expectations,” he said, referring to “real,” inflation-adjusted interest rates.The higher rates could also reflect fears of higher volatility going forward, he added. Powell also said the Fed may reconsider its focus on targeting average inflation over time — an approach which gives policymakers the leeway to take a longer-term view if inflation deviations from its long-run two percent target for short periods.But while Fed could tweak its approach to monetary policy, its key long-term inflation target will remain unchanged, Powell told his colleagues. “Anchored expectations are critical to everything we do, and we remain fully committed to the two percent target today,” he said.

Casandra Ventura, the former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs, is set to receive intense cross-examination from the music mogul’s defense team Thursday in his sex trafficking trial.Ventura, the singer widely known as Cassie, told jurors over two days that Combs raped, beat and forced her into drug-fueled sex parties over the course of their more than a decade together, excruciating testimony that now subjects her to a grilling from defense lawyers.Combs’s lawyers indicated they would seek to emphasize that Ventura took drugs of her own free will, and behaved erratically and even violently herself.While Ventura’s relationship with Combs was complicated and included domestic abuse, the defense said in opening statements, it did not amount to the sex trafficking he is charged with.”Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” said defense lawyer Teny Geragos earlier this week.Combs, 55, was once one of the most powerful figures in the music industry, but is now incarcerated on charges of sex trafficking and leading an illegal sex ring that enforced its power with crimes including arson, kidnapping and bribery.Ventura is the case’s star witness: over two days of testimony, the now 38-year-old described Combs as controlling and willing to wield his wealth and influence to fulfill his desires.She gave vivid accounts of coercive sex parties — she participated in hundreds, she testified — and violent beatings that will underpin much of the prosecution’s case against the music industry figure, who is alleged to have used violence and blackmail to manipulate women over many years.- ‘Humiliating’ -Heavily pregnant with her third child, Ventura told jurors in a measured tone — but sometimes through tears — how she was forced to engaged in “freak-offs” with Combs and male escorts, sometimes engaging in days-long sex performances directed by the music mogul.She described how in 2018, as she and Combs were breaking up, he raped her in her living room.And she testified that her time with the artist left her with post traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction and suicidal thoughts.The drugs were a “buffer” to withstand the “humiliating” and often-filmed sexual encounters, she said.In a graphic hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors Monday, Tuesday and again Wednesday, Combs is seen brutally beating and dragging Ventura down a hallway.The prosecution played portions of the footage while Ventura was on the stand.When asked why she didn’t fight back or get up, Ventura answered simply that curled up on the ground “felt like the safest place to be.”Following the hotel assault, Ventura was forced to attend the premiere of her movie “The Perfect Match” days later while covered in bruises, the jury heard as they were shown photographs of the actress with Combs at the event.Ventura said she wore sunglasses to conceal a black eye.Combs’s defense team insists while some of his behavior was questionable, it did not constitute racketeering and sex trafficking. He denies all counts.Ventura’s testimony is expected to last at least until the end of the week, and trial proceedings are anticipated to continue well into the summer.

Colombian Sindy Estrada and her family try to stay off the streets of New York as they battle her deportation order for fear they could be detained by the authorities.Estrada and her family received a deportation order from the US government telling them to leave the country by April 30.”It has caused a nervous breakdown — we have suffered stress, depression, anxiety, panic,” said the businesswoman, 36, who fled Colombia three years ago after her husband’s business was targeted by extortionists.Now, US immigration officials have fitted her husband with an electronic ankle bracelet to track his whereabouts and her 16-year-old son has begun therapy amid the emotional toll of their situation.Her son “started biting his nails and couldn’t sleep, his grades dropped a lot,” Estrada said. “At his school they ask him what’s going on — whether he will stay or go.””(Despite) my desire to pack a suitcase and go… I think about what would await me there. I’m afraid to return to Colombia.”Estrada and her family, who live in New Jersey, are among the millions of undocumented migrants in the United States fearful of President Donald Trump’s onslaught against non-citizens.Experts say his crackdown has exerted a psychological toll akin to the September 11, 2001 attacks that claimed almost 3,000 lives.Trump has vowed to undertake the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants, who number around 11 million, in US history.He denounces people who entered the country illegally, visa overstayers, or those with legal temporary residence permits while they pursue options like asylum, describing them as “criminals” who must be returned at all costs.Trump has been accused of unlawful deportations without due process to a maximum security counterterrorism prison in El Salvador while also scrapping the longstanding policy of US citizenship through birth and seeking to block migrants challenging their detention. – ‘Totally traumatizing’ -In the past week the Republican offered a $1,000 payout to undocumented migrants who leave voluntarily.Although the shock troops of Trump’s crackdown, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, insist they target undocumented criminals, US media reports few arrestees fall into that category.The presence of ICE agents in migrant neighborhoods or on subway routes used by immigrants — particularly Hispanics — has sown fear.The “uncertainty, fear, anguish” experienced by migrants “is similar to what was endured during the September 11 attacks” of 2001, said New York City Department of Health Services mental health consultant Juan Carlos Dumas.The mental health crisis has led to increased alcohol and drug abuse, as well as family conflict, the Argentine psychotherapist, 68, told AFP.”The anguish has to go somewhere,” he said.Self-harming among young people has increased, just as it did after 9/11, he said.Youths “exorcise their feelings through aggression,” Dumas said at the gate of a school in Harlem where he works to detect such issues among pupils. “They each try to deal with the fear in their own way,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything like this for years.”Migrants who have been in the country for many years and built a life are affected the most.The prospect of having to leave it is “totally traumatizing,” he said, recommending that no one should feel the need to stay indoors.Dumas said that New York, a sanctuary city where local police do not cooperate with ICE to deport people, has a range of mental health services including social workers, psychologists and therapists for those in need.”Not everyone has it in for migrants,” he said.

Big tech companies are increasingly waving the US flag in Washington where President Donald Trump is back in charge, pushing his America First agenda.Leading this performance of nationalism are Meta, OpenAI and, more predictably, Palantir, the AI defense company founded by Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire who has played a major role in Silicon Valley’s rightward shift.But the full-throated call to defend the nation — often paired with warnings about communist China or Europe’s regulation — raises concerns about alienating international partners who represent a significant portion of big tech’s business.In the defense industry, US companies have historically balanced pro-American positioning with patriotic discretion to attract international business. But Trump and Vice President JD Vance routinely denigrate close allies, all while promoting a nationalist agenda that many US companies feel little choice but to endorse.While Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Arab states largely escape Trump’s ire, they are investing billions in US AI projects and building their own ventures with White House backing. Perhaps most surprising is ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s embrace of American exceptionalism. The company now actively lobbies for US tech to become the global platform for generative AI, has adjusted policies to allow defense contracts, and is helping build AI for the Pentagon in partnership with drone maker Anduril, another Thiel-connected company.”I don’t want to live in Europe either,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a Senate panel on US AI dominance last week. “I think America is just an incredible and special thing, and it will not only be the place where the AI revolution happens, but all the revolutions after.”Meta has similarly swung to the right since Trump’s return. CEO Mark Zuckerberg appointed a prominent Republican lobbyist to lead public policy, who regularly criticizes European regulations and aligns Meta’s positions with conservative viewpoints.The company has also touted AI models like its own as “essential for the US to win the AI race against China and ensure American AI dominance.”The most vocal proponent is likely Palantir, whose market valuation has soared based on expectations that its technology will transform security, surveillance and defense.Tech “is more of a metier or an art form than a science. And all the artists are in America,” said Palantir CEO Alex Karp at Washington’s Hill and Valley tech conference earlier this month.Palantir executives largely believe this can only be achieved through overwhelming American military and technological dominance, ensuring global peace through a Pax Americana.”AI is scary (and) can be abused” by great powers, “which is why we have to win this in America,” Karp stated.- ‘Tightrope’ -Professor Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, notes that defense technology companies like Palantir must balance US allegiance with respect for national sovereignty abroad.”It’s a diplomatic tightrope. When the political rhetoric becomes too parochial or polarizing—especially tied to specific administrations—it risks undermining” US companies’ appeal overseas, she explained.Trump’s nationalism is pressuring companies to adopt patriotic positions that Silicon Valley traditionally avoided, but this “can create friction abroad, especially in Europe, where concerns about sovereignty, data localization, and technological dependence are growing,” Kreps added.Taking a more measured approach is Microsoft, the 50-year-old tech giant that—like rivals Google and Amazon Web Services—serves both the US government and foreign markets where American nationalism might deter potential customers.For decades, co-chairman and president Brad Smith has navigated this complex terrain, aligning with Washington’s political climate while reassuring global customers of Microsoft’s trustworthiness. While co-founder Bill Gates, who now serves as an advisor to Microsoft, spoke out against Trump’s tariffs this week, Smith walks the line more carefully.”We need to remember that as a country, only four and a half percent of the world’s people live in the United States,” Smith told the same Senate panel where OpenAI’s Altman advocated for US leadership in AI.The risks extend beyond lost sales opportunities. Microsoft’s business, like all US tech giants, depends on agreements allowing transatlantic data flows—arrangements repeatedly challenged in EU courts.Professor Susan Ariel Aaronson of George Washington University warns these arrangements are precarious. “American AI will not be successful if it is not trusted. And how do you build trust? You don’t become the world’s disrupter,” she told AFP.

Donald Trump vowed to be a dictator only on his first day back in office, but his critics say four months of corruption “bigger and more brazen” than in his scandal-plagued first term is beginning to alienate supporters. The US president’s decision to accept a luxury jet from Qatar is the latest in a barrage of ethical conflicts that opponents say have blurred the line between his public role and private business interests.”It’s brazen corruption and hypocrisy,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of leading anti-graft lobby group End Citizens United.”But it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from a leader more focused on making himself richer than on lowering costs or addressing the struggles of working Americans.”Trump argues that the $400 million Qatari plane — worth 100 times the combined value of every presidential gift from foreign governments this century — would be for the country, not him personally. But it sparked a rare backlash from allies who backed him in his first term through two impeachments, accusations of self-dealing and claims by ethics watchdogs of almost 4,000 conflicts of interest. Anti-graft lobby group End Citizens United released a report on the first 100 days of Trump’s second term that amounted to a damning indictment of a presidency it said was defined by greed and self-enrichment schemes.- Keys to the kingdom -It pointed to Trump’s appointment to his cabinet and circle of advisors of more than a dozen billionaire donors, including Elon Musk, whose companies have received $15.4 billion in government contracts.Trump praises Musk’s intellect and cites his business acumen as the reason for putting the billionaire in charge of slashing government bureaucracy.But opponents accuse the president of handing Musk the keys to the kingdom — rewarding his loyalty with unprecedented power and access that allowed the tech entrepreneur to shut down federal investigations and get preferential treatment for his companies.”The corruption seems bigger and more brazen even than in Donald Trump’s first term, when there was there were literally thousands of conflicts of interest and a lot of things that look pretty corrupt going on,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.Trump is accused of all manner of executive action to appease donors, but it is his family’s rapidly expanding cryptocurrency empire that has most infuriated his detractors.So far that includes two “meme coins” — digital assets with no clear use or inherent value — and World Liberty Financial, an exchange that issues its own token and recently announced a $2 billion investment from the government of the United Arab Emirates.Buyers spent more than $140 million to snap up $TRUMP meme coins in an auction offering its top 220 holders an “intimate dinner” with Trump, according to data reported by US media. – Political probes -Although cash for access is nothing new, the anonymity of digital wallets means that supporters anywhere in the world can line the president’s pockets without going public. On the law and order front, Trump has ordered investigations into his political foes, and has targeted law firms that stood in his way with punitive executive orders, many since blocked by federal judges.Trump and his aides have faced a flood of litigation, in fact — more than 200 lawsuits and counting — with judges blocking many key policy priorities and occasionally rebuking the president.Democrats — already bristling over one aborted backbench impeachment attempt that they saw as misguided — are wary of a political message focusing on Trump’s corruption.Many worry that voters who give Trump credit for his longstanding pledge to “drain the swamp” and eliminate fraud are largely immune to Democratic anti-graft messaging. Bookbinder says it is a view that Trumpworld itself has bought into.”He and those around him seem to believe that his businesses — and potential corruption around his businesses — are something that the American people have can move past and are okay with,” he told AFP.  “I’m actually not sure that that is true, because I think the American people don’t like leaders making themselves rich off of their office.”

Russia’s war in Ukraine left Oleksandr Vikhruk without both arms and his right leg. Maksym Radiuk lost his left arm, his eyesight and was badly burned.Now, through pain and sweat, Oleksandr, 45, works with US doctors to one day go fishing using prosthetic limbs. Maksym, 23, hopes the treatment will make him fit to join Ukraine’s national football team for the blind.As the world awaits what promises to be the first direct negotiations Thursday in Turkey between Moscow and Kyiv since the early months of the Russian invasion in 2022, the two badly injured Ukrainian soldiers being treated at an elite US military hospital outside Washington embody the tremendous cost of the war for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen and their families.”It’s very painful, very scary to see your husband maimed,” Oleksandr’s wife Olha, 50, said, choking back tears. “I couldn’t speak without tears. I couldn’t live. For three months, I didn’t speak to almost anybody, except the kids.”She added: “It’s a terrible, horrible war. I cannot describe it.”- ‘I imagined the sea’ -Oleksandr was wounded in March 2023, when his infantry unit was ambushed by Russian drones in the eastern Donetsk region. Gravely wounded, Oleksandr applied tourniquets to his arms and leg, but had to wait 10 hours to get medical help because the evacuation route was under attack by Russian forces.”When I was in a lot of pain, I simply thought about something pleasant: my home, my wife, my children,” Oleksandr, wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt and sitting in a wheelchair in the office of United Help Ukraine, a charity that covered the families’ non-medical expenses during treatment.As hours passed, Oleksandr’s body started shivering violently and he thought back to the time when he visited Marseille in southern France.”I imagined the sea and I started feeling warm. I plunged into my dreams, that’s how I was able to endure it,” Oleksandr said in a weak voice, his eyes reflecting the traumatic memories.When he was finally taken to hospital, his arms and leg had to be amputated and he spent 2.5 months in a medical coma. Later, he also suffered a cardiac arrest and a stroke — doctors said it was a miracle he survived.Olha was devastated, but eventually seeing how Oleksandr’s eyes would light up when he saw her entering his intensive care unit gave her strength.”You begin to get used to this pain, to the idea that you must go on living, that life continues,” said Olha, a soft-spoken brunette, also clad in a Ukrainian shirt.”We fought together,” she added. “I would tell him, Sasha, you will live, I believe in you, we are together, we will get through this. And we did.”- One eye, one arm -In April 2024, Maksym’s territorial defense unit was serving in the southern Kherson region, when a Russian drone exploded near his face. It destroyed his right eye, blew off his left arm and several fingers and set him on fire.Because of the shock, Maksym initially didn’t feel any pain as he waited to be evacuated, but his legs were so badly burnt that it felt like he was wearing shorts.”I completely dissociated and just sat and waited and didn’t think about anything,” Maksym recalled, wearing sunglasses and sitting in a wheelchair.Maksym spent one and a half months in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated the remains of his arm. His wounds were so severe that his mother Natalia, 40, herself a servicewoman, was told that Maksym was unlikely to survive.When Maksym finally came to, he couldn’t see.”He woke up and he asked me: how many eyes? I told him: one,” said Natalia, adding that initially there was hope to save his left eye. “How many arms? I said: one. And legs? I said: two.”Natalia, who brims with energy, said she only allowed herself a couple of hours to cry.”I decided that I will not help my child this way, that I need to pull myself together and move forward, forward, forward,” she recalled.”I will do everything so that he can return to normal life and he will show people with arms and legs and eyes what he can do.”- ‘Rise up and scream’ -The soldiers are scheduled to spend six months to a year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as part of a treatment plan paid for by the US Department of Defense. Both should receive bionic limbs, and doctors have also offered to transplant one of Maxym’s toes onto his right hand.”I am very grateful that we were welcomed here in America, in this superb hospital, by superb professionals. They are great, they treat our guys very well, they treat them as heroes,” said Natalia.But with the talks scheduled in Turkey, the families hold out little hope for any fair and lasting peace deal with Moscow and called on the international community to do more to support Ukraine.”Everybody must rise up and scream that this war needs to be stopped,” she added.

Ben Cohen, co‑founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and a longtime progressive activist, told AFP he was speaking for millions of Americans outraged by the “slaughter” in Gaza after his removal from a US  Senate hearing on Wednesday.Cohen, 74, was among a group of protesters who startled Health Secretary  Robert F Kennedy Jr. by interrupting his testimony about his department’s budget proposal.Shouting that “Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza” while lawmakers move to slash Medicaid — the health insurance program for low‑income families — the businessman and philanthropist was placed in handcuffs by Capitol Police.He urged senators to press Israel to let food reach “starving kids” as he was led away.”It got to a point where we had to do something,” Cohen said in an interview after his release, calling it “scandalizing” that the US approved “$20 billion worth of bombs” for Israel even as social programs are squeezed back home.”The majority of Americans hate what’s going on, what our country is doing with our money and in our name,” he said.US public opinion toward Israel has become increasingly unfavorable, especially among Democrats, according to a Pew Research Center Poll last month.Beyond the spending, Cohen framed the issue as a moral and “spiritual” breach.”Condoning and being complicit in the slaughter of tens of thousands of people strikes at the core of us as far as human beings and what our country stands for,” he said, pointing to the fact that the United States pours roughly half its discretionary budget into war‑related spending.”If you spent half of that money making lives better around the world, I think there’d be a whole lot less friction.”Invoking a parenting analogy, he added: “You go to a three-year-old who goes around hitting people and you say ‘Use your words.’ There’s issues between countries but you can work them out without killing.”A longtime critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year joined prominent Jewish figures in an open letter opposing the pro‑Israel lobby AIPAC. “I understand that I have a higher profile than most people and so I raise my voice, it gets heard. But I need you and others to understand that I speak for millions of people who feel the same way.”Israel’s war in Gaza began after the October  7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” with the entire population facing a food crisis after more than two months of an Israeli aid blockade, and 22 percent facing a humanitarian “catastrophe,” a UN-backed food security monitor warned this week.

California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday proposed eliminating free healthcare for undocumented migrants in what he said was an effort to balance a budget battered by Donald Trump’s erratic governance.The move is the latest sign of political moderation from a man believed to have White House ambitions, who is looking to soften his image among conservative voters and distance himself from a reputation as a free-spending liberal helming a state where migration is out of control.Newsom told a press conference that California should freeze admission to the public Medi-Cal program for undocumented people starting next year, and should charge those already enrolled $100 per month.”We’re not cutting or rolling back those that enrolled in our medical system. We’re just capping it, particularly for those without documentation,” he said.Almost 11 percent of the 15 million Medi-Cal recipients are undocumented, Newsom said.In March, the California state legislature reported that opening Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants — which began in 2023 — had cost $2.7 billion more than expected in 2024.The program’s costs have also been bloated by high drug prices, including a growing demand for weight control prescriptions.- ‘Trump Slump’ -Trimming eligibility for Medi-Cal and cutting back on drug availability could save the state approximately $5.4 billion over the coming years, Newsom’s office said.He presented the idea as part of an overall plan to make up a $12 billion shortfall in California’s budget.Newsom said the state’s financial situation was due in part to the impact of President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff policies, which have walloped California, the world’s fourth largest economy, and one that is heavily exposed to international trade and tourism.The state’s revenues for the first 18 months of Trump’s presidency were expected to be $16 billion lower than they would have been without the volatility, a fall he dubbed the “Trump Slump.” Economists say the US economy as a whole is expected to take a hit from the uncertainty generated by the sudden policy lurches from the White House, with business leaders unwilling to invest and consumers increasingly wary of spending.California last month sued the Trump administration over the tariffs, saying the president did not have the ability to impose taxes on imports unilaterally, a power the lawsuit said rests only with Congress.Wednesday’s announcement dovetails with Newsom’s push to present himself as a fiscally responsible alternative to Trump, while trying to keep pace with the national mood on immigration.But he faces a tough balancing act in a state where a majority of voters support providing healthcare to undocumented migrants.”California is under assault. The United States of America, in many respects, is under assault because we have a president that’s been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines,” he told reporters.”It’s created a climate of deep uncertainty,” he added.”This is a Trump Slump all across the United States, reflected in adjustments by every independent economist, by leading banks, by institutions.”Local Republicans hit back Wednesday, characterizing the budget shortfall as Democratic Party overspending that disproportionately benefits migrants.”I urged the governor to immediately freeze his reckless Medi-Cal expansion for illegal immigrants a year and a half ago, before it buried our healthcare system and bankrupted the state,” state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said.”With a massive deficit largely driven by this policy, our focus should be on preserving Medi-Cal for those it was originally designed to serve.”Newsom’s proposal must now go to the state legislature for review. 

Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and longtime progressive activist, was removed from a Senate hearing Wednesday after confronting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and lawmakers over US support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.Kennedy had been reading prepared remarks about his department’s 2026 budget when activists interrupted the session, chanting “RFK kills people with AIDS.”Kennedy jumped from his seat in reaction to the outburst.Cohen then shouted: “Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza,” accusing lawmakers of funding arms by cutting Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income families that Republicans are seeking to slash.Video posted by anti-war group Codepink showed the 74-year-old in handcuffs as Capitol Police escorted him from the chamber.”They need to let food into Gaza, they need to let food to starving kids!” Cohen yelled as he was taken away.A vocal critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year co-signed an open letter titled A Statement From Jewish Americans Opposing AIPAC, denouncing the pro-Israel lobby’s influence in US politics.