Category: World

Only a month after Thailand’s adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable.

Fans unable to make the two-hour drive to Khao Kheow Open Zoo from the Thai capital Bangkok to see her in person can watch her video clips online, or simply scroll through social media to savor meme after meme.

Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined the zoo’s newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar within weeks.

Cars started lining up outside the zoo well before it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from near and far for a chance to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in person at the zoo about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mom, Jona, was packed almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements.

Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, heightening the conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid calls for restraint.

The White House said a diplomatic solution was achievable and urgent, and Britain called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. is “afraid and concerned about potential escalation,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing.

The intense barrage followed attacks earlier in the week attributed by Lebanon and Hezbollah to Israel that blew up Hezbollah radios and pagers, killing 37 people and wounding about 3,000 in Lebanon.

In Thursday’s late operation, Israel’s military said its jets over two hours struck hundreds of multiple-rocket-launcher barrels in southern Lebanon that were set to be fired immediately toward Israel.

The bombardment included more than 52 strikes across southern Lebanon after 9 p.m.(1800 GMT), Lebanon’s state news agency NNA said. Three Lebanese security sources said these were the heaviest aerial strikes since the conflict began in October.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israel’s military vowed to continue to attack Hezbollah and said its strikes throughout Thursday hit about 100 rocket launchers plus other targets in southern Lebanon.

In a TV address on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the device explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday “crossed all red lines”.

“The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,” he said, adding the attacks “could be considered war crimes or a declaration of war.”

Israel has not directly commented on the pager and radio detonations, which security sources say were probably carried out by its Mossad spy agency, which has a long history of carrying out sophisticated attacks on foreign soil.

The Lebanese mission to the U.N. said in a letter to the Security Council on Thursday that Israel was responsible for detonating the devices via electronic messages and explosives implanted in them before they arrived in Lebanon, in line with theories that have circulated since the explosions.

The 15-member Security Council is due to meet on Friday over the blasts. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the Security Council to take a firm stand to stop Israel’s “aggression” and “technological war”.

ISRAEL VOWS HEZBOLLAH TO PAY ‘INCREASING PRICE’

As Nasrallah’s broadcast aired, deafening sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook Beirut, a sound that has become common in recent months but has taken on greater significance as the threat of all-out war has ramped up.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late on Thursday that Israel will keep up military action against Hezbollah.

“In the new phase of the war there are significant opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels that it is being persecuted and the sequence of military actions will continue,” Gallant said in a statement.

“Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price,” Gallant said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his close circle of ministers for consultations, Israel’s Channel 13 News reported.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed in combat on Thursday in Israel’s north, the Israeli military said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-hit-multiple-targets-lebanon-2024-09-19

The 43-year-old, from Newcastle, donned disguises to avoid being recognised as she targeted shops across the North East over decades.

A prolific shoplifter who has racked up 171 convictions has been banned from all but three stores across a huge area of the North East.

Tanya Liddle, 43, has been arrested almost 400 times by Northumbria Police and has “plagued” the area for decades, according to the force.

She has amassed a total of 171 convictions, most of which are for shoplifting, and she wore disguises to avoid being recognised.

One of her latest crimes was committed in TK Maxx in the Westmorland Retail Park, in Cramlington, on 24 April.

Liddle, wearing a hat pulled down low to mask her appearance, was seen in CCTV footage leaving the store carrying £1,500 worth of bags.

Some were draped around her neck, others in her hands and she pulled a trolley behind her.

Police applied for a civil injunction against the prolific thief, which was granted at Newcastle Civil Court last week.

It is the strictest ever in the force area, which covers more than 2,000 square miles in the North East of England, from the Scottish border down to County Durham, and from the Pennines across to the coast.

The order means Liddle, from Newcastle, is banned from entering any shops within the area, apart from a pharmacy, a supermarket and a clothing retailer.

If she breaches the terms and conditions she faces arrest and a possible jail term.

Inspector Patrick Hannon said: “We are pleased to have secured this order, which is thanks to the excellent and tireless work of our officers.

“Liddle has consistently targeted retailers for a number of years and exhausted every opportunity given to her to change her ways. With that in mind, we feel that this is the best way to manage her offending.

“The severity of this order demonstrates the seriousness of her criminality and the significant impact it has had on the retail community within the region, which is something we will simply not accept.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/prolific-shoplifter-tanya-liddle-banned-from-stores-across-north-east-after-getting-171-convictions-13217632

The convicted con artist, who swindled Manhattan’s elite out of huge sums and spent time in jail, made her dancing debut this week.

Convicted con artist Anna “Delvey” Sorokin has made her debut on Dancing With The Stars – sporting a sparkly ankle monitor.

The so-called “fake heiress”, who swindled Manhattan’s elite out of huge sums, took to the dancefloor on Tuesday as the US TV show returned for a new series.

Sorokin defrauded banks and New York City big names to the tune of around $67m (£61m) to fund her jet-setting lifestyle – and was later jailed.

Prison did nothing to dent her fame, however, with the Netflix series Inventing Anna debuting on the streaming site while she was still behind bars.

Now she’s back in the public eye, swapping prison bars for Dancing With The Stars.

“It’s actually not a big issue at all,” Sorokin said of the ankle monitor after the premiere.

“It’s pretty light and I asked them to make it tight so it doesn’t dangle. So it’s not so bad.”

“I feel relieved that it’s over,” she said after her routine. “I feel like my dance could have been a little bit better, but I’m happy I’ve done this and it was a great experience all over.”

Her dance partner Ezra Sosa called the bedazzled ankle monitor “the real star of the show”.

Sorokin said she hopes viewers will be somewhat forgiving despite her criminal history.

“Hopefully people will give me a chance to show what I can do. And I served my time and I repaid my restitution,” she said.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/anna-sorokin-fake-heiress-sports-sparkly-ankle-monitor-on-dancing-with-the-stars-13217857

One passenger was left “hanging upside down” and it took an hour to get the passengers out of the water, but Stephen Ross said he couldn’t be sure if the vessel or its hull had been safety-checked afterwards.

The Titan submersible that imploded on its way to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, had malfunctioned just days before last year’s fatal dive, the company’s scientific director has said.

Stephen Ross told a US Coast Guard panel investigating the tragedy on Thursday that a platform issue earlier in June 2023 caused passengers to “tumble about” and left one “hanging upside down”.

Days later, the Titan submersible, owned by underwater tourism company, OceanGate Expeditions, imploded en route to the wreck site in the North Atlantic Ocean.

British adventurer Hamish Harding, father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, OceanGate Expeditions’ CEO Stockton Rush, and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet all died.

Mr Ross told the hearing it took an hour to get the passengers out of the water after the earlier malfunction which left “one passenger hanging upside down” while “the other two managed to wedge themselves into the bow end cap”.

Mr Rush, who was piloting the submersible, crashed into bulkheading, and, though no one was injured, it was uncomfortable, he added.

He said he didn’t know if a safety assessment of the Titan or an inspection of its hull was carried out afterwards.

The Titanic wreck site is about 370 nautical miles (690 km) south-southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3,800m).

Earlier, investigators heard from OceanGate’s mission specialist, who said some of the company’s staff were “very hard-working individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true”.

Renata Rojas said she was “learning a lot and working with amazing people” at OceanGate.

Video footage of the submersible on the ocean floor was also published on Thursday.

Ms Rojas’s comments contrasted sharply with previous evidence, in which Mr Rush, the CEO, was described as volatile and short-tempered by other staff.

On Wednesday, former operations director David Lochridge called the vessel “an abomination” and said the company was committed only to making money.

Along with other witnesses, Mr Lochridge painted a picture of a company led by people who were impatient to get the unconventionally designed craft into the water.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/titan-submersible-staff-wanted-to-make-dreams-come-true-senior-employee-tells-investigators-13217923

A U.N. committee on Thursday accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.

Palestinian health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7 where 1,200 were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Of those killed in Gaza, at least 11,355 are children, Palestinian data shows, and thousands more are injured.

“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the committee, told reporters.

“I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now…These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see,” he said.

Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, accused the committee of having a “politically-driven agenda”, in a statement sent by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.

It sent a large delegation to a series of U.N. hearings in Geneva in early September where they argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and said that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law.

It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers and that it does not target civilians but that the militants hide among them, which Hamas denies.

The Committee praised Israel for attending but said it “deeply regrets the State party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations”.

The 18-member U.N. Committee monitors countries’ compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child — a widely-adopted treaty that protects them from violence and other abuses.

In its conclusions, it called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, provide support for orphans and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-violated-global-child-rights-treaty-gaza-un-committee-says-2024-09-19

In June 1981, six children between the ages of 10 and 16 claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on a stony hilltop near the village of Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The children said she had shared messages of peace and prayer with them.

The visionaries, as the group became known, say that the Virgin has been returning to Medjugorje (pronounced mehd-JOO-gor-ee-yeh) ever since. Their claim has drawn millions of the faithful from around the world, transforming the once tranquil farming village into a major pilgrimage site.

From the outset, though, the alleged apparitions have polarized Roman Catholic opinion. Millions of believers say they have found spiritual solace in Medjugorje, with dozens of reports of miraculous healings, conversions and religious callings. Others dismiss the sightings as a hoax, in part because they have continued so long and occurred with clockwork regularity.

After years of commissions, analyses and pronouncements from the Vatican and local officials, the Vatican issued a document on Thursday “to conclude a long and complex history that has surrounded the spiritual phenomena of Medjugorje.”

The Vatican Weighs In

Acknowledging the “positive encouragement for their Christian life” that many pilgrims receive at Medjugorje, the Vatican has decided to authorize public worship there.

But the document, signed by Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, stressed that its decision was not meant to verify the presence of a supernatural phenomenon at the site.

Given that apparitions or other sightings are private experiences for individuals, the church does not require the faithful to accept the authenticity of such sightings. In this case, the document states that “the faithful are not obliged to believe in it.”

Citing some of the messages the Virgin Mary is said to have delivered at Medjugorje over the decades, the Vatican said that while most were “edifying,” that did not mean “that they have a direct supernatural origin.” Consequently, they should be identified as “alleged messages” delivered through the visionaries.

The church’s evaluation of “the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive, does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic,” the document states. But the spiritual phenomena at Medjugorje act “for the good of the faithful,” it says.

David Murgia, an author and journalist who has written two books about Medjugorje, said that the new document fell short of making any decisive conclusions about the apparitions, which is what many of the faithful were waiting to hear.

“People go to Medjugorje because they think the Virgin appears in real time,” he said. “I think it’s absurd that you tell me that the consequences are good, but not if the origin is real.”

He added: “It’s like saying that fruit is good, but we don’t know if the tree exists.”

The Road to the Decision

Several investigations into the origins of the apparitions have been inconclusive.

Two early investigations led by the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno in Bosnia and one carried out by the former Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia failed to provide definitive conclusions. One of Pope Benedict XVI’s top cardinals led a commission to examine the apparitions, but its findings were never published.

The Vatican said its conclusions on Medjugorje were based on new, comprehensive guidelines for evaluating visions of the Virgin Mary and other supernatural, faith-based phenomena that it issued last May.

According to the new rules, the church will no longer issue declarations that accept the supernatural origin of such phenomena, as the Vatican had at Fatima, in Portugal, and Lourdes, in France, two important shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Instead, after assessing the event and finding no “negative elements in it,” the church can issue a citation saying that nothing should stop a local bishop from recognizing the benefits of such “spiritual phenomena,” or even promoting them.

That’s what the Vatican has decided for Medjugorje.

“Those new rules were written solely so the Vatican could say something about Medjugorje,” said Mr. Murgia said.

Source : https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/19/they-said-the-virgin-mary-appeared-the-vatican-is-finally-weighing-in

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition government wants to look tough on law and order.

Italy moved on Wednesday toward legalizing chemical castration, with MPs approving the creation of a committee that could draft laws on treating violent sex offenders with androgen-blocking drugs.

The lower house of parliament in Rome passed a motion which said the treatment should be consensual, reversible and with the aim of reducing the risk of re-offending. It has committed the government to establishing the relevant committee.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing administration is attempting to look tough on law and order. Since it came to power in 2022, her government has introduced legislation establishing dozens of new crimes and increased penalties.

Meloni has spearheaded the redevelopment of Caivano, a disadvantaged town on the edge of Naples, which became a symbol of criminality and deprivation after the gang rape of two preteen cousins, which five people were convicted over. Meloni said earlier this month that security was her “priority” for the next few months.

The far-right League, part of Meloni’s governing coalition and which has made establishing a law on chemical castration for pedophiles and rapists a key part of its platform, put forward the motion. Under the League’s proposals convicted sex offenders could receive a suspended sentence in exchange for undergoing hormone blocking treatment.

League chief Matteo Salvini welcomed the news, writing on X: “Victory for the League! … Good. Another important step forward for our historic battle for justice and common sense: zero tolerance for rapists and pedophiles.”

But opposition groups called the proposals “extremist” and “in violation of humanity and justice.”

MP Simona Bonafè of the opposition center-left Democratic Party said the League’s proposal was “unconstitutional … undermining the foundation of our legal system that has overcome the use of corporal punishment for centuries.”

The Green and Left Alliance criticized the League’s “endless vocation for repression.”

Enrico Borghi from the centrist Italia Viva party wrote on social media, “What’s next? Tar and feathers, or rope and soap?”

Chemical castration consists of the administration of drugs that inhibit the release of hormones that stimulate the testicles to produce testosterone, thus decreasing libido.

Source : https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giorgia-meloni-legalizing-chemical-castration-rapists-pedophiles-sex-offenders

His vainglorious $44bn takeover backfired on investors, employees, users – and the world’s richest man himself.

“He has no clothes on!” shouted the little boy, pointing to the emperor, and what everyone in the crowd had thought, they began to say among themselves. Then again, he was just a little boy, and they were grown-ups, and the emperor was a really important guy, so they whooped and cheered, because just like the emperor they were vacuous and greedy and not half as intelligent as they made out.

That’s the part of the story most people forget. Contemporary retellings end with the monarch humiliated, scrambling to cover his nudity before the laughing public, but that’s not what Hans Christian Andersen wrote. In fact the procession continues, and the lords-in-waiting try harder than ever to pretend they are bearing their emperor’s magnificent train.

This is very much what seems to be happening with Elon Musk, who remains the world’s richest man despite the wealth of evidence of his wayward decision-making, short-sightedness and erratic public behaviour. There remain those who think Musk is playing an online persona when he appears to endorse the ravings of a Nazi apologist, or to offer to inseminate Taylor Swift, or to ponder that “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” – and that this is part of a four-dimensional chess game in which only he, the mage of the markets, understands the rules. But the Musk presented in Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s account of the Twitter takeover, Character Limit, is as thick as a carpenter’s thumb and nothing like as useful.

To be fair, no one emerges from this account of the Twitter/X debacle looking serious. Jack Dorsey, one of Twitter’s founders, established himself as its visionary CEO but seems to have become distracted; in meetings, to which he would dial in from Hawaii or French Polynesia, he would reportedly lecture his colleagues on the need to invest in Bitcoin or drink salted water.

In November 2021 Dorsey decided to step down, but installed his own choice of successor – a reliably terrible idea, as organisations from General Electric to Manchester United have discovered. Parag Agrawal, a gifted engineer who had until that time managed a grand total of 40 fellow engineers, became responsible for an organisation with more than 7,000 employees and a backlog of problems that Dorsey had never managed to solve.

Most pressing among these was content moderation. In October 2020 Twitter had made a serious misstep in blocking links to a New York Post story on the contents of a laptop found to belong to Hunter Biden. Executives had decided that the story should be restricted because it came from hacked personal data, but there was clearly an element of bias – a month before the presidential election – against the right-wing Post. This gave Republicans a credible basis for much more speculative claims that they were being “shadow banned” by left-wing social media platforms.

Musk had been building his own thoughts on who should have, as the Twitter execs called it, “freedom of reach”. He despised journalists; his long history of lawsuits includes libel actions against the BBC’s Top Gear and the New York Times for negative reviews of Tesla cars. As one of Twitter’s most high-profile accounts, he detested the system of giving reporters a blue tick – an accolade he thought should only apply to the truly important, or at least to paying customers.

Having quietly built up a large shareholding in Twitter, Musk launched a takeover bid funded by private investors such as the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance (which would later be convicted in the US of breaching money laundering regulations and sanctions) and Larry Ellison, a close associate of Benjamin Netanyahu. These people doubtless saw political or regulatory potential in investing in world’s most influential social media platform. The banks who supported Musk have no such excuse.

If you think the people running a publicly traded company are clowns and that you could run it better, all you need to do is offer them enough money and the company’s board, which has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, has to sell it to you, even if they hate you. You will, however, need to raise the money (even the world’s richest man doesn’t have a liquid $44bn), and for that you need a bank. Banks routinely finance takeover deals in the expectation that the new owner will increase revenues, and they will be able to sell the company’s debt on at a profit. In return, they typically ask for a detailed and credible account of how you will turn the target company around.

At the time of the Twitter deal, Musk had little experience in advertising (in 2019 he tweeted: “I hate advertising”), nor had he – or anyone else – shown that the general public would pay to use social media. All the same, some of the world’s biggest banks accepted that he would more than quintuple Twitter’s revenue from ads and subscriptions, from $5bn to $26.4bn by 2028. They believed him, it seems, because he was Elon Musk.

According to Conger and Mac, on the night Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter he demanded his first big idea for the platform – that users should be able to scroll the feed without logging in – be implemented. Twitter had already tested this idea and found that it allowed spammers and bots access to the platform. It didn’t work. Nevertheless, it was to be live by the following morning.

Musk then brought in two of his cousins, James and Andrew Musk, to oversee engineering teams. Software engineers were told their code would be reviewed, unusually, on paper. Privacy officers panicked as thousands of sheets, filled with the company’s intellectual property and its users’ personal data, were printed out and carried around the building. Shredders were hastily bought and the engineers had to line up, watched by security guards, to destroy the pages.

The cousins were not the only family members involved. Meetings with some of the company’s biggest advertisers were attended by Musk’s mother and a music producer who uses the name BloodPop. Advertisers rarely challenged Musk in person, but ad spending – which had fallen in 2022 as clients worried their products could be shown next to scenes from the invasion of Ukraine – dropped off still further.

Source : https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2024/09/how-elon-musk-killed-twitter

Attendees to Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona have reported sustaining mystery eye problems from the event.

The rally in Tucson, Arizona, on September 12, which drew over 2,000 people in 100 degree heat, resulted in a number of Trump supporters going to the emergency room.

The Trump campaign has said it is investigating the event. The Secret Service told News 4 Tucson that it was unaware of anything out of the ordinary occurring at the rally. It added that it was unaware of any planned threat to Trump in Arizona.

Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign via email for comment.

The rally was set up so that 48 exclusive attendees could stand on the stage with Trump. They were then split into two groups, one on stage right, and one on stage left.

The group on stage left reported no symptoms or anything suspicious, but according to a report from News 4 Tucson, several people in the group on stage right left the rally with excruciating pain in their eyes.

Mayra Rodriguez, a former Planned Parenthood director turned Trump supporter, told News 4 Tucson that her eyes were burning and it became hard for her to see. She said she went to the ER where they asked if she was sprayed with anything.

She told reporters that she is still in pain days later. She said: “I can’t see anything. When I try to open my eyes it’s like a white cloud of cover. It hurts.”

Another woman who wished to remain anonymous also came forward with the same symptoms, saying: “This is horrible.”

And a man who also wished to remain anonymous said: “My eyes were red like hell, it was terrible, I just couldn’t handle it.”

Source : https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-rally-attendees-mystery-eye-problems-1956114

Sordid new details have emerged of the so-called sex rooms that Sean “Diddy” Combs allegedly kept in his Miami mansion — filled with sex toys, bondage gear, hidden cameras and lingerie, according to a federal source, who said the disgraced rapper is “as bad as Epstein.”

One of the Department of Homeland Security agents who helped raid Diddy’s Florida abode claimed that the music mogul had rooms that were clearly “dedicated to sex” with cameras all around.

“So if you were in those sex parties, you were being recorded from every possible angle, including angles you wouldn’t have known about,” the source said, referring to the sometimes days-long orgies he called “freak offs” where drugged-up victims were allegedly forced to have sex with male prostitutes.

“In my opinion, he’s as bad as Jeffrey Epstein,” the source added about the late pedophile who hanged himself behind bars. “These women are young. Either barely legal, or barely illegal.”

Internally, officers said they see a lot of similarities between Combs and Epstein, the well-connected financier who served time for trafficking dozens of young girls in New York and Florida. Epstein, who was awaiting trial on additional charges, died in his jail cell in August 2019.

On Tuesday, Combs was slapped with federal sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. According to the bombshell indictment, he allegedly coerced his female victims into days-long sex sessions as part of his alleged pattern of abuse dating back more than a decade.

The indictment alleges that the women — some of whom were still teenagers — were coerced into “Freak Off” sex sessions with male prostitutes that were often recorded while the music producer masturbated.

But the federal source told The Post that sometimes, Diddy would allegedly just watch the romps from another room.

“He also was able to watch the action remotely on his phone, cast it onto a TV in another part of the house,” the source said. “He didn’t have to be in the room when the sex was happening, although he frequently was.”

Diddy’s employees allegedly helped facilitate the sick sessions by arranging travel, booking hotel rooms where they would take place and stocking the rooms with supplies — including drugs, baby oil, lubricants and extra linen.

“We have evidence that these women didn’t feel like they were free to go,” the DHS officer said, “and there’s video evidence that some of the girls are clearly out of it while these men are having sex with them.”

Combs would often also keep videos of the “sensitive, embarrassing and incriminating” sessions — sometimes without his victims’ knowledge — so he could use them “as collateral to ensure the continued obedience and silence of the victims,” the indictment alleges.

Source : https://nypost.com/2024/09/18/us-news/diddy-as-bad-as-epstein-says-officer-who-raided-miami-mansion

Lebanon has been rocked by a second day of communication device explosions, believed to be orchestrated by Israeli intelligence services.

The attacks, intended to target members of Hezbollah, have left at least 20 people dead – two of them children – and thousands injured.

Those on the ground injured in the chaos have been left asking how much further Israel will go. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, condemned the attacks in a fiery speech in the wake of the explosions.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared yesterday that the attacks are a ‘new phase’ in war.

He said: ‘We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.’ He added that the ‘results are very impressive’.

Mariam Karouny, a journalist based in Lebanon, told Metro the explosions yesterday were a ‘surprise’ to everyone – and said fear on the ground is spreading as civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah have been left injured as well.

Ms Karouny explained: ‘People are shocked and angry at Israel. Many have been saying ‘This is what Israel really is’, and ‘it shows they want to kill everyone’.

‘People feel that Israel won’t spare anyone.’

Dr Luca Trenta, Associate Professor at Swansea University, told RUSI: ‘The mass explosion of pagers belonging to Hezbollah fighters and supporters across Lebanon – widely attributed to Israel – constitutes a major security breach for the militant group.

‘The number of pagers distributed is also impressive, as is the ability to modify them to explode simultaneously. Such prowess also entails an ability to interfere effectively in a supply and distribution chain.

‘Israel has increasingly shown a tendency to escalate the fighting, bringing the region to the precipice of a wider war.’

Source : https://metro.co.uk/2024/09/19/walkie-talkie-pager-attacks-mark-new-era-warfare-people-fear-next-21632507

Diddy should watch his back in prison … ’cause a former warden at the facility he’s in says there are a whole lot of inmates who would see killing him as a badge of honor.

As you know, Diddy’s currently being held in MDC Brooklyn — a notorious federal detention facility in NYC — without bail. Sources with direct knowledge tell us Diddy’s being held in the Special Housing Unit, away from the general population.

Cameron Lindsay — former warden of MDC Brooklyn — tells TMZ Diddy’s location in the SHU makes sense because he’s a target behind bars … with his celebrity status and the nature of the allegations against him potentially bringing him unwanted attention from other inmates.

In fact, Lindsay claims some would consider killing the mogul a “badge of honor” … so, prison officials want to minimize access to the star.

In the SHU, Lindsay says Diddy’s lifestyle will be heavily regimented … with just one hour of rec time per day and three showers a week. We’re told family and friends will be allowed to visit periodically … while his lawyers will have more access to work on his case.

A day in the life of Diddy … Cameron says he will receive a 6 AM wake-up call, at which time he will need to make his bed, mop the floor, and generally keep his cell clean.

We’re told he’ll receive three meals per day, adding up to 1,800 calories daily … all of which will be prepared early and will wait in a warming box for them to be given to him since he’s not in general population — meaning the lackluster prison food won’t be particularly fresh when he receives it.

Diddy has access to a commissary where he can buy smaller goods — like candy, coffee, tea, cheese — and also larger items like sweatpants, sneakers, and a radio.

Source: https://www.tmz.com/2024/09/18/diddy-life-behind-bars-brooklyn-jail/

JD Vance’s insinuation that pets are being swiped and eaten by Haitian immigrants has hit yet another embarrassing snag.

Vance’s campaign, responding to scrutiny over the hoax, shared a police report with the Wall Street Journal this week that detailed a Springfield, Ohio, resident’s claim that her cat mysteriously vanished in August. Vance’s team suggested the report was proof there was reason to fear that pets in Springfield might actually be in danger.

It turns out, however, that the missing cat named Miss Sassy was safe all along just like the kitty from Homeward Bound—also called Sassy.

Her owner, Anna Kilgore, told the Journal that her feline had a somewhat shorter voyage home. She was hiding in her basement the whole time, re-emerging a few days after she called police to report her missing.

Kilgore, who was photographed standing with a “Trump 2024” flag and wearing a shirt with the same slogan, told the Journal she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a translation app.

Kilgore also made it a point to update a missing pet Facebook group to let them know that Miss Sassy, whom she described as being a Maine Coon, was “home safe” after emerging from “our basement.” That comment came two days after she made a plea for help finding her.

“She is part of the family,” wrote Kilgore. “Please if you have saw her or know where she is I will give you money bring her home alive.”

Springfield, a city of 58,000 situated about 45 miles west of Columbus, has had a chaotic September as unsubstantiated rumors about the stealing and eating of pets has spread like wildfire even in the absence of any evidence whatsoever.

The hoax reached a fever pitch last week when Trump, mid-way through his primetime debate against Kamala Harris, parroted the conspiracy that dogs were being eaten by migrants in Springfield.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, has since begged Trump to not visit the city out of fears it’d strain local law enforcement beyond their capabilities as it deals with a slew of threats—that includes a staggering 33 bomb threats—and general chaos.

Rue and other officials in Springfield have called the rumors “meritless,” but those assertions have done little to tame the rumor as Trump and Vance continue to use it as an attack line on Harris’ immigration record.

The U.S. military has moved about 130 soldiers along with mobile rocket launchers to a desolate island in the Aleutian chain of western Alaska amid a recent increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching American territory.

Eight Russian military planes and four navy vessels, including two submarines, have come close to Alaska in the past week as Russia and China conducted joint military drills. None of the planes breached U.S. airspace and a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday there was no cause for alarm.

“It’s not the first time that we’ve seen the Russians and the Chinese flying, you know, in the vicinity, and that’s something that we obviously closely monitor, and it’s also something that we’re prepared to respond to,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a news conference.

As part of a “force projection operation,” the Army on Sept. 12 sent the soldiers to Shemya Island, some 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, where the U.S. Air Force maintains an air station that dates to World War II. The soldiers brought two High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, with them.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the U.S. military also deployed a guided missile destroyer and a Coast Guard vessel to the western region of Alaska as Russia and China began the “Ocean-24” military exercises in the Pacific and Arctic oceans Sept. 10.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said it detected and tracked Russian military planes operating off Alaska over a four-day span. There were two planes each on Sept. 11, Sept. 13, Sept. 14 and Sept. 15.

The planes operated in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, a zone beyond U.S. sovereign airspace, but within which the U.S. expects aircraft to identify themselves, NORAD said.

The Russian Embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Adults under age 50 have been developing breast cancer and colorectal cancer at increasingly higher rates over the last six decades, and alcohol use may be one factor driving the trend, according to a scientific report published on Wednesday.

The report, by the American Association for Cancer Research, highlights scientific breakthroughs that have led to new anticancer drugs and improved overall survival.

But the authors also described a troubling pattern: Even as cancer death rates have declined, the overall incidence of several cancers has been rising inexplicably, with an especially alarming increase among younger adults in cancers of the gastrointestinal system, like colorectal cancer.

The report estimates that 40 percent of all cancer cases are associated with modifiable risk factors. It recommends reducing alcohol consumption, along with making lifestyle changes such as avoiding tobacco, maintaining a healthy diet and weight, exercising, avoiding ultraviolet radiation and minimizing exposure to pollutants.

The authors called for raising awareness through public messaging campaigns and adding cancer-specific warning labels to alcoholic beverages.

The recommendations come amid a radical rethinking of the putative health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, which for years was considered to be protective against heart disease.

Just last month, a large study that followed more than 135,000 older British adults for over a decade found that moderate and light drinkers did not benefit from a reduction in heart disease when compared with occasional drinkers.

And both moderate and light drinkers experienced more cancer deaths than occasional drinkers, a finding accentuated among low-income seniors and those with existing health problems.

“Fifty-one percent of people — or more than half — do not know that alcohol increases your risk of cancer” said Jane Figueiredo, an epidemiologist at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who served on the steering committee that prepared the report. “That’s concerning.”

“We can talk about the myth that red wine has potential cardiovascular benefits, but there are many ways to keep your heart healthy, and these potential benefits don’t really outweigh your cancer risks,” she said.

Excessive alcohol consumption increases the risk for six types of malignancies, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and certain types of head, neck, breast, colorectal, liver and stomach cancers, the report found.

Some 5.4 percent of cancers in the United States — just over one in 20 cancer diagnoses — were attributed to alcohol consumption in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.

Yet public awareness is low. One study found that fewer than one-third of women age 18 to 25 knew that alcohol use increases the risk of breast cancer.

Among adults in their 30s, cancer rates rose significantly between 2010 and 2019. The greatest increases in 2019 were in cancers of the breast, thyroid, colon and rectum, the report said.

Early-onset colorectal cancer (defined as malignancies in adults under 50) rose by 1.9 percent each year between 2011 and 2019, the report said, citing numerous published studies that have documented the trend.

Fortunately, new treatments are extending survival time for people with cancer. Death rates for women over 50 with breast cancer have fallen, as have death rates for older adults with colorectal cancer.

Yet rates of these cancers in young adults are going up, as have rates of gastric cancers and certain blood cancers, the report said. And even as patients with leukemia, melanoma and kidney cancer are living longer, the overall incidence of these diseases has been rising.

The factors driving the increase in early-onset colorectal cancer are not well understood, but many studies have shown that frequent and regular drinking in early and mid-adulthood is associated with a higher risk of colon and rectal cancers in later life.

Increased alcohol intake in mid- to late adulthood also worsens the risk. Alcohol has adverse effects on the microbiome, the collection of bacteria, fungi and viruses that live on and inside our bodies, Dr. Figueiredo said.

Source:https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/18/deep-links-between-alcohol-and-cancer-are-described-in-new-report/

Multiple Delta Air Lines passengers are recovering from bloody noses and burst ear drums suffered during a terrifying cabin pressure issue.

Passengers quickly began to experience pain after the Sept. 15 flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Portland, Oregon, got into the air.

“I looked over at my husband, and he had both of his hands over his ears, you know, kind of leaning forward,” passenger Carry Allen told KSL-TV. “I looked about a row behind me, over on the other side of the aisle, and there was a gentleman that clearly had a very bad bloody nose, and people were trying to help him.”

Another passenger, Jaci Purser, recounted feeling a stabbing pain in her ear before hearing it pop and bubble.

“I grabbed my ear, and I pulled my hand back, and there was blood on it,” Purser told the station.

During this time, the plane dipped down and began circling the Great Salt Lake before the pilots announced that they would be returning back to the airport. Retired Delta pilot Valerie Walker told KSL-TV that the dip in altitude was likely done to maintain cabin pressure while pilots troubleshoot the problem.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that his “Victory Plan”, intended to bring peace to Ukraine while keeping the country strong and avoiding all “frozen conflicts”, was now complete after much consultation.
Zelenskiy pledged last month to present his plan to U.S. President Joe Biden, presumably next week when he attends sessions of the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly.
While providing daily updates on the plan’s preparation, Zelenskiy has given few clues of the contents, indicating only that it aims to create terms acceptable to Ukraine, now locked in conflict with Russia for more than 2-1/2 years.

Gisele Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by dozens of men recruited by her husband, on Wednesday called the men standing trial “degenerates” while attempts from some defence lawyers to question her credibility caused outrage in the courtroom.
The trial in the southern French town of Avignon of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men accused of raping his wife has shocked the world. The case has also triggered protests across France in support of Gisele Pelicot, who has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence.

Dominique Pelicot, 71, was seen crying during the all-day court session, saying, “I am asking for forgiveness, even though I don’t know if it can be forgiven.”

He is also accused of having raped Marechal’s wife at her home after drugging her, with the collaboration of her husband.

Gisele Pelicot insisted on a public trial in an attempt to expose her former husband and the 50 men he is accused of inviting to rape her in a small village in southern France.

The court told attendees not to boo the suspects in the case, telling them they were innocent until proven guilty in response to a skirmish between supporters of the victim and some of the accused on the day before. Tensions still increased during Wednesday’s hearing.
Causing the day’s most heated exchanges, two of the defence lawyers representing men Pelicot invited to his family home to commit abuse asked the court to display photos which they said raised doubts whether the victim was aware of what happened to her.
Gisele Pelicot fiercely rejected the claims. “They’re trying to trap me with these photos”, she said, reiterating she never agreed to any sexual activity. Her former husband said he took all the images while his wife was knocked out.

“I have felt humiliated while I’ve been in this courtroom. I have been called an alcoholic, a conspirator of Mr. Pelicot,” she said, adding her life had been “destroyed” for 10 years.

“In the state I was in, I absolutely could not respond. I was in a comatose state; the videos show that.”

The Pelicots’ daughter Caroline was on the verge of tears in the courtroom as her mother spoke. She later left the room when visual evidence was displayed.

Dominique Pelicot has denied drugging or sexually abusing Caroline, but photographs of her were found on her father’s devices along with images of her mother being raped. She has told French media that she started publicly campaigning to fight drug-induced sexual assault to cope with the shock following her father’s arrest.

Dominique Pelicot on Tuesday admitted orchestrating the mass rape of his then-wife. He asked for forgiveness and said he ultimately hoped to win back his former partner, who filed for divorce after learning of the rapes from investigators.

But the court also said it was not a problem if supporters applauded Gisele Pelicot when she emerged from the courtroom, as some have been doing.

COPYCAT CRIME

Earlier on Wednesday, Marechal, 63, admitted to working with Dominique Pelicot to drug and both rape Marechal’s wife Cilia after the men met on a now-shuttered website. Marechal blamed his mentor and a troubled childhood for his actions. Marechal is not among those accused of raping Gisele Pelicot.

He said he met Dominique Pelicot on a website called Coco, where Pelicot shared with him images of the rapes of his wife by the men he had recruited, describing how he had drugged her.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/associate-frenchman-accused-mass-rape-wife-admits-similar-abuse-2024-09-18/

When it comes to our experience of the internet, “the times, they are a-changin’”, as Bob Dylan would say. You can’t quite recall how, but the internet certainly feels different these days.

To some, it is “less fun and less informative” than it used to be. To others, online searches are made up of “cookie cutter” pages that drown out useful information and are saturated with scams, spam, and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Your social media feeds are full of eye-catching, provocative, hyper-targeted, or anger-inducing content, from bizarre AI-generated imagery to robot-like comments. You’re lucky if your video feeds are not solely made up of exhortations to “subscribe”.

How did we get here? And can we claw our way back?

Commercial interests rule
One major factor contributing to the current state of the internet is its over-commercialization: financial motives drive much of the content. This has arguably led to the prevalence of sensationalism, prioritizing virality over information quality.

Covert and deceptive advertising is widespread, blurring the line between commercial and non-commercial content to attract more attention and engagement.

Another driving force is the dominance of tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon. They reach billions worldwide and wield immense power over the content we consume.

Their platforms use advanced tracking technologies and opaque algorithms to generate hyper-targeted media content powered by extensive user data. This creates filter bubbles, where users are exposed to limited content that reinforces their existing beliefs and biases, and echo chambers, where other viewpoints are actively discredited.

Bad actors like cybercriminals and scammers have been an enduring problem online. However, evolving technology like generative AI has further empowered them, enabling them to create highly realistic fake images, deepfake videos and voice cloning.

AI’s ability to automate content creation has also flooded the internet with low-quality, misleading, and harmful material at an unprecedented scale.

In sum, the accelerated commercialization of the internet, the dominance of media tech giants, and the presence of bad actors have infiltrated content on the Internet. The rise of AI further intensifies this, making the internet more chaotic than ever.

Some of the ‘good’ internet remains
So, what was the “good internet” some of us long for with nostalgia?

At the outset, the internet was meant to be a free egalitarian space people were meant to “surf” and “browse”. Knowledge was meant to be shared: sites such as Wikipedia and The Internet Archive are continuing bastions of knowledge.

Before the advent of filter bubbles, the internet was a creative playground where people explored different ideas, discussed varying perspectives, and collaborated with individuals from “outgroups” – those outside their social circles who may hold opposing views.

Early social media platforms were built on the ethos of reconnecting with long-lost classmates and family members. Many of us have community groups, acquaintances and family we reach out to via the internet. The “connection” aspect of the internet remains as important as ever – as we all saw during the COVID pandemic.

What else do we want to preserve? Privacy. A New Yorker cartoon joke in 1993 stated that “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. Now everyone – especially advertisers – wants to know who you are. To quote the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, one of the tenets of privacy is “to be able to control who can see or use information about you”.

At the very least, we want to control what big tech knows about us, especially if they could stand to profit from it.

Can we ever go back?
We can’t control “a changin’” times, but we can keep as much of the good parts as we can.

For starters, we can vote with our feet. Users can enact change and bring awareness to problems on existing platforms. In recent times, we have seen this with the exodus of users from X (formerly Twitter) to other platforms, and the platform-wide protest against Reddit for changing its third-party data access policies.

However, voting with our feet is only possible when there’s competition. In the case of X, various other platforms – from Mastodon to Threads to Bluesky – enable users to pick one that aligns with their preferences, values and social circles. Search engines have alternatives, too, such as DuckDuckGo or Ecosia.

But competition can only be created by moving to decentralized systems and removing monopolies. This actually happened in the early days of the internet during the 1990s “browser wars”, when Microsoft was eventually accused of illegally monopolizing the web browser market in a landmark court case.

As users of technology, all of us must remain vigilant about threats to our privacy and knowledge. With cheap and ubiquitous generative AI, misleading content and scams are more realistic as ever.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/internet-cesspool-how-we-fix-it/?nab=0

Did Earth once look a lot more like Saturn? Scientists believe the answer is yes! In a groundbreaking study, researchers in Australia are proposing that Earth may have once sported its own spectacular ring system.

This provocative idea, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, offers a novel explanation for a puzzling period in our planet’s history known as the Ordovician impact spike. Around 466 million years ago, Earth experienced an unusual surge in asteroid impacts that lasted for about 40 million years. During this time, the planet was bombarded by space rocks at a rate far higher than normal. Until now, scientists struggled to explain why this happened and why it stopped.

The research team, led by Professor Andy Tomkins from Monash University, presents a compelling hypothesis: a large asteroid had a close encounter with Earth, broke apart due to our planet’s gravitational forces, and formed a temporary ring of debris around the equator.

This ring, they suggest, gradually decayed over millions of years, periodically dropping fragments onto Earth’s surface. These fragments would have created the numerous impact craters we’ve observed from that time period.

What makes this theory particularly intriguing is the distribution of these ancient impact craters. The researchers found that all known craters from the Ordovician period are located within 30 degrees of the equator. This pattern is highly unlikely to occur by chance if the impactors were coming randomly from the asteroid belt.

“Over millions of years, material from this ring gradually fell to Earth, creating the spike in meteorite impacts observed in the geological record,” says Prof. Tomkins in a media release. “We also see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain extraordinary amounts of meteorite debris.”

To test their hypothesis, the scientists used advanced statistical methods and plate tectonic reconstructions. They calculated that the probability of this impact distribution along the equator happening randomly was extremely low – about one in 25 million.

The implications of this celestial ring extend beyond just explaining the impact spike. The researchers speculate that it may have had significant effects on Earth’s climate. Much like how Saturn’s rings cast shadows on its surface, Earth’s ring could have shaded parts of the planet, potentially triggering a major global cooling event known as the Hirnantian Ice Age.

This cooling period, which saw global temperatures plummet by about eight degrees Celsius (over 14 degrees Fahrenheit), has long puzzled scientists because it occurred despite high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The presence of a debris ring could help explain this paradox.

Moreover, the researchers suggest that the ring’s eventual dissipation might account for the rapid warming that followed the Ice Age. As the ring thinned and disappeared, more sunlight would have reached Earth’s surface, potentially causing temperatures to rise.

“The idea that a ring system could have influenced global temperatures adds a new layer of complexity to our understanding of how extra-terrestrial events may have shaped Earth’s climate,” Prof. Tomkins adds.

While more evidence is needed to confirm this hypothesis, it opens up exciting new avenues for research in planetary science and paleoclimatology. If confirmed, it would mean that Earth once had its own ring, joining the ranks of the gas giants in our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus) – if only for a geological blink of an eye.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/earth-had-a-ring-like-saturn/?nab=0

Lauren Sánchez is being sued for allegedly stealing the concept of her new children’s book, “The Fly Who Flew to Space,” according to a complaint obtained by Page Six and filed by her ex-yoga teacher Tuesday.

Alanna Zabel — who says she taught Sánchez privately from 2007 to 2011 — alleges that she engaged in “oral and written discussions spanning sixteen years” with the former reporter about her book idea.

The yoga instructor claimed in the complaint that it was in 2022, though, that she laid out a “specific” concept about a “cat who flies to Mars” for her children’s book, titled, “Dharma Kitty Goes to Mars.”

Zabel claims that she also reached out to Sánchez’s fiancé, Jeff Bezos, about “giving proceeds of sales from the book to Bezos Earth Fund and Bezos Academy.”

Although the yoga teacher did not confirm whether she ever made contact with the Amazon founder, 60, she claims his personal assistant told her, “Mr. Bezos’ received her email,” giving her reassurance.

Zabel says in the complaint that she was “trusting her with the intellectual property and concept” despite Sánchez, 54, allegedly showing her “continual and outrageous acts of jealousy” in the past.

“The actions of defendant constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress as they were extreme and outrageous, carried out with the intent to harm plaintiff, driven by personal jealousy, and a personal desire to posture publicly as ‘philanthropic and caring,’” the yogi argues herself as she filed without an attorney.

“In a nutshell, defendant has always demonstrated a desire to appear like plaintiff, an authentic, independent, free-spirited, hard working and public service oriented yoga instructor.”

This is not the first time Zabel has threatened to take legal action against Sánchez, as the instructor fired off a cease-in-desist letter back in March when the media personality first announced her new book.

Sánchez wrote via Instagram at the time, “I still can’t believe it!!! I’m so so excited to share the cover of my first children’s book, ‘The Fly Who Flew to Space.’

“I’m beyond grateful b/c this story holds a piece of my heart. It’s a celebration of overcoming challenges, the joy of learning, and dreaming beyond the stars.”

“The The Fly Who Flew to Space” was officially released on Sept. 10, and Sánchez has maintained in her press tour that she has a deep personal connection to the book’s storyline.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/09/18/celebrity-news/lauren-sanchez-sued-by-former-yoga-instructor-over-childrens-book/

Oprah Winfrey paid a fortune to Apple TV + chiefs to buy back the rights to a documentary about her life, Page Six can reveal.

Apple announced with great fanfare Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald would be directing the documentary about the talk show host turned media mogul back in 2021.

However, sources tell Page Six that Macdonald, who teamed up with Winfrey’s longtime producer Lisa Erspamer on the project, had clashed with the 70-year-old billionaire after he finished the film, and it’s been on hold ever since.

“Kevin made the film, but Oprah didn’t like it and he refused to change it, and Oprah has paid back her fee to Apple,” a well-placed Hollywood source told us.

A spokesperson for Winfrey — who ended her content deal with Apple in September 2022 —confirmed to Page Six, “As the Apple TV+ deal was coming to an end, Ms. Winfrey bought back the rights to her docu-series and has since decided to put the doc on hold.

“Ms. Winfrey believes Lisa Erspamer and Kevin MacDonald are incredibly talented filmmakers and is grateful for the time and energy they put into the project.”

A source in Winfrey’s camp insisted Macdonald did not refuse to make edits and Winfrey simply decided “it wasn’t the right time to do a documentary,” before making the unusual move of buying it back.

Reps for MacDonald didn’t respond to a request for comment.

While industry sources speculated Winfrey would have to pay millions to get the rights to the documentary back, a source in the know denied it was in the seven figures.

Macdonald had met Erspamer when they previously worked on Whitney Houston biographical doc “Whitney”.

Erspamer produced “The Oprah Winfrey Show” between 1999 and 2009 and is a longtime pal of the presenter.

An Apple TV + rep was unavailable for comment.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/09/18/celebrity-news/oprah-winfrey-pays-millions-to-apple-to-ban-documentary/

Milan designers dipped into neutrals and muted tones for next summer — reflecting both a conservative streak in troubled times and a move toward thoughtful production of garments that can anchor any wardrobe.

Boss revamped its trademark suiting with a more relaxed, even deconstructed, vibe that can take men and women from day to after hours. Antonio Marras created joyous silhouettes that hearkened to the 1950s, an era long depicted as fun and carefree. Even Roberto Cavalli opened with white, ivory and ecru cotton dresses before exploding, inevitably, into bright hues.

Here are some highlights from runway preview shows Wednesday, the second day of Milan Fashion Week of mostly womenswear for Spring-Summer 2025:

Supermodels pay homage to Cavalli
A cadre of 1990s and 2000s supermodels, including Eva Herzigova, Joan Smalls and Alex Wek, ramped up the energy at the Roberto Cavalli show wearing vintage gowns in tribute to the late designer.

During the finale, Cavalli designer Fausto Puglisi plucked Cavalli’s widow and longtime collaborator, Eva Cavalli, from the front row, and the supermodels took her in a warm embrace. Arm-in-arm, they walked backstage, wearing archival looks bearing Cavalli hallmarks: bright asymmetrical animal print gowns, deep, leg-baring slits, black leather, chiffon and feathers.

“For the first fashion week without Roberto, I wanted to involve Eva to celebrate through what I consider seven iconic pieces from the archives, involving the women who most represented Cavalli’s glorious period,’’ Puglisi said backstage. Cavalli died in April at age 83.

While paying homage to the Cavalli heritage, Puglisi’s runway collection aimed to push the brand to a younger generation. He already has done significant outreach in that direction by dressing Taylor Swift during the Eras tour in an ever-shifting color combination of Cavalli bejeweled and sequined mini-skirts and bustier combos.

“Today’s woman is not the woman of 25 years ago. She is very independent, she knows when she wants to be sexy and when she wants to be covered. Above all, she doesn’t need the judgment of men,’’ Puglisi said.

The collection progressed from cotton and linen seaside dresses with cutouts and rope detailing and elaborate macrame weaves to slinky skirts and dresses in fiery sunset and volcano prints, finishing with body-hugging gowns in bright hues or covered in crystals.

Backstage, Eva Cavalli praised Puglisi for his “great work to continue our legacy.”

Naomi Campbell walks for Del Core
German-born Milan-based designer Daniel Del Core launched his first all ready-to-wear collection, but he left room for one couture piece, modeled by Naomi Campbell.

Del Core, a Gucci alum who launched his brand during the pandemic, said he had been exchanging Instagram messages with the supermodel, when she said she wanted to wear his creations.

“I thought it was a joke,’’ Del Core said backstage. But there she was, closing the show in a white gown with a satin bustier, long skirt trailing.

The ready-to-wear collection was inspired by women scientists who in turn take inspiration from female writers, smart women who want to be smart dressers. Del Core created for her a translucent lab coat that was reinterpreted throughout the collection, paired with protective shoe coverings, and latex gloves in bubblegum pink or bright blue against otherwise soft palette.

Eveningwear had some couture touches, like pleating that framed the neckline and anchored draping sleeves. Del Core said he will break out couture with a presentation in Paris in January.

Boss out of office
Boss designer Marco Falcioni is sending a message to the fashion universe: Get out of the office.

“Being the boss means taking time off to rest. Resting is the ultimate luxury,’’ Falcioni, senior vice president of creative direction at the German brand, said backstage.

To encourage a better work-life balance in a frenetic world, Falcioni has relaxed the business suit, subtracting shoulder pads and jacket linings, and layering generously, for a less button-down vibe.

Trousers for men were at times cut off just below the knee, and for women cuffed to a cropped length. Worried about a summer chill? Then layer with leggings. Drawstring detailing on trousers and blouses gave the garments technical functionality. Women’s jackets wrapped prettily around the middle. Flat or heeled mules finished the looks, for him and her. A neutral color palette was offset by muted shades of green and blue.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/milan-fashion-week-boss-marras-cavalli-541434fd76e27978ae0f6d9d34a24897#

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized Republican Donald Trump ‘s promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally, questioning whether he would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry it out.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference that the nation can find both a pathway to citizenship for those who want to come and at the same time secure the border.

“We can do both, and we must do both,” she said.

Trump, for his part, leaned heavily on his alarmist message on immigration as he held a rally in Uniondale on New York’s Long Island, focusing the bulk of his remarks on the subject.

“We’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot,” Trump said.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday said the kingdom would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people.

“The kingdom will not stop its tireless work towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and we affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without that,” the crown prince, known as MbS, said.

After the eruption of war last October between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice U.S.-backed plans for the kingdom to normalise ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year, in a swift reordering of its diplomatic priorities.

Source: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-not-recognise-israel-152438198.html?guccounter=1

Demi Moore became the highest paid female actor in the world when she landed a $12.5 million payday for 1996’s “Striptease,” and that’s when the backlash against her started. During a discussion on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast while promoting “The Substance,” the actor recalled people trying to tear her down as soon as she started making money that rivaled male actors.

“Well, with ‘Striptease,’ it was as if I had betrayed women, and with ‘G.I. Jane,’ it was as if I had betrayed men,” Moore said. “But I think the interesting piece is that when I became the highest-paid actress — why is it that, at that moment, the choice was to bring me down? I don’t take this personally. I think anyone who had been in the position that was the first to get that kind of equality of pay would probably have taken a hit. But because I did a film that was dealing with the world of stripping and the body, I was extremely shamed.”

Moore was married to fellow mega-star Bruce Willis at the time of her “Striptease” payday, and while she never compared her career to his she was aware of the salaries he was making for his films and thought it was totally fair to be making what she earned on “Striptease.”

“It wasn’t about comparing myself to him. Yes, I saw what he got paid,” Moore said. “It was really more about: ‘Why shouldn’t I? If I’m doing the same amount of work, why shouldn’t I?’ And it’s no different than when I did the cover for Vanity Fair pregnant. I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, why women when they were pregnant needed to be hidden? Why is it that we have to deny that we had sex? That’s the fear, right, that if you show your belly, that means, oh, my gosh, you’ve had sex.”

During a recent cover story for Variety, Moore said landing her record-breaking “Striptease” salary was “so powerful for me because it wasn’t just about me; it was about changing the playing field for all women. But because I was portraying a stripper, I betrayed women.”

Source: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/demi-moore-highest-paid-actress-backlash-1236146119/

Last week, the Indian government announced that Russia had discharged dozens of the 91 Indians who were duped into fighting for Russian forces in the country’s war with Ukraine. Several of them have since returned home, while the process to bring others back is under way. The BBC’s Neyaz Farooquee spoke to some of the men about their struggles.

“I am in panic. I am not sure if I will return safely or in a box. Please save me.”
This is the message Urgen Tamang, a former Indian soldier, sent to the BBC from outside a southern Ukrainian city, a few days before he was discharged from the frontlines in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which entered its third year this February.
Mr Tamang is among the 91 Indians who were forced into fighting in the war. Most of them are from poor families and were lured by agents with the promise of money and jobs, sometimes as “helpers” in the Russian army.
Instead, they were sent to the war zone. Many of them said they were stationed in parts of Ukraine under Russian control, where they had to navigate landmines, drones, missiles and sniper attacks with little to no military training.
Nine Indians have died in the conflict so far and Indian authorities say they have arrested 19 people for human trafficking.
In July, Russia promised an early release of all Indians fighting in its army, following a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow, during which he raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. The two countries have traditionally shared a warm relationship.
Forty-five of them have been discharged since then. Some have safely returned home, while others like Mr Tamang are on their way.

Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people.

Both attacks, which are widely believed to be carried out by Israel, have hiked fears that the two sides’ simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war. This week’s explosions have also deepened concerns about the scope of potentially-compromised devices, particularly after such bombings have killed or injured so many civilians.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened across these two waves of attacks?

On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously in parts of Lebanon as well as Syria. The attack killed at least 12 people — including two young children — and wounded thousands more.

Hand-held radios used by armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south in the country’s deadliest day since cross-border fighting erupted between the militants and Israel nearly a year ago, stoking tensions after similar explosions of the group’s pagers the day before.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in Beirut’s suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, while the death toll from Tuesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

Israeli officials have not commented on the blasts, but security sources said Israel’s spy agency Mossad was responsible. One Hezbollah official said the episode was the biggest security breach in the group’s history.
The operations, which appeared to throw Hezbollah into disarray, played out alongside Israel’s 11-month-old war in Gaza and heightened fears of an escalation on its Lebanese border and the risk of a full-blown regional war.

At least one of Wednesday’s blasts in Lebanon took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of the group’s pagers exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.

A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking batteries out of any walkie-talkies that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels. Hezbollah turned to pagers and other low-tech communication devices in an attempt to evade Israeli surveillance of mobile phones.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it responded with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas, including the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies showed labels bearing the name of Japanese radio communications and telephone company ICOM (6208.T), opens new tab and resembled the firm’s model IC-V82 device.

Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed ICOM said on Thursday it was investigating news reports two-way radio devices bearing its logo exploded in Lebanon and would release updated information as it becomes available on its website.

The company, which says it manufactures all of its radios in Japan, could not confirm whether it had shipped the device, in part because that model had been discontinued 10 years ago.

The Osaka-based firm said its products for overseas markets are sold exclusively through authorised distributors and it vets exports in accordance with Japan’s security trade control regulations.

The company has previously warned about counterfeit versions of its devices circulating in the market, especially discontinued models.

The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time as the pagers, a security source said.

In Tuesday’s explosions, sources said Israeli spies remotely detonated explosives they planted in a Hezbollah order of 5,000 pagers before they entered the country.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Friday about the pager blasts after a request by Arab states.

Tehran’s ambassador in Lebanon was superficially injured in Tuesday’s blasts, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported then. But the New York Times on Wednesday said he lost one eye and the other was severely injured when a pager he was carrying exploded, citing two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Iran’s envoy to the U.N. said in a letter on Wednesday that it “reserves its rights under international law to take required measures deemed necessary to respond” to the attack.

HEZBOLLAH LAUNCHES ROCKETS

Hezbollah, which has vowed to retaliate against Israel, said on Wednesday it attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts. The Israeli military said there were no reports of any damage or casualties.

“Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of research at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “But given the scale … there will be pressure for a stronger response.”

The two sides have been fighting across the Lebanese border since the Gaza conflict erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East war that could drag in the United States and Iran. The previous highest daily Lebanese death toll was 11 who died in Israeli shelling last month, according to official counts.

Gallant said Israel, which has vowed to return evacuated residents to their homes in the north, was transferring troops and resources to the Lebanon border region. Israeli sources said this included the army’s 98th Division, which has commando and paratrooper formations, moving from Gaza to the north.

“The ‘centre of gravity’ is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” Gallant said in remarks released by his office.

A full-blown war with Israel could devastate Lebanon, which has lurched from one crisis to another, including a 2019 financial collapse and the 2020 Beirut port blast.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-explosives-hezbollahs-taiwan-made-pagers-say-sources-2024-09-18/

A federal judge has denied Sean “Diddy” Combs’ effort to be free until his trial on sex trafficking and other charges.

In an almost two hour hearing in a New York City courtroom, Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky agreed with the argument put forth by the U.S. Attorney’s office that Combs is a danger to the public and especially potential witness in the detailed case against him. After their client entered a not guilty plea in court earlier this afternoon, defense lawyers pitched a $50 million bond for Combs and in-home detention.

Judge Tarnofsky wasn’t buying it.

Militant group Hezbollah promised to retaliate against Israel after accusing it of detonating pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others who included fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the late-afternoon detonation of the pagers – handheld devices that Hezbollah and others in Lebanon use to send messages – as an “Israeli aggression”. Hezbollah said Israel would receive “its fair punishment” for the blasts.

The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war in October, declined to respond to questions about the detonations.
The death toll rose from eight to nine on Tuesday night while the number of injured remained at 2,750, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Hezbollah confirmed in an earlier statement that the deaths included at least two of its fighters and a young girl.

The pagers exploded in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh and the eastern Bekaa Valley – all Hezbollah strongholds.
In one instance, closed-circuit surveillance video carried by regional broadcasters showed a person paying at a grocery store as what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to the cashier exploded.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident was the “biggest security breach” for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.

The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is waging war with Israel in Gaza, said the pager blasts were an “escalation” that will only lead Israel to “failure and defeat”.
UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert deplored the attack in a statement and said it “marked an extremely concerning escalation” in the conflict.
Washington said it was not involved in the explosions and did not know who was responsible. The U.S. renewed calls for a diplomatic solution to tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
It urged Iran – which with its allies Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq has formed an “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and U.S. influence – not to take advantage of any incident to raise instability.
Without commenting directly on the explosions in Lebanon, an Israeli military spokesman said the chief of staff, Major General Herzi Halevi, met with senior officers on Tuesday evening to assess the situation. No policy change was announced but “vigilance must continue to be maintained”, he said.
Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages.

MANY INJURED

In a year marked by financial worries and political tension, a new survey has uncovered the staggering impact of stress on everyday Americans. The average person feels their head “spinning” from stress a whopping 156 times per year, translating to about three times a week.

This alarming statistic is just one of many eye-opening findings from a recent study conducted by Talker Research for Traditional Medicinals. The survey, which polled 2,000 adults, also found that 41% of respondents are currently experiencing their peak stress levels for the year.

Even more concerning, Americans say they experience brain fog with the same frequency as stress headaches – three times a week. While 30% of those surveyed remain hopeful that their stress levels will decrease by year’s end, a quarter (26%) fear their stress might actually increase. Despite these high stress levels, a surprising 45% of respondents have never taken a mental health day or sick day from work solely due to stress.

2024: A Year of Heightened Stress
Comparing stress levels to previous years, 38% of survey participants believe that 2024 has been more stressful than 2023, although it’s been less stressful than 2022 and prior years. The primary sources of anxiety this year include finances (35%), the economy (28%), physical health (25%), the 2024 presidential election (20%), and other world issues (19%).

“With cold and flu season approaching, self-care and stress management are more important than ever. Half of those surveyed believe that stress is often the main cause of them getting sick, and when asked what season is most stressful, the highest percentage of respondents (26%) said winter given seasonal changes and the holidays,” says Kristel Corson, chief marketing officer at Traditional Medicinals, in a statement.

Americans also noted various signs that reveal they’re stressed, including trouble sleeping (42%), irritability (37%), fatigue (34%), headaches (33%), and feeling worried or paranoid (31%). To combat stress, many turn to music (47%) or seek comfort in favorite TV shows and movies (39%). Some find solace in snacking (17%) or enjoying a cup of tea (14%).

A staggering 71% of respondents agree that their overall mental health would improve if they could reduce their stress levels. However, incorporating self-care strategies into daily life remains a challenge for one in seven Americans. Nearly half (47%) express a desire for simple stress-reduction options that fit into their busy schedules rather than elaborate routines. When considering a “de-stressing regimen,” respondents are equally split between wanting long-term overall wellness and the ability to alleviate stress quickly (23% each).

“We believe in integrating ancient herbal wisdom with modern scientific advancements for a holistic approach to wellness,” Corson says. “Just 37 percent of survey respondents think that trendy stress relief options are successful, while nearly half felt confident in more traditional methods like yoga, meditation, or a calming tea.”

Source: https://studyfinds.org/americans-at-peak-stress-now/?nab=0

A Cape Air flight from Boston to Maine landed safely on what appeared to be one wheel after a landing gear problem forced the small plane to return to Logan Airport Tuesday.

Flight 1833 to Bar Harbor had three people on board. Cape Air said the pilot “was alerted to a landing gear anomaly shortly after take-off.”

Just after 3:15 p.m., the Cessna 402 returned to Logan with emergency crews standing by. WBZ-TV’s helicopter captured the landing on video.

After touching down on the runway, the small plane skidded to a halt near the grass. The people on board were able to walk out of the plane on their own.

A representative for the airline says one of the passengers was a Cape Air trainee. No one onboard was hurt.

“Not easy to do”

WBZ spoke to a commercial pilot about the incident. He says this kind of landing gear issue is incredibly rare, but the pilot was ready.

Scientists have found a planet where they believe ancient oceans once flowed, massive volcanoes towered above the landscape, and mysterious structures are hidden beneath the surface. This isn’t some strange world in deep space — astronomers say these amazing discoveries are actually waiting for us on Mars!

A new study is giving us a peek beneath the Red Planet’s dusty exterior. The findings, presented at the Europlanet Science Congress in Berlin, reveal a treasure trove of dense, large-scale structures that have scientists scratching their heads.

“These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts,” explains Dr. Bart Root from Delft University of Technology, in a media release.

In other words, these hidden features could be the remnants of long-extinct volcanoes or the scars left by massive space rocks crashing into Mars billions of years ago. According to the researchers, however, that’s where things get really interesting.

“There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap – one of which resembles the shape of a dog,” Dr. Root adds.

How did scientists spot these invisible marvels?
Researchers used a clever technique that measures tiny changes in the orbits of satellites circling Mars. These minuscule deviations are caused by variations in the planet’s gravity field, which in turn are influenced by the distribution of mass beneath the surface.

By combining this gravity data with information from NASA’s InSight mission about Mars’ crust and interior, the researchers created a global density map of the planet. This map revealed that the mysterious northern features are significantly denser than their surroundings – about 300-400 kilograms per cubic meter denser, to be precise.

The study didn’t just uncover hidden structures in the north. It also shed new light on one of Mars’ most famous features: Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in our solar system.

Olympus Mons is part of a region called Tharsis Rise, a massive volcanic plateau that towers above the Martian landscape. Scientists have long wondered how such an enormous structure could exist, and this new research may have found the answer.

The team discovered evidence of a massive, low-density region deep within Mars, about 1,750 kilometers across and 1,100 kilometers below the surface. This blob of lighter material could be a enormous plume of molten rock, slowly rising towards the surface and giving the entire Tharsis region a “boost” upwards.

“The NASA InSight mission has given us vital new information about the hard outer layer of Mars,” Dr. Root explains. “This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the Olympus Mons volcano and its surroundings. It shows that Mars might still have active movements happening inside it, affecting and possibly making new volcanic features on the surface.”

In other words, Mars might not be the geologically “dead” world we once thought it was. There could still be dynamic processes at work deep within the planet, shaping its surface and potentially even creating new volcanic features.

These exciting discoveries are just the beginning. Scientists are already planning new missions to explore Mars’ hidden wonders in even greater detail. One such proposal is the Martian Quantum Gravity (MaQuls) mission, which aims to map the planet’s gravity field with unprecedented precision.

“Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars. This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs,” explains Dr. Lisa Wörner from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

As scientists continue to unravel the mysteries of Mars, each new discovery brings us closer to understanding not just our neighboring planet but the formation and evolution of rocky worlds throughout the universe. From hidden “dog-shaped” structures to colossal volcanoes getting a boost from deep within, Mars continues to surprise and captivate us, proving that there’s still so much to learn about the Red Planet.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/hidden-structures-mars/?nab=0

Donald Trump’s bid to become a ‘crypto bro’ has got off to a bad start as the 78-year-old couldn’t answer simple questions during a live X Spaces.

Donald Trump has struggled in a ‘painful’ interview on cryptocurrency – and he kept trying to change the topic.

The former president has spoken about changing the ‘old’ financial system and moving to cryptocurrency during an X Spaces interview from Mar-A-Lago, just one day after a gunman was detained by police after attempted assassination.

Trump, who recently revealed ownership of over $1 million in cryptocurrency and earnings of $300,000 from sales of branded Bibles, spoke to social media influencer and entrepreneur Farokh Sarmad, who has 3m followers on his @goodlife Instagram page.

When asked why it’s so important for America to lead in crypto adoption, he replied: “It’s so important. It’s crypto. It’s AI. It’s so many other things. AI needs tremendous electrictiy capabilities beyond anything I ever heard.”

A man suspected of hiding for nearly 12 hours in an apparent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course was charged with two gun-related crimes on Monday, a day after authorities say he was spotted in the bushes with a rifle as the former U.S. president played nearby.
The suspect never had the Republican presidential candidate for the Nov. 5 election in his line of sight and did not fire any shots. But the incident raised questions about how an armed man was able to get so close to Trump, just two months after another gunman grazed his ear with a bullet during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“All of a sudden we heard shots being fired in the air. I guess probably four or five,” Trump said during an event on X Spaces. “Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets, and they grabbed me. … We got into the carts and we moved along pretty, pretty good. I was with an agent, and the agent did a fantastic job.”

While praising the Secret Service agents, he added: “We do need more people on my detail.”

The gunman fled in a sports utility vehicle, according to court papers on Monday. Officers found a loaded assault-style rifle with a scope, a digital camera and a plastic bag of food left behind.
A suspect, identified on Monday as Ryan Routh, 58, was arrested about 40 minutes later driving north on Interstate 95. The license plate on his vehicle had been reported stolen from another car.
Records show a phone associated with Routh was located at the golf course starting at 1:59 a.m. (0559 GMT) on Sunday morning, 11-1/2 hours before the incident.
The suspect was on the “public side” of a fence along the golf course’s boundary, Rowe said.
Routh was the subject of a 2019 tip to the FBI alleging that he was a convicted felon who illegally possessed a firearm, Jeffrey Veltri, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, told reporters.
The complainant was unable to verify the information when the FBI investigated the tip, Veltri said.
GUN CHARGES
Routh made a brief appearance in federal court in West Palm Beach on Monday, where he was charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More charges could follow.
The defendant invoked his right to an attorney when investigators sought to question him, Rowe said.
In 2002, Routh pleaded guilty in North Carolina to possession of an unregistered fully automatic gun, defined in state law as a weapon of mass destruction, according to the county district attorney’s office, and was sentenced to probation. He was also convicted of possessing stolen goods in 2010.

Trump’s campaign schedule will remain unchanged, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Trump blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, for the apparent assassination attempt. He claimed the suspected gunman was acting on Democrats’ “highly inflammatory language,” though authorities have not yet offered evidence of any motive.

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said, according to Fox.

Democrats including Biden have repeatedly called Trump a danger to democracy, citing among other things his refusal to acknowledge his 2020 election defeat, which inspired the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Trump himself repeatedly uses incendiary rhetoric and false statements about his political opponents and, recently, Haitian immigrants.

Both Biden and Harris decried the incident, and Biden also spoke with Trump on Monday.

“President Biden just spoke with former President Trump, and conveyed his relief that he is safe. The two shared a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call,” the White House said in a statement.

Trump, in a statement, called it a “very nice call.”

SECRET SERVICE UNDER PRESSURE

The Secret Service, which protects U.S. presidents, presidential candidates and other high-level dignitaries, has been under intense scrutiny since the earlier attempt on Trump’s life.

That led to the resignation of Director Kimberly Cheatle. The service bolstered Trump’s security detail following the July 13 attack, in which the gunman was shot dead by responding agents.

The agency “needs more help,” including possibly more personnel, Biden told reporters on Monday, adding: “Thank God the president’s OK.”

House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who convened a bipartisan task force to investigate the first assassination attempt, told Fox News that Congress would also examine the latest incident, saying, “We need accountability.”

Rowe, who took over after Cheatle’s resignation in July, told Congress on July 30 he was “ashamed” of security lapses in the earlier attack.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-safe-after-new-assassination-attempt-thwarted-florida-golf-course-2024-09-16/

Floodwater surged into homes, stranded vehicles and forced water rescues in coastal North Carolina on Monday after a tropical storm-like system dumped historic amounts of rain in a matter of hours.

“It’s probably the worst flooding that any of us have seen in Carolina Beach,” Town Manager Bruce Oakley told CNN of the tourist town not far from Wilmington. “We’ve had to rescue people from cars, also some from houses and businesses.”

Emergency services fielded dozens of calls for rescue, Oakley added.

Carolina Beach was placed under a state of emergency Monday after a “historic” 18 inches of rain fell there in 12 hours at one station, a once-in-1,000-year rainfall event, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington. More than a foot of rain in 12 hours was reported elsewhere in the area, a once-in-200-year rain event.

Carolina Beach Elementary School was closed and students were dismissed early after classrooms started to flood, Oakley confirmed. Law enforcement and fire crews helped take some children home as some routes to the school were impassible due to the flooding, with roads under 3 feet of water.

The owner of The Fat Pelican in Carolina Beach told CNN affiliate WWAY he didn’t have time to prepare for that much water.

“There’s water inside the building. I’m trying to get the stuff that was outside that floated away,” Michael McLaughlin explained. But, he said he was optimistic that after the storm passed he could take a garden hose, wash the inside of the restaurant thoroughly and they’d “be ready to go again.”

Lisa and Gary Hollon have had a home in Kure Beach, about 3 miles south of Carolina Beach, for nearly 15 years and never experienced flooding until Monday.

The winds and rain picked up in the early hours of the morning and the first floor of their home experienced “sudden flooding of 4 to 6 inches,” Lisa Hollon told CNN.

“We were not prepared and have never flooded before,” she said. “Many cars were unexpectedly flooded in driveways and along roads.”

In video shared with CNN, the road outside of the home is covered by water as vehicles slowly drive by, causing ripples.

Flooding also ramped up in neighboring Brunswick County where rainfall rates exceeded 4 to 5 inches per hour for a time Monday. The town of Sunny Point picked up more than a month’s worth of rain when over 9 inches fell in just three hours.

“Our deputies are assisting multiple people who are stranded in their vehicles and some homes at this time,” the Brunswick County Sheriff’s office said on Facebook.

The city of Southport posted on Facebook on Monday afternoon that a shelter-in-place order was in effect and later added there was a curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Surfboarder rescues neighbor’s pup
In the Brunswick County, North Carolina, community of Supply, Timothy Turner used his surfboard to travel after the road next to his house was destroyed by flooding. In some areas, the water would have been over his head.

After Supply – about 10 miles from Holden Beach – was hit by intense rain, Turner offered to help a neighbor whose dog was stuck at home on the other side of the road.

“I crossed it with my surfboard, sank down into the mud, went to her house, got her dog and brought it back across,” said Turner, who runs a surfing school and assists with ocean rescues since the area doesn’t have lifeguards.

“I’ve gotten 25 rescues out of the rip currents in the last eight years but that was the first time I ever got a dog up with a surfboard.”

The extreme rainfall and flooding is another stark reminder that it doesn’t take a named storm to trigger extremely dangerous conditions. The atmosphere was ripe to unload torrential rainfall, something that’s becoming more common as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution.

Floodwaters started to recede in Carolina Beach early Monday afternoon as torrential rain shifted west of the area, according to Oakley. But cars abandoned during the worst of the flooding remained on empty roadways, according to town mayor Lynn Barbee.

Storm is weakening and forecast is improving
Tropical storm warnings for the coastal Carolinas have been discontinued as of Monday evening, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The system was called Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight because it wasn’t organized enough to be dubbed a tropical or subtropical storm.

“Continued weakening is expected during the next day or so, and the low is forecast to dissipate over the Carolinas by early Wednesday,” forecasters said.

A system’s center is typically where its strongest winds and its heaviest rain occur, but that’s not the case for Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight. Most of the system’s heaviest rain and gusty winds are far removed from its poorly defined center, satellite imagery shows.

The center of the system came ashore Monday evening near the South Carolina-North Carolina state line, with southeast North Carolina still enduring most of the storm’s significant impacts.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/16/weather/tropical-storm-helene-south-north-carolina-climate/index.html

Emily Gold was a part of the Los Osos High School dance team, a dance troupe that reached the quarterfinals of the hit talent competition America’s Got Talent

A school in California has been shaken up by the untimely death of a popular student that happened shortly after her dance group impressed judges on America’s Got Talent.

AGT star Emily Gold was found dead under a bridge on the eastbound 210 Highway in Rancho Cucamonga close to midnight on Friday. Many callers contacted the California Highway Patrol after seeing Emily on the road east of Haven Avenue. A spokesman for CHP revealed that numerous cars hit her body by the time officers showed up, and at least one failed to stop. Emily’s death is being treated as a suicide by the San Bernardino Coroner’s Office, according to the Daily Mail.

The talent competition contestant was a part of the Los Osos High School dance team that reached the quarterfinals of America’s Got Talent.

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Los Osos High School announced the news of the school senior’s death through a message shared to students on Saturday.

“Emily was on both our Varsity Dance Team and Varsity cheer squad, our thoughts and prayer are with the family as they grieve,” Los Osos High School Principal Eric Cypher said in a written statement. “Please keep Emily and her loved ones and friends in your thoughts and prayers.”

A GoFundMe campaign launched for Emily’s death is halfway to its $50,000 target. Many of Emily’s friends have taken to social media to pay tribute to the dancer.

“Let it be known that she now rests easy although there were many that loved Emily Gold and even looked up to her,” Samantha Shaw commented on Facebook. “She will be remembered none the less by her fellow Grizzlies and by those who loved her with all their heart and soul.”

Samantha added: “Emily Gold, thank you for all that you have done in this world. You have done more than enough. Claws up to you Emily. Claws up.”

Dance team member Mia Bustamante said that Emily would be “missed beyond words” in a post on Instagram.

“You brought me the most beautiful form of love I could ask for. My best friend, my forever dance sister,” Mia said in the post.

Source: https://www.themirror.com/entertainment/tv/americas-talent-star-emily-gold-698019

Billionaire Elon Musk sent out a controversial post on Sunday following the attempted assassination on former President Donald Trump.

Following the attempted assassination on the GOP nominee, Musk took to X, formerly twitter, where he claimed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have not had to face assassination attempts.

On Sunday, Secret Service shot at a man who was hiding in a bush at the property line of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club. The individual had a rifle, two backpacks, and Gopro camera.

A user called Doge Designer asked on X, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” Musk responded to the post by claiming, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”

The tweet incited rage from users across the site, including The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, who called his comments “appalling and indefensible.”

Source: https://www.mediaite.com/news/appalling-and-indefensible-elon-musk-incites-rage-online-after-claiming-no-one-is-trying-to-assassinate-biden-kamala/

Deadline can reveal that Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron has purchased the rights to Charles Pellegrino‘s forthcoming book Ghosts of Hiroshima.

Cameron has committed to use that, and the 2015 Pellegrino book Last Train From Hiroshima, as the basis for a film he will shoot as soon as Avatar production permits. Cameron shared with Deadline that the two nonfiction books will be adapted into one “uncompromising theatrical film.” It will mark Cameron’s first non-Avatar film since 1997’s Oscar-winning Titanic.

The film will be called Last Train From Hiroshima. Pellegrino’s Ghosts of Hiroshima will be published by Blackstone Publishing in August 2025. That marks the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb in 1945.

The film focuses in part on the true story of a Japanese man during World War II who survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima, got on a train to Nagasaki, and then survived the nuclear explosion in that city.

Both of Pellegrino’s books draw on the voices of bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology. Pellegrino writes in detail the event and aftermath of two days in August 1945, when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever. At the narrative core of both books are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand — the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. The bombs are estimated to have killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people.

“It’s a subject that I’ve wanted to do a film about, that I’ve been wrestling with how to do it, over the years,” Cameron told Deadline. “I met Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just days before he died. He was in the hospital. He was handing the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it.” While visiting Yamaguchi, Cameron and Pellegrino pledged to “pass on his unique and harrowing experience to future generations.”

Cameron’s fear of nuclear war, featured in several of his iconic films including The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, has been on his mind since watching the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold when he was 8 years old.

The publishing deal for the Cameron project was made by Shane Salerno at The Story Factory, who also served as Cameron’s co-screenwriter on Avatar: The Way of Water along with Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, as well as next year’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, and two additional Avatar sequels. Pellegrino, the author of more than 30 books, served as a science consultant to Cameron on Titanic and Avatar.

Blackstone CEO Josh Stanton said everyone at the imprint “is thrilled and honored to be the publisher of Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino, which will serve as part of the source material for James Cameron’s epic motion picture.”

Blackstone also published the audio book of Oppenheimer, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

Source: https://deadline.com/2024/09/james-cameron-new-movie-atomic-bomb-japanese-perspective-1236090198/

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.
In a decree published on the Kremlin’s website, Putin ordered the overall size of the armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the latest apparent attempt on his life, Mr Trump praised the Secret Service and said it was a “much better result” than the first assassination attempt in July.

Donald Trump has described being grabbed by Secret Service agents after “four or five” gunshots were heard during an apparent assassination attempt while he played golf.

The Republican presidential nominee described the events of Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach in Florida as “quite something” adding “but it all worked out well”.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, is facing federal gun charges after a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking through the bushes and opened fire on the suspect.

The Secret Service confirmed that the only shots fired in the incident were by its agent.

Speaking as part of a social media event hosted by X, Mr Trump said: “I was playing golf with some of my friends on a Sunday morning and very peaceful, very beautiful weather… and all of a sudden we heard shots being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five, and it sounded like bullets.

“The Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets, and they grabbed me… everybody just got into the [golf] carts, and we moved along.”

Praising the Secret Service for doing an “excellent job” he added: “There was no question that we were off that course.

“I would have loved to have sank that last putt, but we decided, [to] get out of [there].”

Mr Trump described the suspect as a “very dangerous person” who he hopes spends “a long time” behind bars.

The former president said the apparent attempt on his life was a “much better result” than the first assassination attempt at a rally in July, as no bystanders were wounded or killed.

“That was some crazy day, and yesterday you had another one with a different result, actually a much better result,” he said.

Trump’s golf round wasn’t meant to happen

Earlier on Monday, interim director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe Jr, explained that Mr Trump playing golf was an “off the record movement” and he “wasn’t supposed to have gone there” so agents did not have time to search the entire golf course.

Responding to calls for the Secret Service to heighten Mr Trump’s security, Mr Rowe said that he had spoken to the president and told him Mr Trump was “aware that he has the highest levels of protection” from the agency.

It comes after Mr Biden told reporters that it was “clear the service needs more help” and called on Congress to “respond to their needs”.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/trump-describes-being-grabbed-and-dashed-off-in-golf-cart-after-agents-fired-shots-at-golf-course-gunman-13216429

Facebook owner Meta says it is banning several Russian state media networks, alleging they use deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations and evade detection on its platforms.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said.
The bans are expected to come into effect in the next few days.
The Russian embassy in Washington, broadcaster RT, formerly Russia Today, and the owner of the Sputnik news agency, Rossiya Segodnya, did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment.
Russian state media outlets have come under increased scrutiny over claims they have tried to influence politics in Western countries.
As well as Facebook, social media giant Meta owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.
The move marks an escalation in world’s biggest social media firm’s stance towards Russian state media companies.
Two years ago, Meta took more limited measures to limit the spread of Russian state-controlled media, including stopping the outlets from running adverts on its platforms and limiting the reach of their content.
After the start of the war in Ukraine, Meta – like other social media platforms – complied with requests from the EU, UK, and Ukraine to block some Russian state media in those regions.
Earlier this month, the US accused state broadcaster RT of paying a Tennessee firm $10m (£7.6m) to “create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging”.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gllnx0p40o

“Chroming,” also known as “huffing” or “bagging,” has become a notorious – and potentially fatal – trend. Chroming is a form of recreational drug use that involves inhaling cheap and accessible but highly dangerous substances and solvents, such as deodorant aerosols, paints, and permanent markers. Sniffing the chemicals gives an immediate euphoric high – but it comes at enormous risk.

In March 2024, Tommie-Lee Gracie Billington, an 11-year-old boy, died in the UK after inhaling toxic chemicals in aerosols. His grandmother, Tina Burns, blamed the chroming craze on TikTok for his death.

In August, 12-year-old Cesar Watson-King survived a cardiac arrest during a chroming challenge for social media. In Australia, 13-year-old Esra Hayes died last year after inhaling chemicals from an aerosol deodorant can while at a friend’s sleepover.

As well as inducing a fast high, chroming can cause sudden death. Inhaling chemicals can lead to cardiac sensitization when the heart becomes more sensitive to adrenaline and other catecholamine compounds – hormones that help your body deal with stress. This can lead to life-threatening changes to the heart’s rhythm, causing it to beat irregularly (ventricular tachycardia) or abnormally fast (fibrillation). Resuscitation is rarely successful in these cases.

But that’s not all. Chroming can also lead to unintentional toxicity and asphyxiation, where the molecules of the chemical being inhaled displace oxygen from the lungs or prevent oxygen crossing into them. This can also prove fatal.

Inhaling dangerous substances is a terrible idea. Even if users survive the short-term risks, there are longer-term dangers from the lipophilic (fat-loving) properties of hydrocarbons in the inhalants, which can cross the blood-brain barrier.

As use continues, hydrocarbons can accumulate in the body and cause damage to the brain (neurotoxicity), which can lead to degeneration of brain cells and nerves.

Skull-breaking
Chroming isn’t the only potentially deadly social media craze. The aptly named “skull-breaker challenge” – when two people kick the legs from under a third person to make them fall over – has caused serious injuries in the US and UK.

Our skull has a unique construction, with flat bony plates protecting the brain. At the front, there is a “crumple zone” of many smaller bones or parts of bones that absorb facial impacts to protect the brain. Trauma to the face is not usually fatal unless the airway is compromised or important blood vessels are damaged.

But if someone falls and hits the back of their head, then there is only a relatively thin, flat bone protecting the brain. The impact of a fall isn’t usually immediately fatal – but the risks can come later. Delicate vessels inside the skull can rip and tear, causing internal bleeding. Over a few hours, as the size of the bleed increases, it can begin to compress the brain. If not diagnosed and treated, the brain bleed can cause the person to slip into a coma, suffer paralysis, and potentially die.

Blackout
The blackout challenge is a potentially fatal social media craze where people try to choke themselves until they pass out.

This trend has claimed the lives of at least two children. In 2019, 15-year-old Mason Bogard died after attempting the blackout challenge. In 2021, nine-year-old Arriani Arroyo also died after participating in the challenge on TikTok.

Choking limits blood supply to the brain and deprives the brain of oxygen, which causes people to blackout. But not everyone is able to re-open this blood supply after passing out.

People have different anatomical variations in their blood supply, and when passing out, there is no guarantee that the blood and oxygen supplies will be reinstated. This challenge can cause irreversible brain damage in minutes.

Unfortunately, despite the casualties, these trends keep cropping up on social media. It’s a good idea to educate children and teens about the harms of attempting them, so they don’t find out the risks for themselves.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/chroming-skull-breaking-tiktok/?nab=0

Monday was the first day of a hearing, expected to last two weeks, looking into the implosion of the Titan submersible.

One of the final messages from the Titan submersible crew said they were “all good here” before it imploded, killing all five on board.

British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood died alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ chief executive Stockton Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The five of them had been communicating with the Polar Prince support ship by text message, according to an animation presented by the US Coast Guard, shown on the first day of a hearing looking into the implosion.

The crew began to lose contact with those aboard the Polar Prince who repeatedly asked about the submersible’s depth and weight as it descended toward the wreck of the Titanic.

The Polar Prince also repeatedly asked if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

One of the Titan’s final responses, which became spotty as it descended deeper, was “all good here”.

The submersible made its final dive on 18 June 2023, losing contact with its support ship around two hours later.

Rescuers rushed ships, planes, and other equipment to an area around 435 miles (700km) south of St John’s, Newfoundland.

The search for the Titan attracted global attention and the wreckage was eventually found on the ocean floor around 300m from the Titanic wreckage, according to officials.

‘Uncover the facts’

The hearing in Charleston County, South Carolina, is expected to last two weeks.

It aims to “uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future”.

The rapper is facing a wave of lawsuits alleging sexual assault as well as an ongoing federal investigation.

Rapper turned music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been arrested, according to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

The 54-year-old was arrested at the Park Hyatt hotel in New York, a representative said, although it is unclear precisely on what charges.

SDNY attorney Damian Williams said it was “based on a sealed indictment” and is expecting to have more to say when the document is unsealed.

Combs’ lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said he was “disappointed” with the decision to “pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr Combs by the US Attorney’s Office”.

He added: “Diddy is an imperfect person but is not criminal. To his credit, Mr Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.

“Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”

His arrest comes amid a wave of lawsuits filed against him alleging sexual assault and an ongoing federal investigation.

A statement from the lawyers representing some of those who have made accusations against Combs said the “long awaited arrest is the first step for our clients receiving justice”.

“The evidence is very clear and it was only a matter of time,” the statement read. “This is an important step towards justice for all of Mr Combs’ victims including my clients. Justice will prevail.”

The federal investigation against the rapper was made public in March when agents executed search warrants at his properties in Los Angeles and Miami.

Investigators interviewed several people in relation to allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault and the solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms.

The warrant to search Combs’ properties came from the SDNY.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/sean-diddy-combs-arrested-in-new-york-amid-sex-trafficking-investigation-13216433

Neuroscientist Liz Chrastil got the unique chance to see how her brain changed while she was pregnant and share what she learned in a new study that offers the first detailed map of a woman’s brain throughout gestation.

The transition to motherhood, researchers discovered, affects nearly every part of the brain.

Although the study looks at only one person, it kicks off a large, international research project that aims to scan the brains of hundreds of women and could one day provide clues about disorders like postpartum depression.

“It’s been a very long journey,” said Chrastil, co-author of the paper published Monday in Nature Neuroscience. “We did 26 scans before, during and after pregnancy” and found “some really remarkable things.”

More than 80% of the regions studied had reductions in the volume of gray matter, where thinking takes place. This is an average of about 4% of the brain — nearly identical to a reduction that happens during puberty. While less gray matter may sound bad, researchers said it probably isn’t; it likely reflects the fine-tuning of networks of interconnected nerve cells called “neural circuits” to prepare for a new phase of life.

The team began following Chrastil — who works at the University of California, Irvine, and was 38 years old at the time — shortly before she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization.

During the pregnancy and for two years after she gave birth, they continued doing MRI brain scans and drawing blood to observe how her brain changed as sex hormones like estrogen ebbed and flowed. Some of the changes continued past pregnancy.

“Previous studies had taken snapshots of the brain before and after pregnancy, but we’ve never witnessed the brain in the midst of this metamorphosis,” said co-author Emily Jacobs of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Unlike past studies, this one focused on many inner regions of the brain as well as the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer, said Joseph Lonstein, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Michigan State University who was not involved in the research. It’s “a good first step to understanding much more about whole-brain changes that could be possible in a woman across pregnancy and postpartum,” he said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/pregnancy-brain-changes-mri-164b505abd05d3e5c9d93c0ef2953a80

The next generation of Buffetts — Howard, Susie and Peter — is poised to become one of the most powerful forces in philanthropy when their 94-year-old father, the legendary businessman and leader of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, eventually passes away.

But it wasn’t always going to be that way.

Buffett announced in June that he would donate his fortune, now valued at nearly $144 billion, to a charitable trust managed by his three children when he dies, instead of giving it to the Gates Foundation, as he indicated 18 years ago.

The next generation of Buffetts will then have 10 years to give the money away, Warren Buffett said.

In the meantime, the elder Buffett continues to make huge annual donations to the Gates Foundation and his four family foundations, which will continue throughout his lifetime. He first mentioned plans for a new charitable trust in November.

Howard Buffett told The Associated Press he’s learned what his father told him and his siblings about philanthropy was true: “It’s not so easy to give away money if you want to do it smart, if you want to be intelligent about it.”

UK media have jumped on a Sunday morning message from the British Royal Family wishing Prince Harry a happy 40th birthday, as a sign of a slight thawing in the chill between London and Montecito.

Harry turns 40 today and the Royal Family’s official social media account posted a message, along with a picture of the smiling prince. This is a contrast to last year, when no reference to the prince’s birthday was made. Prior to that, the date had been marked every year.

The Times of London newspaper reports that no personal message from William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales, is expected, following a two-year silence between the two brothers. However, King Charles – who is on holiday on Scotland this week – may choose to mark the day with a special mention. Royal reporters’ pens remain poised in the UK for such an occurrence.

Harry did not meet his father on his recent trip to the UK for a family funeral, nor did he speak to his brother William who attended the same service for their uncle by marriage. Harry did see his father in London in February of this year, with a short meeting after a dash from Los Angeles following the King’s announcement that he was being treated for cancer.

Source: https://deadline.com/2024/09/royal-family-message-wishes-prince-harry-happy-40-birthday-1236088215/

As right-wing rioters attacked communities with racist violence across parts of the UK last month, 22-year-old climate activist Cressie Gethin sat in a prison cell.

Her crime? Organizing a disruptive protest against new government-granted licenses to drill for oil — a planet-heating fossil fuel — in the North Sea.

In late July, a London court found Gethin and four other members of the Just Stop Oil activist group guilty of “conspiring intentionally to cause a public nuisance,” after recruiting protesters to climb structures along the M25 — a major ring road around London — bringing traffic to a standstill in parts over four days in November 2022.

Prosecutors alleged that the protests, organized over a Zoom call, disrupted more than 700,000 drivers, caused economic damage of over £760,000 ($980,000) and racked up £1 million ($1.3m) in policing costs.

Now Gethin and three others — Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw and Lucia Whittaker-De-Abreu, who planned the disruption on the call — are serving four-year jail terms, while Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam was given five years. All are appealing.

The sentences are believed to be the longest in the UK’s history for non-violent protest and were delivered under two new controversial laws that supercharged policing powers to crack down on disruptive protests, even when they are peaceful.

They place the act of planning a “public nuisance” event, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, on a similar footing as violent crimes like robbery, for which punishments range from community service to 12 years’ jail, or rape, which is four to 19 years.

The judge — who in court referred to the activists as “extremists” — justified the long jail terms because all five activists had previously been convicted of one or more offenses in relation to direct action protest. Each were on bail for another set of proceedings when the Zoom call took place. He also noted people missed important doctor’s visits and funerals because of the protest.

But activists like Gethin say their demonstrations are proportionate to the problem at hand — a rapidly warming world that threatens to transform life as we know it, through deadly extreme weather events and by pushing ecosystems to their brinks. They are now battling the bolstered powers of the police and courts to get their point across.

“A very harsh sentence like this doesn’t make sense morally or legally — but it does make sense politically,” Gethin told CNN in a handwritten letter from HMP Bronzefield, a women’s prison just south of London’s Heathrow Airport.

The laws have drawn criticism from the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michael Forst, who said not only do they criminalize peaceful protest, but they are being enforced in “punitive and repressive” ways.

Big Oil’s donations to the UK government
Big Oil has poured money into think tanks and charities that have had an influence on climate and protest laws. At least two think tanks that have received funding from fossil fuel companies made campaign donations to the ministers overseeing the legislation. One — the right-wing Policy Exchange — drafted a report that essentially served as a blueprint for one of the laws.

Despite its plans to transition to a net-zero economy by 2050, the previous Conservative government issued hundreds of new permits to further explore the North Sea’s oil and gas reserves in 2023, against the recommendations of climate scientists and the International Energy Agency.

The recently elected center-left Labour government has pledged to stop new licenses — but the tough policing laws remain.

“It is a pretty clear message, isn’t it?” Gethin said. “’You’re demanding change that puts our power and profit at risk, so you must be stopped.’”

The laws were purpose-built to target protest groups like Just Stop Oil. The UK government explicitly pointed to disruption from the group’s predecessor, Extinction Rebellion (XR), in its rationale for formulating the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

The Public Order Act 2023 brought in new criminal offenses and higher fines for protesters, such as “locking-on” — where protesters cling to a place or object — and “disruptive slow marching,” usually used to block traffic.

From their inception, the policing laws — which have also been applied to anti-racism and gender-equality protests — have sparked concern among civil society groups of a creep in authoritarianism in British society. Amnesty International said they mark a “dark new era for protest rights,” and give police “license to close down almost any protest they wish.”

Jodie Beck, head of policy and campaigns at the British human rights organization Liberty, said the laws “underpin inflammatory political rhetoric around the climate movement and racial justice movement,” and “strike at the heart of how we protest.”

There have been more than 3,000 Just Stop Oil activist arrests since the group formed in 2022, according to the group. Most of those arrests have been for planning or carrying out direct actions, including slow marching. Other activists, who have defaced famous artworks and buildings, were arrested and charged with criminal damage and trespassing. Twenty-one are currently imprisoned.

The Home Office did not respond to CNN’s questions about whether the new Labour government will reevaluate the laws, but said: “We recognize the democratic right that people must be free to peacefully express their views, but they should do so within the bounds of the law.”

A think tank linked to ExxonMobil and the laws
The 2022 policing law was drafted soon after an influential right-wing think tank called Policy Exchange, which has in the past received funding from ExxonMobil, outlined XR’s protest tactics and called for the criminalization of the group, in a report that heavily influenced the new laws.

It’s unclear how much money ExxonMobil has donated to Policy Exchange over the years as charities in the UK are not required to make their funding public, but in 2017, the oil company gave $30,000 to the think tank’s US branch, according to an ExxonMobil document.

At the time, Policy Exchange was part of the Atlas Network, a US-based non-profit that supports 500 “free market” groups globally, many of which are connected to the fossil fuel industry and the proliferation of anti-protest legislation in other countries. ExxonMobil told CNN that they do not currently fund Policy Exchange or American Friends of Policy Exchange, but did not answer questions about past funding. Policy Exchange did not answer CNN’s request for comment.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/14/climate/uk-climate-protests-policing-laws-prison-intl/index.html

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was safe on Sunday after the Secret Service foiled what the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt while he was golfing on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Secret Service agents spotted and fired on a gunman in bushes near the property line of the golf course, a few hundred yards from where Trump was playing, law enforcement officials said.

The suspect left an AK-47-style assault rifle and other items at the scene and fled in a vehicle but was later arrested.
The apparent attempt on Trump’s life came just two months after he was shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, sustaining a minor injury to his right ear.
Both incidents highlight the challenges of keeping presidential candidates safe in a hotly contested and polarized campaign with just over seven weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election.

Reuters found profiles on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn for a Ryan Routh who appeared to be the man identified as the suspect by those news organizations.

Reuters was not able to confirm these were the suspect’s accounts and law enforcement agencies declined to comment, but public access to the Facebook and X profiles was removed hours after the shooting.

The three accounts bearing Routh’s name suggest he was an avid supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia. In several of the posts, he appeared to be trying to help recruit soldiers for Ukraine’s war effort.

GUN BARREL IN BUSHES

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Secret Service agents saw a rifle barrel poking out from bushes about 400 to 500 yards (365 to 460 meters) away from Trump as they cleared holes of potential threats ahead of his play.

The agents engaged the gunman, firing at least four rounds of ammunition around 1:30 p.m. (1730 GMT).

The gunman then dropped his rifle, and left behind two backpacks and other items, and fled in a black Nissan car. The sheriff said a witness saw the gunman and managed to take photos of his car and license plate before he escaped.

“The Secret Service did exactly what should have been done,” Bradshaw said, declining to identify the suspect or provide a possible motive.

After the suspect fled the scene, police sent out an alert to statewide agencies with the information on his vehicle, which led to sheriff’s deputies in neighboring Martin County apprehending the suspect on I-95 about 40 miles (65km) from the golf course.

Fox News presenter Sean Hannity said he’d spoken to both Trump and Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate investor and longtime Trump friend who was on the golf course with him on Sunday.

“They were on the fifth hole. And the way Steve described this, the way the president described it, they both had exactly the same story, which is that they heard pop pop, pop pop,” said Hannity. The Secret Service “pounced on the president, covered him”, he added.

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, in an interview with the New York Times, said he had spoken with Trump and the former president expressed gratitude for his Secret Service detail, adding that the president said, “These people are awesome.”

In response to a reporter’s question, officials acknowledged that because Trump is not in office, the full golf course was not cordoned off.

“If he was, we would have had the entire golf course surrounded,” Bradshaw said during Sunday’s briefing. “Because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

Trump sent an email to supporters saying there were “gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” according to an email seen by Reuters.

The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had been briefed about the incident and were relieved to know that he was safe.

Biden later said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service has the resources it needs to ensure Trump’s safety, according to a statement released by the White House.

Trump is locked in a tight presidential election race with Harris, who has had a surge in the polls since replacing Biden as the Democratic Party’s candidate in July.

“Violence has no place in America,” Harris said in an X social media post.

On X in 2020, Routh expressed support for Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and mocked Biden as “sleepy Joe.”

Earlier this year, Routh tagged Biden in a post on X: “@POTUS Your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA …make Americans slaves again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”

Trump’s running mate in the presidential election, U.S. Senator JD Vance, said he spoke to Trump after the shooting and that the former president was in good spirits.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-is-safe-following-gunshots-his-vicinity-says-campaign-2024-09-15/

A Russian-guided bomb struck a multi-storey apartment building on Sunday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, triggering a fire and killing one person and injuring 42, officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the latest attack underscored the need for Ukraine’s Western partners to provide weapons and air defence systems and permission to use weaponry on targets deep inside Russia to save lives.
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It comes as French authorities rescued some 200 people off the coast of Calais over a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday night.

At least eight migrants have died off the coast of France while attempting to cross the English Channel – as new data reveals 801 people arrived on the UK’s shores yesterday.

The latest government figures show those who arrived made their journey on Saturday in 14 boats.

It is the second-highest number of arrivals this year. The current record for the highest number of arrivals in one day this year so far is 882 in 15 boats on 18 June.

The deaths occurred after a vessel “tore apart on the rocks” off Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France overnight, a regional official said.

Some 51 survivors of the disaster were rescued. Six were taken to hospital, including a 10-month-old baby suffering from hypothermia.

“Driven by profit, human traffickers are putting more and more lives at risk, selling crossings in dangerous conditions on ill-suited boats,” the official, Jacques Billant, said. “This is literally leading them to their deaths.

“The boats are overloaded, of poor quality, underinflated, without proper flooring, underpowered, and lack life jackets for all passengers.”

Only one in six people on the boat had a life jacket, he added.

It comes as French authorities rescued some 200 people off the coast of Calais over a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday night.

A boat carrying migrants that was in poor condition was located off the coast of Le Portel, a French coastal town, and 55 people were rescued.

Elsewhere, 61 people were picked up off the coast of La Becque d’Hardelot, 48 people were recovered near a lighthouse and at the end of the day 36 more were rescued, French authorities said.

All of those rescued were brought back to land.

French authorities said they monitored 18 attempts to launch boats across the Channel on Saturday.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/eight-dead-after-attempting-to-cross-channel-as-801-people-arrived-yesterday-13215343

Trump’s rant comes just days after the singer informed her 284 million Instagram followers that she planned to vote for Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump has said he hates Taylor Swift – just days after the pop mega-star endorsed his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

In an all-caps posting on his Truth Social media account, Mr Trump wrote: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

Following last week’s Trump-Harris debate, Swift informed her 284 million Instagram followers that she planned to vote for Ms Harris, currently the US vice president.

She said it was “because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them”.

Mr Trump initially dismissed Swift’s endorsement of his rival for the presidency by simply saying he was “not a Taylor fan”.

But since then, with public opinion polls showing Ms Harris gaining significant ground on Mr Trump in what is expected to be a close 5 November presidential election, the former president has ratcheted up his rhetoric against one of the most successful recording artists in history.

Prosecutors have requested the sentence over the 2019 incident, in which a vessel carrying more than 100 migrants was stranded at sea for 19 days.

Prosecutors have asked judges to jail Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini over his 2019 decision to stop a ship carrying more than 100 migrants from landing in the country.

Prosecutors in the city of Palermo have requested a six-year sentence for alleged kidnapping over the incident, which happened when Mr Salvini was interior minister.

The vessel, operated by the charity Open Arms, was stranded in the Mediterranean Sea for 19 days due to his refusal, with some passengers throwing themselves into the sea in desperation amid an “extreme humanitarian emergency” on board.

The remaining 89 people on the vessel were eventually allowed to disembark in Lampedusa following a court battle.

Mr Salvini, the leader of Italy’s right-wing League party, could be banned from holding government office if he is convicted.

His lawyers will present his defence case in mid-October and he could receive his first sentence weeks later.

However, a conviction in Italy applies only at the end of a three-stage judicial process and a senior judge will make the final decision.

Mr Salvini has denied any wrongdoing.

If you think hearing loss is something only the elderly deal with, think again. Americans are finding themselves caught in a cycle of misunderstanding, with the average person asking, “What did you say?” a staggering 1,095 times per year.

This insight comes from a recent survey conducted by Talker Research on behalf of Audien Hearing, shedding light on the social and personal impacts of hearing difficulties in everyday life. The survey, which polled 2,000 Americans, uncovered that respondents need to ask for people to repeat themselves an average of three times daily, accumulating to about 91 times per month. Despite this frequency, people typically only ask twice before giving up and pretending to have heard something, highlighting a concerning trend of communication breakdown.

The consequences of these auditory challenges extend beyond mere inconvenience. A significant 35% of respondents reported feeling left out of conversations due to hearing issues. While some mishearing incidents lead to humorous situations, others can result in awkward, embarrassing, or even physically dangerous outcomes.

“Down in Texas, my girlfriend was trying to tell me there was a loose horse and I didn’t hear, and a horse ran right by me and knocked me down,” one respondent recalls.

The impact on social interactions is particularly notable, with almost a fifth (17%) of Americans admitting to avoiding social situations because of hearing difficulties. This trend is more pronounced among younger generations, with 23% of Gen Z admitting to such avoidance issues compared to only 11% of baby boomers.

“Whether you have hearing loss or not, nobody likes to ask someone to repeat themselves. But even for those who do have hearing loss, not everyone is ready to pull the trigger on hearing aids, so it’s very common for people to tune out of conversations when they can’t hear. That’s why we should recognize this and take corrective action when needed,” says Ishan Patel, CEO at Audien Hearing, in a statement.

The survey reveals a concerning gap in hearing health awareness and treatment. While 16% of respondents have been medically diagnosed with a hearing issue, another 21% worry they might have an undiagnosed problem. Moreover, 40% believe their hearing has deteriorated over the past five years, attributing this decline primarily to age (62%) and exposure to loud noises in everyday life (32%).

Personal habits also play a role in perceived hearing loss, with respondents citing loud music in cars (32%), high-volume audio through headphones (27%), and attending loud concerts (22%) as contributing factors. Despite these concerns, only half (49%) of the respondents feel informed about solutions for hearing issues.

The survey also uncovered barriers to seeking care for hearing-related problems. The monetary cost of solutions (33%), lack of knowledge about hearing loss (18%), and feelings of embarrassment (15%) were identified as primary obstacles. Perhaps most alarmingly, of the 93% who do not currently use hearing aids, 32% said they wouldn’t consider them even if recommended by a medical professional.

“We always recommend seeking a medical opinion if you have hearing loss, but it’s important to know that your options have improved significantly in recent years,” Patel says. “Hearing aids used to cost nearly $5,000 per pair, required a prescription, and were bulky and unattractive.”

“Now, due to technological advancements and new FDA guidelines, there are options for hearing aids over the counter for a fraction of the price, and many are much smaller and more discreet.”

Source: https://studyfinds.org/americans-losing-their-hearing/?nab=0

Candice Bergen and Selena Gomez took aim at Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s widely-mocked “childless cat ladies” comment at the Emmys.

While presenting during the show, Bergen brought up her series “Murphy Brown,” saying: “In one classic moment, my character was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother. Oh, how far we’ve come. Today a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, my work here is done. Meow.”

While presenting an award with her “Only Murders in the Building” co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short, Gomez zinged them by saying, “And let me say what an honor it is to work with two guys who are this far away from being childless cat ladies.”

In a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, Vance said, “We’re effectively run in this country, be it the Democrats, be it our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

Source: https://variety.com/2024/awards/news/candice-bergen-selena-gomez-mock-jd-vance-childless-cat-ladies-emmys-1236145232/

It’s noisy, smelly, shy — and New Zealand’s bird of the year.

The hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, won the country’s fiercely fought avian election on Monday, offering hope to supporters of the endangered bird that recognition from its victory might prompt a revival of the species.

It followed a campaign for the annual Bird of the Year vote that was absent the foreign interference scandals and cheating controversies of past polls. Instead, campaigners in the long-running contest sought votes in the usual ways — launching meme wars, seeking celebrity endorsements and even getting tattoos to prove their loyalty.

More than 50,000 people voted in the poll, 300,000 fewer than last year, when British late night host John Oliver drove a humorous campaign for the pūteketeke — a “deeply weird bird” which eats and vomits its own feathers – securing a landslide win.

This year, the number of votes cast represented 10% of the population of New Zealand — a country where nature is never far away and where a love of native birds is instilled in citizens from childhood.

“Birds are our heart and soul,” said Emma Rawson, who campaigned for the fourth-placed ruru, a small brown owl with a melancholic call. New Zealand’s only native mammals are bats and marine species, putting the spotlight on its birds, which are beloved — and often rare.

This year’s victor, the hoiho — its name means “noise shouter” in the Māori language — is a shy bird thought to be the world’s rarest penguin. Only found on New Zealand’s South and Chatham islands — and on subantarctic islands south of the country — numbers have dropped perilously by 78% in the past 15 years.

“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time. This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa before our eyes,” Nicola Toki, chief executive of Forest & Bird — the organization that runs the poll — said in a press release, using the Māori name for New Zealand. Despite intensive conservation efforts on land, she said, the birds drown in nets and sea and can’t find enough food.

“The campaign has raised awareness, but what we really hope is that it brings tangible support,” said Charlie Buchan, campaign manager for the hoiho. But while the bird is struggling, it attracted a star billing in the poll: celebrity endorsements flew in from English zoologist Jane Goodall, host of the Amazing Race Phil Keoghan, and two former New Zealand prime ministers.

Aspiring bird campaign managers — this year ranging from power companies to high school students — submit applications to Forest & Bird for the posts. The hoiho bid was run by a collective of wildlife groups, a museum, a brewery and a rugby team in the city of Dunedin, where the bird is found on mainland New Zealand, making it the highest-powered campaign of the 2024 vote.

“I do feel like we were the scrappy underdog,” said Emily Bull, a spokesperson for the runner-up campaign, for the karure — a small, “goth” black robin only found on New Zealand’s Chatham Island.

The karure’s bid was directed by the students’ association at Victoria University of Wellington, prompting a fierce skirmish on the college campus when the student magazine staged an opposing campaign for the kororā, or little blue penguin.

The rivalry provoked a meme war and students in bird costumes. Several people got tattoos. When the magazine’s campaign secured endorsements of the city council and local zoo, Bull despaired for the black robin’s bid.

But the karure — which has performed a real-life comeback since the 1980s, with conservation efforts increasing the species from five birds to 250 — took second place overall.

This weekend as Rawson wrapped up her campaign for the ruru, she took her efforts directly to the people, courting votes at a local dog park. The veteran campaign manager who has directed the bids for other birds in past years was rewarded by the ruru placing fourth in the poll, her best ever result.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/bird-zealand-hoiho-yellow-eyed-penguin-robin-bb22c610345daffb4de24aad4a4db7b5

Two young women were killed on Sunday after a speeding BMW hit them, main accused arrested.

Initial investigations by the police in the BMW hit-and-run case that killed two young women in Indore revealed that the accused driver drove in the wrong direction in a rush to deliver a birthday cake to his friend.

The Indore police have arrested the main accused driver after launching a search operation. Police said he had fled the scene with his car after causing the accident in Indore’s Khajarana area on Sunday, reported The Indian Express.

The driver Gajendra Pratap Singh (28) hails from Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior and was living in Indore’s Suncity. “Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused was in a hurry to deliver a cake for his friend’s birthday, which is why he drove in the wrong direction,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Kundan Mandloi said.

Police also said Singh works at a BPO in Indore and had brought the car second-hand a while ago. A case was registered under Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita against him.

How did the accident happen?

Two young women – Lakshmi Tomar (24) and Diksha Jadon (25) – were returning home on their scooter after participating in a Ganesh temple fair in Khajrana, police said.

Around 11.30 pm on Sunday, a speeding BMW coming in the wrong direction hit the scooter and threw the two women onto the road, leading to critical injuries.

“According to eyewitnesses, a BMW car rammed into the scooter. Due to the impact, both women were thrown onto the road, sustaining critical injuries. They were rushed to a nearby hospital where they succumbed to their injuries,” Khajrana police station in-charge Manoj Singh Sendhav told news agency PTI.

The victim Lakshmi Tomar is the only earning member of her family since her father passed away last year, a family member said. Originally from Shivpuri, Tomar was supporting her family by working in Indore.

When the news broke that Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, would be performing in China on Sunday, the elation of many of his fans was mixed with another emotion: confusion.

Why would the notoriously prickly Chinese government let in the notoriously provocative Ye? Why was the listening party, as Ye calls his shows, taking place not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Hainan, an obscure island province?

Under a trending hashtag on the social media site Weibo on the subject, one popular comment read simply “How?” alongside an exploding-head emoji.

The answer may lie in China’s struggling economy. Since China reopened its borders after three years of coronavirus lockdowns, the government has been trying to stimulate consumer spending and promote tourism.

“Vigorously introducing new types of performances desired by young people, and concerts from international singers with super internet traffic, is the outline for future high-quality development,” the government of Haikou, the city hosting the listening party, posted on its website on Thursday.

But it is unclear whether the appearance by Ye — who would be perhaps the highest-profile Western artist to perform in mainland China since the pandemic — is part of a broader loosening or an exception.

Even before the pandemic, the number of big-name foreign entertainers visiting China had been falling as the authorities tightened controls on speech. Acts such as Bon Jovi and Maroon 5 had shows abruptly canceled, leading to speculation that band members’ expressions of support for causes like Tibetan independence were to blame. Justin Bieber was barred from China in 2017 over what the Beijing city government, without specifying, called “bad behavior.”

Ye might have seemed like a no-go too. The Chinese authorities declared war on hip-hop in 2018, with the state news media saying that artists who insulted women and promoted drug use “don’t deserve a stage.”

But in Ye’s case, objections to hip-hop may have been outweighed by the potential payoff — especially for Hainan.

For years, the Chinese government has sought to turn Hainan, an island roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, into an international commercial hub. It offers visa-free entry and duty-free shopping, and has pledged to attract more world-class cultural events.

Sheng Zou, a media scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, said enforcement of censorship was capricious. “When it comes to Ye, I guess his celebrity status may outweigh his identity as a hip-hop artist.”

For Ricardo Shi, 25, an employee of a tech company in Shenzhen, the chance to see Ye was worth spending $700 on plane tickets for a two-day trip to Haikou. “It’s been so long since he last came to China,” he said. (Ye performed in Beijing and Shanghai in 2008.) “It’s a rare opportunity to be there in person.”

Ye, who is touring to promote “Vultures,” his new album series with the singer Ty Dolla Sign, has praised China. He told Forbes in 2020 that the country “changed my life.” He lived in the city of Nanjing as a fifth grader, when his mother was teaching English there.

And issues that have led Western brands to cut off collaborations with Ye and alienated many American fans, like his antisemitic and homophobic comments, are of less concern to Chinese officials.

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/15/chinas-censors-are-letting-ye-perform-there-his-fans-are-amazed/

Carrying four private citizens, the mission tested a number of new SpaceX suits, with Jared Isaacman taking part in a 15-minute spacewalk.

A billionaire astronaut and his crew have returned to Earth after taking part in the first private spacewalk.

Polaris Dawn, operated by SpaceX on behalf of billionaire Jared Isaacman, splashed down at 8.37am today (UK time) in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in darkness due to it being night-time locally.

Carrying four private citizens, including SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched into space on Tuesday with the crew spending five days in orbit.

“We are mission complete,” Isaacman radioed, as the capsule bobbed in the water awaiting the recovery team.

In a live feed relayed back to Earth, speaking during the spacewalk, he could be heard saying: “Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”

All four members of the Polaris Dawn crew wore SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits to protect themselves and a main aim of the mission was to test these suits.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/polaris-dawn-billionaire-astronaut-and-crew-return-to-earth-after-first-private-spacewalk-13215342

Shanghai’s airports were canceling hundreds of flights Sunday as they brace for impact from Typhoon Bebinca, which is due to make landfall in the early hours of Monday morning, the authorities said.

Flights past 8 p.m. local time will be canceled at Hongqiao and Pudong airports in the city, airport officials said in a statement, affecting more than 600 flights. The city also announced that it was suspending travel on some bridges while restricting movement on other highways.

Typhoon Bebinca is a few hundred kilometers away from the coast.

The typhoon’s winds are expected to reach 151 kph (nearly 94 mph) by Sunday night, according to the China Meteorological Administration, which has categorized it as a strong typhoon.

State media reported that 377, 000 people had been evacuated from across Shanghai. Meanwhile, in the nearby city of Zhoushan, restaurants, supermarkets and shops shut down early for the day, and public transportation services were halted.

The storm is expected to bring up to 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) of rain to parts of the eastern coast that will be hardest hit, according to state media.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/typhoon-bebinca-shanghai-china-597e96f6362db31e8c9dbcb5cfc4cc0a

“We kept waiting in the rain, but we had to return without any solution and all the junior doctors were disheartened,” said Dr Aqeeb, who was part of the delegation that went to meet Ms Banerjee.

RUSSIA handed Iran critical nuclear secrets in return for ballistic missiles to blitz Ukraine, the West fears.

The doomsday deal was discussed at crunch talks between Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer on Friday at the White House, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.

The mullahs’ decades-long bid for the bomb is believed by some intelligence sources to be close to an endgame with the desperate Kremlin feared to be getting them over the line.

The US and UK declassified intelligence last week to reveal Russian President Vladimir Putin had taken a shipment of Fath-360 ballistic missiles from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken used a visit to London to warn: “Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks — this is a two way street — including on nuclear issues, as well as some space information.”

The threat was chewed over by the PM and President who were said to have acknowledged the massive risk of the global gamechanger that Israel says would see them wiped out.

In retaliation for the missile shipment, Iran Air has been banned from flying over or landing in Britain and Russian shipping firms have been slapped with sanctions for transporting the rockets.

The White House summit discussed allowing Ukraine to use UK-made Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia — but no final decision has been announced.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Tehran of a “dangerous escalation” but the Iranians denied they were involved.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson — a close ally of President Zelensky — has spoken movingly of the plight of hero Ukrainian troops on the sharp end of Putin’s bombardment.

On a visit to Ukraine, he pressured the US and UK to allow Zelensky to use British kit to hit Russian targets.

The ex-PM told the Sun on Sunday: “It is heartbreaking to visit wounded veterans in recovery centres — as I have in Kyiv this weekend — where Ukrainian heroes are being treated for injuries they suffered in the past few months.

“And to think that some of these casualties could have been avoided if we had given Storm Shadow permissions earlier.”

He added: “There is no conceivable case for delay.

“The only person who fears escalation is Vladimir Putin and every day that goes by is a lost opportunity to save lives and bring about a just conclusion to this war.”

Sir Keir travels to Italy tomorrow where he is expected to discuss using the Storm Shadows inside Russia — as the Italians have a stake in the lethal airborne weapons system.

British sources say the PM would next be urging the French and Germans to back his support for the major escalation in Western support for Ukraine.

But Joe Biden is worried the missiles could fuel an escalation of the conflict.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/politics/12459697/russia-iran-nuclear-bomb/

Donald Trump was the target of what the FBI said “appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody.

U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

It was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. On July 13, Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

And it spawned new questions about Secret Service protective operations after the agency’s admitted failures in preventing the assassination attempt this summer.

The man who was detained had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

“He never asked, ‘What is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” He wrote: “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He returned to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach where he lives, according to a person familiar with Trump’s movements who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear how the development would affect his schedule or campaign dynamics. Trump was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on Monday night on the social media site X and had stops planned Tuesday and Wednesday in Michigan and on New York’s Long Island.

An email to Trump campaign staffers obtained by AP said, “We ask that you remain vigilant in your daily comings and goings.”

“As we enter the last 50 days of President Trump’s campaign, we must remember that we will only be able save America from those who seek to destroy it by working together as one team.”

Biden and Harris were briefed on the matter and each issued a statement condemning political violence. Harris’ added that she was “deeply disturbed” by the day’s events and that “we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”

Biden said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service “has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

In the aftermath, Trump checked in with allies, including running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and several Fox News hosts. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spent several hours with Trump and called him “unstoppable.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity recounted on air his conversation with the former president’s golf partner, Steve Witkoff.

They had been on the fifth hole and about to go up to putt when they heard a “pop pop, pop pop.” Within seconds, he said Witkoff recounted, Secret Service agents “pounced” on Trump and “covered him” to protect him.

Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not announced any public plans for Trump on Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf.

Trump has had a stepped-up security footprint since the assassination attempt in July. When he is at Trump Tower in New York, parked dump trucks have formed a wall outside the building. At outdoor rallies, he now speaks from behind bulletproof glass.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-shooting-gunshots-florida-f62f8378d3a8ce7b2e99d6a8fb40aba9#

A concert by US rock band Jane’s Addiction ended early after lead singer Perry Farrell punched guitarist Dave Navarro on stage in the middle of a song.

Videos posted on social media showed Farrell, 65, becoming upset as they played their 1986 song Ocean Size in Boston on Friday night.

The singer is filmed walking towards Navarro and shouting in his face before aggressively bumping shoulders with the guitarist.

Navarro, 57, eventually stopped playing and put a hand up to Farrell’s chest as Farrell continued to shout at his longtime bandmate.

He then punched Navarro’s shoulder as others, including bassist Eric Avery, intervened to break it up.

More members of the stage crew then restrained Farrell, while Navarro walked away before taking off his guitar and kneeling at the front of the stage, reportedly to apologise to fans.

Farrell was seen still apparently struggling as he was dragged off stage.

Perry’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, said on Instagram he lost his temper because “night after night… his voice was being drowned out by the band”.

She said Perry had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat every night, and “lost it” when people in the front row complained that “the band was planning too loud and that they couldn’t hear him”.

Her husband was “a crazed beast for the next half an hour” [backstage] where he broke down and “cried and cried,” she added.

The gig in Boston, part of the outfit’s Imminent Redemption reunion tour, ended after 11 songs, Variety said, adding that they normally played 14 or 15 numbers.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/janes-addiction-singer-perry-farrell-punches-guitarist-dave-navarro-as-us-rock-bands-reunion-gig-ends-in-chaos-13214681

At least 49 people are wounded and “rescue operations are ongoing”, the country’s health ministry says.

At least three people – including two children – have been killed after two passenger trains collided in Egypt.

A further 49 people were injured, the country’s health ministry said.

Five of the wounded are in an unstable condition and “rescue operations are ongoing”, the ministry added.

It happened in the city of Zagazig, the capital of Sharqia province, northeast of Cairo.

Video from the crash site shows a crumpled carriage surrounded by crowds.

One of the trains was heading from Zagazig to Ismailia, while the other was on its way from Mansoura to Zagazig, the railway authority said.

Train derailments and crashes are not uncommon in Egypt, which has an ageing railway system.

Last month, a train crashed into a truck crossing the tracks in the Mediterranean province of Alexandria, killing two people.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/egypt-train-crash-kills-three-and-injures-dozens-13215199

Ballet dancer Michaela DePrince was born in war-torn Sierra Leone and spent some of her early childhood in an orphanage before being adopted by a couple from New Jersey. After taking ballet classes as a child, she went on to become one of the dance world’s biggest stars.

A star ballerina who appeared in Beyonce’s Lemonade video and on Dancing With The Stars has died at the age of 29.

Michaela DePrince’s death was announced on her Instagram page and confirmed by her family on Facebook, where they paid tribute to “an unforgettable inspiration to everyone who knew her or heard her story”.

They were entangled in the deluded efforts of a self-styled warlord, in a series of events that unfolded over five months.

When 21-year-old Tyler Thompson boarded a plane in Utah this April, his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, thought he was bound for South Africa, traveling with his high school buddy, Marcel Malanga, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to explore the world.

Instead, he was entangled in the deluded efforts of a self-styled warlord to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of Africa’s largest nations, in a series of events that unfolded over five months and ended with his death sentence, delivered by a Congolese military court on Friday.

Thompson, Malanga and 35 others, who were convicted of taking part in the botched coup, were charged with terrorism, murder, criminal association and illegal possession of weapons, among other charges.

Thompson’s family — who told the BBC in June that they had “zero idea” how he ended up in the DRC — said the verdict had left them “heartbroken,” and that they continued to believe in his innocence. Malanga’s mother, Brittney Sawyer, also says her son is innocent.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said, “We understand that the legal process in the DRC allows for defendants to appeal the court’s decision,” and that the U.S. would not pass judgment yet. Embassy staff would continue to attend the proceedings and follow developments.

The U.S. government has not declared them wrongfully convicted, making it less likely that officials would try to negotiate their return.

They were convicted alongside another American, a British citizen, a Belgian, a Canadian and Congolese co-defendants. The lawyer who defended the foreigners said he would appeal their verdicts.

But between the coup and the sentence, it remains unclear exactly how two young men from Salt Lake City found themselves embroiled in a plot to overthrow a government 8,500 miles away.

Five years ago, while playing for the Copper Hills High School football team, Thompson met Marcel Malanga, the son of Christian Malanga.

The elder Malanga was born in the DRC but moved to the U.S. with his family in the 1990s as a refugee and later became an American citizen, according to BBC Pidgin. He had sold used cars and dabbled in gold mining in the U.S.

After a stint back in the DRC, where he joined the army and became disillusioned, Malanga created a government-in-exile in Brussels in 2017, calling it the New Zaire Movement. He proclaimed himself president of the United Congolese Party and railed against what he saw as vast government corruption in the DRC.

On May 19, he assembled a ragtag band of a few dozen paramilitaries, leading them in an extraordinarily ambitious yet ultimately amateurish attempt to unseat Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi.

The attempted coup began in the early hours before dawn as armed men attacked first the home of parliamentary speaker Vital Kamerhe, before they headed to the president’s official residence.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/three-americans-are-accused-trying-overthrow-congos-president-now-sent-rcna171126

On the morning of Sunday Sept. 1, Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei was preparing to go to church from her home in the highlands of western Kenya. Her ex-boyfriend called a friend of his to ask if he could borrow a lighter.
He said he had “an emergency” and was heading out of town, the friend, retired runner Dennis Masai Chepkongin, told Reuters at his home in the Mount Elgon region, where Cheptegei lived.

A police official, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed Marangach had been under investigation for murder when he died.

The land around Cheptegei’s home in the quiet village of Kinyoro bore witness to a grisly death. The ground was charred and moist with gasoline when reporters visited last weekend. Her 17-year-old sister, Dorcas, who was attacked with a machete, sat weeping quietly, her body doubled over, or stared dumbly into space.

Cheptegei’s killing so soon after the athlete had competed for Uganda in the Paris Olympics shocked the world. But it was no surprise to Cheptegei or her family, her parents told Reuters.

Their story sheds light on the dark side of success for female athletes in Kenya’s patriarchal society. Elite runners can earn more money in a single marathon than many Kenyans do in a year. They say their success frequently makes them targets for predatory men who try to manipulate them and wrest control of their assets.

Cheptegei was the third female runner to be killed in Kenya since 2021, allegedly by romantic partners. Her funeral took place on Saturday in neighbouring Uganda’s Bukwo district with full military honours, as the athlete was a member of the Ugandan defence forces.

Cheptegei had tried to protect herself.

A 33-year-old single mother of two born in Uganda, she had walked out of the relationship with Marangach, managed her own money and was breadwinner for an extended family including her parents, a dozen siblings and her two daughters, aged 9 and 11, family members said.

She had gone to police at least three times this year to report threats and physical abuse by Marangach, her father, Joseph, said.

He shared with Reuters police slips confirming complaints she filed in February and May, in Kinyoro and the nearby town of Kitale.

“This man is going to kill my child,” Joseph said he told officers in February, after Marangach allegedly beat her up and broke her phone.

He said the police had told Marangach to stay away from Cheptegei’s home, but he didn’t listen. “So we went back to the police and they were not keen to do anything else. My daughter died because the police failed.”

Neither the local nor the national police responded to a request for comment on that point. Government spokesman Isaac Mwaura did not respond to Reuters’ questions.

Cheptegei’s killing left other female runners despairing at what they called the continuing inaction of the authorities and Athletics Kenya, the national governing body for the sport.

“No one is held accountable,” said Joan Chelimo, who co-founded Tirop’s Angels, a non-profit established to support domestic violence victims after Kenyan long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death in 2021.

Tirop’s husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was charged with her murder. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail last year. His case is ongoing and his lawyer declined to comment.

Kenyan-Bahraini runner Damaris Mutua was also killed in 2022. Her Ethiopian boyfriend was named as a suspect. The Kenyan police say he fled Kenya.

Kenya’s Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen has condemned the attack on Cheptegei and promised action.

An adviser to President William Ruto said authorities were working to prevent gender-based violence in sports. But activists say its efforts are falling short.

“A STRAIGHTFORWARD PERSON”

Violence against women is a major problem in Kenya. One in three adolescent girls and women have been victims, according to government data from 2022.

Femicide Count Kenya, an NGO that uses media reports to document intentional killings with a gender-related motivation, has recorded 157 killings of women so far in 2024 — the most in a year since it began collecting data in 2019.

“More women are facing violence but they are not getting any help from police,” said Audrey Mugeni, the group’s co-founder.

Elizabeth Keitany, who sits on the executive board of Athletics Kenya, said her team had helped six young women escape abusive relationships since 2022, offering them a safe place to live and counselling services.

“Any case that is reported to us, we are very swift,” she told Reuters.

Esther Chemtai, a 24-year-old fellow athlete of Cheptegei’s, said that when she was 18, she had also been in an abusive relationship with a man who wanted her to hand over all her earnings to him. When she refused, he beat her.

Chemtai left him in January 2023, with the help of Tirop’s Angels, who offered her support and counselling, she said.

Chemtai called Cheptegei a “straightforward person” who did not hesitate to walk away from controlling men.

“If she said no, it meant no,” Chemtai said.

Cheptegei was also devoted to her family, buying land for her father worth $1,200 in 2016 — the equivalent of around 11 months of Kenya’s minimum wage at the time.

She met Marangach, a struggling motorcycle taxi driver and aspiring athlete, in 2020 or 2021 when she was living in Uganda, her family said. Marangach urged her to move to Kenya and train in Iten, a hub for top distance runners and a high-altitude training attraction for tourists.

She built a house just over two hours’ drive from Iten in Kinyoro and moved there in 2021, according to the retired runner Chepkongin. A former world U20 champion, he said he met her around that time.

The home is a two-bedroom house on a small plot of land in a quiet community with little infrastructure. Roads are unpaved and potholed, access to electricity is limited — on a clear night, the Milky Way is visible — but the proximity to Iten was good for training.

The police official said Marangach was in possession of a deed to that land. Cheptegei’s father rejects this claim. He showed Reuters a photo of a land deed signed and stamped in March 2021, which listed Rebecca as the purchaser of the plot in Kinyoro, and Marangach as a witness.

Her family and Chepkongin say Cheptegei supported Marangach financially. The retired runner said he had been friends with Marangach since 2018 and had also helped cover his rent, training kit and other expenses.

“Dickson had no money before Rebecca came into his life,” he said.

Two of Marangach’s sisters told Reuters his family was indeed poor. But his elder sister, Naomi Chebet Kiprop, said the couple had pooled funds to buy the land where Cheptegei lived with her daughters.

“God would have helped Dickson get a place we can call home,” she told Reuters.

“Now that Dickson has died, we have no means.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/olympic-runner-cheptegei-defied-her-violent-ex-she-lost-her-life-anyway-2024-09-14/

A Labour peer paid for a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer, both before and after the Labour leader became prime minister in July, according to The Sunday Times. But Labour said they have contacted authorities over the matter.

Sir Keir Starmer is facing an investigation over a possible breach of parliamentary rules after failing to declare that some of his wife’s high-end clothes were bought for her by his biggest personal donor, Lord Alli.

The Labour peer paid for a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Victoria Starmer, reportedly both before and after the Labour leader became prime minister in July, according to The Sunday Times.

This year, Sir Keir has received – and disclosed – nearly £19,000 worth of work clothes and several pairs of glasses from Lord Alli, the former chairman of online fashion retailer Asos, The Times reports.

In addition, the peer, whose personal wealth is estimated at £200m, spent £20,000 on accommodation for the now prime minister during the election and a similar sum on “private office” costs, which was also disclosed, the paper says.

A Number 10 spokesperson told Sky News it was an oversight that had been corrected after it “sought advice from the authorities on coming to office”.

They added: “We believed we’d been compliant, however, following further interrogation this month, we’ve declared further items.”

The Tories called for a “full investigation” following The Sunday Times report.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “It’s taken just 10 weeks for Keir Starmer to face an investigation for his conduct.

“After facing allegations of cronyism and now apparent serious breaches of parliamentary rules there must be a full investigation into the passes for glasses scandal.

“No doubt the millions of vulnerable pensioners across the country who face choosing between heating and eating would jump at the chance for free clothes just to keep warm in the face of Labour’s cruel cut.”

Lord Alli’s involvement with the Labour leader has already proved controversial after it emerged he had been given a Downing Street security pass without apparently having a government role.

The revelations are awkward for the prime minister, who has promised to clean up politics.

Sir Keir, like all MPs, must declare any of his relevant interests under rules set up to protect politics from improper influence and uphold transparency.

The Times said the prime minister’s office approached the parliamentary authorities to make the late declarations last Tuesday.

His advisers were already in touch with them by then after several designers had approached Lady Starmer asking if she was interested in free products such as clothes, jewellery and make-up.

Staff had asked if the prime minister would need to declare his wife being given those items if she accepted and were told he would.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/starmer-faces-investigation-over-possible-breach-of-parliamentary-rules-after-labour-donor-pays-for-wifes-clothes-13215216

 In a world where the line between adolescence and adulthood seems increasingly blurred, a recent survey claims that the age at which life, money, and the future start to feel “real” for most Americans isn’t until age 27!

This revelation comes from a comprehensive study of 2,000 Americans, evenly distributed across generations, challenging the traditional notion that adulthood begins at 18. The survey, conducted by Talker Research on behalf of Life Happens, also delved into the milestones and mindsets that define modern adulthood.

It reveals that for 56% of respondents, the true mark of “adulting” is simply paying your own bills. Financial independence (45%) and prioritizing responsibilities over personal life or fun (38%) also rank high as key signs of entering adulthood.

Interestingly, the study found that moving out of parents’ or guardians’ homes (46%) and landing a first job or a position in one’s chosen field (28%) are among the top events that made Americans feel like adults. However, the transition isn’t smooth for everyone, with 11% of Gen Zers saying they still don’t feel like adults.

The financial landscape for young adults appears particularly challenging. While Americans generally start taking their finances seriously around age 28, a staggering 81% of Gen Z feel pressure to be more financially “ahead” than they currently are. This sentiment is echoed across generations, with 76% of older respondents wishing they had taken their finances more seriously in their 20s.

“While it’s concerning to see that so many young people are not contributing to their retirement or purchasing life insurance, it’s never too late to start making those moves,” says Kevin Mayeux, CEO of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, in a statement.

Mayeux emphasizes the importance of professional financial guidance, noting that 56% of Americans surveyed have never worked with a financial professional.

The survey also sheds light on the financial priorities of different generations. Millennials, for instance, were ahead of the curve in getting credit cards, budgeting, and opening savings accounts before age 28. Gen Z, while well ahead in paying bills and managing basic finances by age 22, lags in areas like retirement planning and life insurance, with 53% having never contributed to a 401(k) and 49% yet to purchase life insurance.

Perhaps most tellingly, 42% of all respondents found that being an adult is harder than they expected. This sentiment is particularly stark when it comes to financial stability. Nearly two in five Americans (39%) feel they are not currently financially stable, with 41% of those doubting they’ll ever achieve financial stability. This pessimism increases with age, from only 7% of Gen Z to a whopping 66% of baby boomers.

“Gen Z’s struggles and anxieties, paired with the fact that 71% of Americans surveyed believe that being an adult is harder today than it was 10 years ago, really underscores the importance of being financially prepared for whatever the future might hold,” says Brian Steiner, Executive Director at Life Happens.

Steiner points to rising costs, stagnant salaries, and decreasing hope as factors contributing to this challenging landscape.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/adulthood-begins-age-27/?nab=0

Fans posted dramatic video of the escalating confrontation and the enraged singer’s removal from the stage.

Been caught sparring: A concert by the reunited Jane’s Addiction in Boston came to a sudden end Friday night when a clearly enraged Perry Farrell threw a punch at guitarist Dave Navarro — and was restrained by crew members, still appearing physically agitated as he was hustled offstage.

Multiple audience members shared their dramatic video of the altercation after the gig ended in calamity. This emotional explosion — coming on the heels of some “off” moments in other cities that have already been a subject of discussion in reviews and on social media — has some fans waiting to see whether the remaining gigs on the band’s long-awaited reunion tour, their first in 14 years, will proceed as scheduled.

Footage shared on the web shows the band deep into playing “Ocean Size,” the 11th number in a set that usually stretches out to 14 or 15 songs, when trouble erupts between the two most famous members of the veteran band. Some fans reported on social media that tension looked to have been brewing for several songs before it got to the point of fisticuffs.

For months, an unusual monument sat in an oak-lined square at the heart of Tasmania’s capital: a pair of severed bronze feet.
A statue of renowned surgeon-turned-premier William Crowther had loomed over the park in Hobart for more than a century. But one evening in May, it was chopped down at the ankles and the words “what goes around” graffitied on its sandstone base.
It was a throwback to another night more than 150 years ago, when Crowther allegedly broke into a morgue, sliced open an Aboriginal leader’s head and stole his skull – triggering a grim tussle over the remaining body parts.
Tasmania had become the centre of coloniser efforts to eradicate Aboriginal people in Australia. And the sailor on the slab – William Lanne – was touted as the last man on the island, making his remains a twisted trophy for white physicians.
Some see Crowther as an unfairly maligned man of his time, and his effigy as an important part of the state’s history, warts and all.
But for Lanne’s descendants, it represents colonial brutality, the dehumanising myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people are extinct, and the whitewashing of the island’s past.
“You walk around the city anywhere and you’d never know Aborigines were here,” Aboriginal activist Nala Mansell says.
Now the dismembered statue has become a symbol of a city – and a nation – struggling to reckon with its darkest chapters.

Over 38 lakh cases have been delayed because accused are absconding. This is followed by delays due to “witness”, which account for 2,920,033 cases, and cases “stayed for various reasons”, totaling 2,462,051.

The NJDG identifies causes for delays in cases before the district courts cases, and the top reason for the backlog is the unavailability of counsel to represent parties.

A majority of these – over 5.1 lakh – are criminal cases.

Over 38 lakh cases have been delayed because accused are absconding. This is followed by delays due to “witness”, which account for 2,920,033 cases, and cases “stayed for various reasons”, totaling 2,462,051.

More than 8 lakh cases have been delayed because parties were not interested.

Other reasons for delays include the execution of decrees, frequent appeals, legal representatives not being on record, unavailability of case records and cases being stayed by the High Court or Supreme Court, among others.

These figures put the spotlight on lawyers in terms of what role they play in increasing the backlog before our courts.

Last year, the Supreme Court while flagging the massive pendency of cases in Maharashtra courts said that the issue cannot be resolved unless lawyers also cooperate with the process and act in a fair manner.

“If the members of the Bar do not cooperate with the Trial Courts, it will be very difficult for our Courts to deal with the huge arrears. While a trial is being conducted, the members of the Bar are expected to act as officers of the Court. They are expected to conduct themselves in a reasonable and fair manner,” the Bench observed.

A couple of years back, Justice MR Shah revealed that the unavailability of lawyers to argue cases was an issue before the Supreme Court as well. He observed during a hearing,

“One of the reasons for pendency is letter for adjournments. Everyday 5 to 6 matters in criminal matters adjournments letters are given, where personal difficulty is cited.”

Former Chief Justice of India NV Ramana also urged lawyers to play their part in reducing pendency figures by advising their clients to settle disputes at the pre-litigation stage itself.

The NJDG reveals more interesting figures on pendency. Another section highlights the age of cases pending before district courts. Approximately 99,000 have been pending for over 30 years.

Over 2 crore cases have been filed within the past 0 to 3 years and are still pending for disposal.

Source: https://www.barandbench.com/news/66-lakh-cases-district-courts-delayed-unavailability-lawyers

It might not be such a “Love Story” after all.

Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, may turn more voters away than it attracts.

A new post-debate poll from YouGov released Saturday found that 8% of voters said the pop superstar’s nod is either “somewhat” or “much more likely” to convince them to cast their ballot for the Democrat.

But a whopping 20% said they are “somewhat” or “much less likely” to vote for former President Donald Trump’s opponent now that Swift has spoken.

The presence of hard-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer alongside Donald Trump on the campaign trail in recent days has raised questions, including from some Republicans, about the influence the controversial former congressional candidate may have on him.
Ms Loomer is well-known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and for spreading conspiracy theories, including that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” carried out by the US government.
She joined Trump at an event on Wednesday commemorating the attacks, raising eyebrows and prompting outrage in some US media outlets.
And on Tuesday, the 31-year-old travelled to Philadelphia on board Trump’s plane for the presidential debate in the city.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of that debate came when Trump repeated a baseless claim that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating domestic pets in a small Ohio city. “They are eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.
City officials later told BBC Verify that there have been “no credible reports” this has actually happened.
Trump said he was repeating claims he had heard on television, but the theory was aired by Ms Loomer just a day before the debate. On Monday, the fringe pundit and social media influencer repeated the claims to her 1.2m followers on X.
While the level of access Ms Loomer has to Trump is unclear, and his running mate JD Vance has also spread the baseless theory, Ms Loomer’s post and her presence in Philadelphia has led some Republicans to blame her for the former president making the unfounded claim on stage.
An anonymous source close to the Trump campaign told US news outlet Semafor that they were “100%” concerned about Ms Loomer’s proximity to Trump.
“Regardless of any guardrails the Trump campaign has put on her, I don’t think it’s working,” the source was quoted as saying.

Now, she is known for her vocal support of Trump and for promoting a long string of conspiracy theories including claims that Kamala Harris is not black, and that the son of billionaire George Soros was sending cryptic messages calling for Trump’s assassination.

These posts led her to be banned from a number of platforms including Facebook, Instagram and even, according to her, Uber and Lyft for making offensive comments about Muslim drivers. She once described herself as a “proud Islamophobe”.

• Eating pets, inflation, abortion – key debate claims fact-checked
• Ohio leaders dismiss claims of migrants eating pets
• US voters weigh in on debate performance

Ms Loomer frequently attends events in support of Trump and has been seen previously at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago.

Earlier this year, she travelled on his plane to Iowa where she was given a shout-out by him on stage at an event. “You want her on your side,” Trump said. The former president has also shared several of her videos on Truth Social.

And last year, the New York Times reported that Trump had expressed an interest in hiring her for his campaign, relenting only after top aides expressed concern that she could damage his electoral efforts.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8y27dwgpo

Whoopi Goldberg told Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance to “stop talking” after the candidate for vice president spoke out against Taylor Swift. The music superstar formally endorsed Kamala Harris for president soon after the Sept. 10 debate between Harris and Trump ended. Vance reacted by telling Fox News that Swift is “disconnected” from most of America.

“We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans,” Vance claimed.

“Look, when grocery prices go by 20%, it hurts most Americans. It doesn’t hurt Taylor Swift,” he added. “When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn’t affect Taylor Swift or any other billionaire. It does affect middle class Americans all over our country.”

Goldberg responded on “The View” to Vance’s trolling by saying: “You don’t know what affects her! You don’t about know her money! How you talking about her? Shut up, JD. I’m sorry that was very rude. Stop talking, JD.”

“The reason I apologized is because I hate when pundits tell me to shut up,” Goldberg later clarified. “It’s not a nice thing to say but I do take it back. But the implication is… hush! We were just talking about how Taylor Swift endorsing Harris-Walz is triggering Republicans. It’s a big deal. It’s really freaking them out.”

Goldberg’s “The View” co-hosts went on to praise Swift for encouraging her fans to vote, which the singer did in both her endorsement statement and during an acceptance speech at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. It was reported that 337,826 of Swift’s followers clicked the link to vote.gov that she included in her endorsement.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/whoopi-goldberg-jd-vance-shut-up-taylor-swift-criticism-1236142332/

At least four people died and thousands of homes were damaged by flooding in eastern Romania on Saturday, officials said, as surging river levels put authorities on alert in much of central and eastern Europe following days of torrential rain.
Tens of thousands of households were left without power in Romania and the Czech Republic, where more rainfall is forecast in the coming days. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, southern Germany and parts of Austria are also expected to see more heavy rain.

Residents of some towns along the Czech-Polish border were evacuated as rivers rose past alert levels while the Czech capital, Prague, which suffered catastrophic floods in 2002, put preventative anti-flood measures in place.
In Romania, flooding affected eight counties, the country’s emergency unit said, and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu visited hard-hit Galati county, where the four people were found dead, about 5,000 homes were damaged and 25,000 were without power.

EVACUATIONS, BLACKOUTS

Forecasters warned that some parts of the country could see more than a third of average annual rainfall by Sunday, with Environment Minister Petr Hladik urging people in the worst-hit areas to prepare to leave their homes.
In the village of Visnova, 140 km (87 miles) north of Prague, local resident Roman Christof said his cottage had escaped damage because it was built on higher land. Others were less fortunate, he added.
“I feel sorry for the neighbours,” he said as he surveyed the floodwaters.

In Prague, a city of more than 1.3 million people that sits on the banks of the Vltava river spanned by the picturesque 14th century Charles Bridge, flood barriers were put in place.

The city heavily invested into preventive measures after the 2002 floods, which swept into the subway system and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Prague Zoo, which is located along the Vltava, was closed to visitors and Czech Railways said services on dozens of routes were disrupted. In the country’s second-biggest city, Brno, a hospital evacuated patients as a precaution.

‘CRITICAL NIGHT’ AHEAD

In Glucholazy, a historic town in southwestern Poland near the Czech border, firefighters piled hundreds of sandbags alongside a swollen river and some residents were evacuated.

Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said weather forecasts looked unfavourable, with very heavy rainfall to fall around the Czech border area over the next 24 hours, feeding rivers into Poland.

“We are facing a critical night, full mobilisation is required,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on the X platform.

Officials in neighbouring Slovakia warned of the threat of flooding in the capital, Bratislava, from the swollen Danube, while Hungary expects the river to near record-high levels in the coming days.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-die-romania-floods-rain-batters-central-europe-2024-09-14/

After acquiring United Spirits in 2014 and cleaning up its balance sheet, UK-based alcobev giant Diageo is busy consolidating its position in India through a focus on premiumisation, strategic buyouts, and innovation

On the busy Vittal Mallya Road in central Bengaluru stands the UB Tower. The 20-storey tower, part of a commercial complex, is home to many high-profile names, including Diageo India, a subsidiary of the UK’s Diageo plc, which acquired United Spirits, India’s largest liquor company by revenue.

When United Spirits got under the Diageo umbrella, it was not just a new name for an old business. Diageo is a more aggressive organisation with a distinct multinational culture. The alcoholic beverages major, headquartered in London, has over 200 brands and a presence in 180 countries. For the financial year ended June 30, 2024, Diageo reported revenues of $27 billion, of which 40% came from North America and 24% from Europe. Asia-Pacific contributed 19%, with India’s share in the modest single digits.

Diageo has been trying to change this ever since it took over United Spirits a decade ago: it knows that very few markets offer the headroom for growth that India does. But the changes have come in fits and starts.

Hina Nagarajan, named Diageo India’s boss in 2021 after a similar role at its African business, is hastening the pace. Nagarajan, who prefers a low profile despite being the MD & CEO of a liquor giant, talks in terms of months, not years.

Sitting in her austere office, the MD & CEO pauses briefly to adjust her green blazer before recalling one of the early strategy meetings right after she took over in July 2021. Nagarajan’s table is clean, and her room is sparse (We are drinking tea, and there is no display of Diageo’s 63 alcohol brands in the room). Most importantly, she is relaxed, which is admirable given the complex regulations, tax rates and even bottle sizes across states. Some states depend heavily on taxes from liquor revenues.

“The first thing we asked ourselves was what we stood for. It was clear that we had to set ourselves a mission to be among India’s top-performing consumer packaged goods companies,” she says. Although a Diageo-owned company, it was yet to get out of the woods; Nagarajan had a tough job on her hands. Diageo acquired United Spirits from the flamboyant Vijay Mallya, a liquor baron who crash-landed in debt after his aviation venture ran into trouble. Mallya is out of the picture and left the country in 2016.

The pair are both naturists – meaning they like to spend time in the nude.

Two pals are causing a stir while completing a six-day tandem bike ride – both completely naked.

Neil Cox, 36, and his friend, J Antic, 25, set off on Saturday (7) on a naked 260-mile journey from Gloucester to Land’s End, Cornwall.

The pair are both naturists – meaning they like to spend time in the nude – and wanted to see some natural beauty across the southwest of England.

Neil and J have cycled naked through Gloucester to Bristol, taken a trip to the Mendips and stopped off in Glastonbury.

The pair have spent some nights camping and others in hotels or B&Bs, and even took some nude trips out shopping or drinking in bars while on their journey.

Now in Cornwall, they’re on the last leg of their cycle – and say the response to them so far has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

Neil, a finance worker, from Stoke, Cheshire East, said: “We did a bike ride down to Land’s End in 2022, and raised about £5k. This time it’s been more for enjoyment.

“We’re not far from the end now and we’ve had varied responses.

“People on social media always have opinions – but we haven’t had many negative reactions.

“People in Glastonbury were overwhelmingly positive, it was a bit overwhelming.

“In Bristol people had a casual indifference, but that’s what we want to be the case really.

“There were times I was worried about a negative reaction, but it was all in my head.

“After we went through Glastonbury we did get dressed – but only because it was windy and chucking it down with rain!”

Neil set off with J, who is from Peckham, southeast London, on Saturday and they cycled down to Bristol – before having an evening drinking.

They went for drinks naked in a few central bars in Bristol and said the response was largely “indifferent” – they were just left alone to get on with their evening.

They spent the Sunday working out the logistics of the rest of the route before setting off for the Mendip Hills, Somerset, on Monday.

They have spent some nights camping, and others in hotels or B&Bs, depending on the weather and their location.

On their way to Cullompton, Devon, the following day, they stopped off at Glastonbury where they had some food and drink and a wander around some shops in the town.

Neil said: “In Glastonbury it was almost too positive. One lady even thanked us.

“Wherever we go, people do look over – I think some are just bemused about seeing two people on a tandem.

“So they find it even funnier to see two naked people on a tandem.”

Now nearing the end of their route, the pair have been pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction in person.

Neil said people on social media were less fond of their nakedness when he shared their journey on a local Facebook group.

One commented: “You may love seeing each other naked, doesn’t mean we want to. Have more respect for other people!”

Another added: “I have never understood the need of people to draw attention to themselves, without offering anything to the rest of society.”

But others jumped to their defense – with one saying “Good on them!” and another saying it’s “good to counteract the media portrayal of bodies these days”.

Source: https://talker.news/2024/09/13/friends-causing-stir-with-six-day-naked-tandem-bike-trip/

Japanese retail giant Seven & i Holdings (3382.T), opens new tab has been classified as “core” to national security, according to an updated finance ministry list released on Friday.
The classification has raised questions as to whether it is a defensive manoeuvre by the owner of 7-Eleven convenience stores which last week rejected a $38.5 billion buyout offer from Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO), opens new tab. Couche-Tard is discussing whether to raise its offer price, according to a Bloomberg report.

Spain, hosting a high-level meeting on Friday of several Muslim and European countries on ways to end the Gaza war, called for a clear schedule for the international community to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We meet to make another push for the end of the war in Gaza, for a way out of the unending spiral of violence between the Palestinians, the Israelis… That way is clear. The implementation of the two-state solution is the only way,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters.

The United States made a return to the Davis Cup Final 8 after beating Slovakia 3-0 in Group C in Zuhai on Friday, while Spain also sealed their spot in the knockout stage.
Mackenzie McDonald beat Lukas Klein 6-4 6-3 in the day’s opening singles before Brandon Nakashima beat Jozef Kovalik also in straight sets to give the Americans an unassailable 2-0 lead.
Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram then fought back to a 6-7(4) 7-6(4) 10-1 win over Norbert Gombos and Klein in the doubles for an overall 3-0 triumph after the U.S. failed to progress last year following defeats to the Netherlands and Finland.