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Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday during his visit to Ramallah, following stops Blinken made in Israel and Jordan.

Abbas and Blinken met twice in Jordan during the latter’s trip to the region last month after the attack. According to a senior State Department official, Blinken thought it was important to update Abbas “on a lot of the work that we have been doing in some of our meetings with the government of Israel,” saying that Blinken told Abbas “how we, in our meeting on Friday, pressed Israel to minimize civilian harm; gave him an update on our work to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza (and) get essential services restored; and (described) our conversations with Israel about implementing a humanitarian pause.”

The meeting between the two was focused on Gaza’s present situation and the situation in the West Bank, amid escalating settler violence following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. Abbas had held a similar position to that of the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan on the need for a ceasefire in Gaza; however, the U.S. has been calling for “humanitarian pauses” to allow increased aid to flow into the area According to a State Department readout of the roughly hourlong meeting, Blinken and Abbas “discussed efforts to restore calm and stability in the West Bank, including the need to stop extremist violence against Palestinians and hold those accountable responsible,” while Blinken “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza and made clear that Palestinians must not be forcibly displaced.”

Blinken had met with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv on Friday, and said he heard “a clear commitment from the government to deal with extremist violence in the West Bank, to condemn it, to take action to prevent it, to take action against those who perpetrate it … This is important, and we will be looking closely to ensure that our friends make good on that commitment.”

Editorial credit: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com

Authorities say that a Metro city bus in Seattle crashed into a building on Saturday afternoon after a collision with another vehicle, killing one woman who was outside, as well as injuring 12 others.

According to a release from the Seattle Police Department, the fatal crash happened around 3:30 p.m. at the intersection of 5th Avenue and Battery Street in the Belltown area when a red sedan collided with the King County Metro Bus and sent it careening off the road and into the building. Seattle Police said it appears the driver of the red sedan was heading south on 5th Avenue before crashing with the Metro Bus, which was eastbound on Battery Street.

A female pedestrian was found dead outside the building, police said, adding that the bus had struck her as it came to a stop after leaving the road. Eleven passengers on the bus, including the driver, sustained non-life-threatening injuries from the collision and were in stable condition, with eight of them hospitalized. The Seattle Fire Department said that the driver of the sedan, a 31-year-old man, was pulled out of the car by firefighters and taken to a hospital in critical condition  No one was inside the part of the building the bus crashed into, and there was no significant structural damage to the building.

The cause of the crash is now being investigated by police, with a release stating: “A Drug Recognition Expert officer will evaluate the male driver of the sedan for any signs of impairment.”

Editorial credit: Ian Dewar Photography / Shutterstock.com