Category: World

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to hit the European Union with tariffs and said his administration was discussing a 10% punitive duty on Chinese imports because fentanyl is being sent from China to the U.S. via Mexico and Canada.
Trump voiced his latest tariff threats in remarks to reporters at the White House a day after taking office without immediately imposing tariffs as he had promised during his campaign.

Financial markets and trade groups exhaled briefly on Tuesday, but his latest comments underscored Trump’s longstanding desire for broader duties and a new Feb. 1 deadline for 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico, as well as duties on China and the EU.
Trump said the EU and other countries also had troubling trade surpluses with the United States.
“The European Union is very, very bad to us,” he said, repeating comments made Monday. “So they’re going to be in for tariffs. It’s the only way … you’re going to get fairness.”

Trump said on Monday that he was considering imposing the duties on Canada and Mexico unless they clamped down on the trafficking of illegal migrants and fentanyl, including precursor chemicals from China, across their U.S. borders.
Trump had previously threatened a 10% duty on Chinese imports because of the trade, but realigned that with the Feb. 1 deadline.
China said it was willing to maintain communication with the U.S. to “properly handle differences and expand mutually beneficial cooperation”. It sought to promote stable and sustainable ties with the U.S., the foreign ministry said.

“We always believe that there is no winner in a trade war or tariff war. China will always firmly safeguard its national interests,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a regular press briefing on Wednesday.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC early on Tuesday that Trump’s Canada and Mexico tariff threat was to pressure the two countries to stop illegal migrants and illicit drugs from entering the U.S.
“The reason why he’s considering 25, 25 and 10 (percent), or whatever it’s going to be, on Canada, Mexico and China, is because 300 Americans die every day” from fentanyl overdoses, Navarro said.

APRIL 1 REPORTS

Trump on Monday signed a broad trade memorandum ordering federal agencies to complete comprehensive reviews of a range of trade issues by April 1.

These include analyses of persistent U.S. trade deficits, unfair trade practices and currency manipulation among partner countries, including China. Trump’s memo asked for recommendations on remedies, including a “global supplemental tariff,” and changes to the $800 de minimis duty-free exemption for low-value shipments often blamed for illicit imports of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
The reviews ordered create some breathing room to resolve reported disagreements among Trump’s cabinet nominees over how to approach his promises of universal tariffs and duties on Chinese goods of up to 60%.
Trump’s more measured approach to tariffs fueled a rally in U.S. stocks that pushed the benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX), to its highest level in a month, though Trump’s new salvo on China and the European Union may deflate that momentum.
Trump likely “decided to go a little slower and also to make sure he has as firm a legal foundation as he can get for these kinds of actions,” said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “He’s figuring out how to best use his leverage to get what he wants.”

SOFTER TONES

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed on Tuesday how to build ties with Donald Trump, prospects for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and Moscow’s firm support for Beijing’s position on Taiwan.
Xi and Putin, who spoke for an hour and 35 minutes by video call after Trump was sworn in as U.S. president on Monday, proposed a further deepening of the strategic partnership between their countries which worries the West.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing, days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. Putin has in recent months described China as an “ally”.
Putin, 72, speaking from his Novo-Ogarevo residency outside Moscow and Xi, 71, speaking from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, called each other “dear friends”, and Xi told Putin about a call with Trump on Friday on TikTok, trade and Taiwan.

Xi and Putin “have indicated a willingness to build relations with the United States on a mutually beneficial, mutually respectful basis, if the Trump team really shows interest in this,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. “It was also noted from our side that we are ready for dialogue with the new U.S. administration on the Ukrainian conflict.”
Ushakov said Putin wanted long-term peace in Ukraine, not a short-term ceasefire, but any deal must take into account Russia’s interests. No specific proposals for a call with Trump have been received, he said.

Trump has said he will be tough on China and speak to Putin about ending the war in Ukraine. In remarks to reporters after his inauguration, Trump said Putin should make a deal to end the war because the conflict was destroying Russia.
Xi has called for talks to end the war in Ukraine and has accused the U.S. of stoking the war with weapons supplies to Kyiv, which says it is ready to seek a negotiated solution that respects its interests.

“The relationship between Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia is ‘the most significant undeclared alliance in the world’,” said Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, who wrote a 2023 paper of the same title.

“Xi will play a decisive role in the early end of the war in Ukraine that Trump has promised – and that I’m betting will happen.”

WORLD VIEW

A fire at a ski resort hotel in Turkey’s Bolu mountains killed 76 people and injured dozens on Tuesday, forcing panicked guests to jump out of windows in the middle of the night.
“It was like the apocalypse. The flames engulfed the hotel immediately, like in half an hour,” said Mevlut Ozer, who witnessed the incident at the Kartalkaya ski resort in northwest Turkey.

The fire began around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on the restaurant floor of the 12-storey Grand Kartal Hotel, authorities said.

Several fire engines and ambulances later surrounded the charred, wood-fronted building, where white bed sheets tied together dangled from at least three upper-floor windows, showing how people tried to flee.
President Tayyip Erdogan declared Wednesday a day of national mourning after the incident.
“People all started to jump with panic. One friend jumped from the 11th floor – may God have mercy on him,” said Omer Sakrak, another witness and employee of a neighbouring hotel.

“They tried to climb down using bedsheets. The bedsheets ripped as one friend tried … and he unfortunately fell on his head,” he told Reuters. “One father was yelling about his one year-old child: ‘I will throw my child or he will burn’.”
Hotel guests told TV broadcasters they fled through smoke-filled corridors and heard no alarms.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said there had been 238 guests staying at the hotel, situated at the base of several ski slopes, which smouldered until the afternoon.

“Our pain is impossible to describe,” he said, speaking from the resort and offering condolences. Yerlikaya said the fire was out and that search efforts at the hotel had finished.
Authorities are conducting DNA tests to identify some of the bodies recovered from the scene of the fire, he added.
An investigation was underway into the fire, which happened during school holidays when many families from nearby Istanbul and Ankara head to the Bolu mountains to ski.

Source :https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/six-dead-31-injured-ski-resort-hotel-fire-turkey-state-broadcaster-says-2025-01-21/

India’s government is prepared to work with Donald Trump’s administration to identify and take back all its citizens residing illegally in the US, an early signal from New Delhi that it’s willing to comply with the incoming American president and avoid a trade war.

The US has identified some 18,000 illegal Indian migrants to be sent back home, for which India will verify and start the process of deportation, according to people familiar with the matter. The figure could be much higher than that, though, given that it’s unclear how many illegal Indian migrants live in the US, the people added, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Source : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-21/india-set-to-take-back-18-000-citizens-from-us-to-placate-trump

Justin Baldoni‘s legal team released a series of video takes from “It Ends With Us” on Tuesday as they continue to push back on Blake Lively‘s sexual harassment claims.

Lively sued Baldoni, the film’s director and co-star, earlier this month for harassment and retaliation, accusing him of a series of inappropriate and offensive interactions during production. Among them, she objected to his conduct during filming of a slow-dance sequence, when their characters are supposed to be falling in love.

In the suit, she alleged that Baldoni “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good.’”

Baldoni’s team released three takes from the slow-motion sequence, which they said was the entirety of the footage shot for that scene.

“Both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism,” a title card states.

Lively’s team sees it differently, arguing in a statement Tuesday afternoon that the footage fully corroborates her account, showing her leaning away while Baldoni tries to kiss her and caress her.

“Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort,” Lively’s team said. “They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.”

The footage shows the two co-stars disagreeing about how to portray the intimacy of the scene. At one point in the footage, Baldoni goes in for a kiss and Lively hesitates. She then says, “I think we should be talking. I think it’s more romantic if we’re like dancing and talking.”

Baldoni then contrasts their respective relationships, saying that Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, “talk all the time,” but that he and his wife, Emily, will sometimes just stare at each other.

“I think you would find it terrifying,” he says. She responds: “I’d be like, ‘Oh no, I found a sociopath.’”

Baldoni filed his own suit against Lively last week. In it, he said that Lively was “unable to take direction,” and kept talking out of character during the slow-dance sequence.

The footage appears to show the interaction that Lively objected to, in which Baldoni made reference to her smelling good. In the take, Baldoni is seen nuzzling Lively’s neck, and asks, “Am I getting beard on you today?”

She laughs and says, “I’m probably getting spray-tan on you.”

“It smells good,” he responds.

Lively’s lawsuit alleges that “Mr. Baldoni was caressing Mr. Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles.” According to the complaint, she later objected to his behavior, and his response was: “I’m not even attracted to you.”

Source : https://variety.com/2025/film/news/justin-baldoni-blake-lively-it-ends-with-us-sexual-harassment-1236280849/

Garth Hudson, whose fantastical approach to the organ and virtuosity on a panoply of other instruments lent a distinctive touch to the roots-rock of the Canadian-American group the Band, has died, representatives for the group have confirmed. Hudson “passed away peacefully in his sleep” Tuesday morning at a nursing home in the Band’s longtime home base of Woodstock, New York, the musician’s estate executor told the Toronto Star. He was 87.

Retiring and seldom interviewed, Hudson was the quiet man in the group that began life as the Hawks, Arkansas-born rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’ backup band, who in 1966 graduated to supporting Bob Dylan on his tumultuous first tour as a rock ‘n’ roll performer.

After woodshedding with Dylan in West Saugerties, N.Y. — where Hudson served as recording engineer for Dylan and the group’s legendary “basement tapes” – the musicians stepped out as the Band on a stunning 1968 debut, “Music From Big Pink.” That album and the self-titled 1969 sequel established them as one of the day’s top rock acts.

In a typically self-effacing, and typically rare, interview with the Canadian magazine Maclean’s in 2003, Hudson – the only Band member who never contributed vocally on stage or on record — minimized his unique accomplishments.

“It was a job,” he said. “Play a stadium, play a theater. My job was to provide arrangements with pads underneath, pads and fills behind good poets. Same poems every night.”

Robbie Robertson, the Band’s guitarist and songwriter in the group’s years of stardom (who himself passed away in August of 2023), offered a far more effusive assessment of what Hudson brought to the table in his 2016 memoir “Testimony”

“He played brilliantly, in a more complex way than anybody we had ever jammed with,” he wrote. “Most of us had just picked up our instruments as kids and plowed ahead, but Garth was classically trained and could find musical avenues on the keyboard we didn’t know existed. It impressed us deeply.”

He made an unforgettable statement with a long, Bach-inspired introduction – later a stand-alone concert feature known as “The Genetic Method” – to “Chest Fever,” a cryptic “Big Pink” rocker.

Every album contained a song that demonstrated Hudson’s great gifts: “Up On Cripple Creek,” with its twanging, wah-wah-infused clavinet, on “The Band”; “Daniel and the Sacred Harp,” boasting an elegant church-organ intro, on “Stage Fright” (1970); the Dylan cover “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” highlighted by his accordion obbligato, on “Cahoots” (1971); the percolating “Third Man Theme,” the old Hawks break song, from the collection of covers “Moondog Matinee” (1973); and “It Makes No Difference,” a lush ballad featuring Hudson’s soprano saxophone work, from “Northern Lights-Southern Cross” (1975). Even a rock and roll classic like the group’s cover of Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin’” features a wild organ solo from Hudson that evokes a deranged calliope.

Following the Band’s celebrated, star-studded farewell show, “The Last Waltz,” in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976, the act called it quits in the studio with “Islands” (1977); the title instrumental proved to be Hudson’s lone co-writing credit.

After an abortive attempt at a reunion, a good deal of highly public acrimony between Robertson and the other members of the Band – especially drummer Levon Helm, who had served as the Hawks’ first musical director – and the 1986 suicide of pianist-vocalist Richard Manuel, the act regrouped in 1993 for the album “Jericho,” with Jim Weider replacing the guitarist. Two more albums followed in 1996 and 1998, but the group couldn’t recapture the commercial clout of its glory years.

Hudson, who regularly performed the music of the Band on tour in later years, released three solo albums on independent labels. In 2010, he curated “A Canadian Celebration of the Band,” a salute to the group featuring such countrymen as Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Cowboy Junkies and Blue Rodeo.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Band in 1994, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2008. The group became part of the Juno Awards’ Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989.

He was born Eric Garth Hudson in Windsor, Ontario, on Aug. 2, 1937, and grew up in the northeastern city of London. His family was musical: His father played flute, drums, cornet and saxophone and performed in local dance bands, and his mother played accordion. He grew up listening to country and jazz. His first public experience in music was playing hymns in an uncle’s funeral parlor.

In Helm’s 1993 memoir “This Wheel’s On Fire,” he recalled, “My parents sent me to study piano at the Toronto Conservatory. I had a good teacher who used older methods and older pieces. That’s how I learned to play the Bach preludes and fugues, material like that. I loved Chopin, and Mozart amazed me. But I found I had problems memorizing classical annotated music…so I developed my own method of ear training and realized I could improvise.”

After a year studying music at the University of Western Ontario in London, he dropped out and began to play professionally. In the late ‘50s, he worked with the regional bands the Silhouettes and Paul London and the Kapers. His abilities caught the attention of Helm, who lobbied Hawkins to bring him into the Hawks.

“Garth was different,” Hawkins told Barney Hoskyns in “Across the Great Divide,” his 1993 book about the Band. “He heard all sorts of weird sounds in his head, and he played like the Phantom of the Opera. He wasn’t a rock ‘n’ roll person at all, but it fitted.”

Hudson – who was paid an additional $10 per week to teach his band mates music, to mollify his dubious parents – became the eldest member of a lineup that included Helm, Robertson, Manuel and bassist Rick Danko. As part of his deal, he ultimately was rewarded with a new Lowrey electronic organ; Hudson found it more versatile and easier to manipulate than the popular Hammond B-3. A gearhead and tinkerer by nature, he customized the instrument (perhaps most importantly with a pitch-shifting device), and it became the keystone of his sound.

After splitting in 1963 with Hawkins, whom they came to view as a parsimonious disciplinarian, the group recorded singles as the Canadian Squires and Levon & the Hawks. Hudson, Helm and Robertson backed blues singer John Hammond, Jr. (son of the Columbia Records A&R legend) on his album “So Many Roads.” A recommendation from Mary Martin, assistant to Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman, led to a job as Dylan’s band on his 1965-66 world tour.

Depressed by the violent reaction of Dylan’s folk fans to his new electric music, Helm quit the group early in the trek and was replaced by Trini Lopez’s drummer Mickey Jones. The Hawks soldiered through a riotous series of dates in the U.S. and Europe. They parted ways at the tour’s conclusion, but Dylan, after recuperating from a serious motorcycle accident, summoned the Hawks to woodshed with him in West Saugerties, N.Y.

They recorded a breadth of old American music and new Dylan compositions at his home and in the basement of a pink ranch house, “Big Pink,” where most of the musicians lived communally; Hudson rolled the tapes at Dylan’s direction. As record label interest in the Hawks developed, Helm rejoined the unit and participated in some of the basement sessions. Several of the so-called “basement tapes” were ultimately culled by Hudson for use as music publishing demos; these songs ultimately made an illicit appearance on the first major rock bootleg album, the two-LP 1969 set “The Great White Wonder.”

Signed to Capitol Records in their own right, the Hawks assumed a new handle, the Band. The group recorded for the label for a decade, issuing seven studio albums and a widely praised two-LP live set, “Rock of Ages.” They also backed Dylan on the collaborative Asylum Records set “Planet Waves” (1974), which reached No. 1 in the U.S., and a joint headlining tour that year, which spawned the concert set “Before the Flood.”

At Capitol and on the Band’s three reunion albums, Hudson distinguished himself as a do-anything player; his instrumental arsenal included tenor, baritone, and soprano saxophones, piccolo, accordion, synthesizer, clavinet, slide trumpet and occasional piano.

Source : https://variety.com/2025/music/news/garth-hudson-last-member-the-band-dead-1236280162/

When Pte Oleksander Bezverkhny was evacuated to the Feofaniya Hospital in Kyiv, few believed he would live. The 27-year-old had a severe abdominal injury and shrapnel had ripped through his buttocks. Both his legs were amputated.

Then, doctors discovered that his infections were resistant to commonly-used antibiotics – and the already daunting task of saving his life became almost hopeless.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is when bacteria evolve and learn how to defend the

This would not be possible in Ukraine as the influx of patients has not been seen since the Second World War, according to Dr Dubyna, whose hospital in Dnipro neighbours front-line regions. Once his patients are stable enough, they are transferred to another clinic – if it has room – to free up capacity.

“In terms of microbiological control, it means they spread [bacteria] further. But if it’s not done, we’re not able to work. Then it’s a catastrophe.”

With so many wounded, Ukrainian hospitals simply cannot usually afford to isolate infected patients – meaning that multi-resistant and dangerous bacteria spread unchecked.

The problem is that infections they cause must be treated with special antibiotics from the “reserve” list. But the more often doctors prescribe these, the quicker bacteria adapt, making those antibiotics ineffective too.

“We have to balance our scales,” Dr Strokan explains. “On the one hand, we must save a patient. On the other – we mustn’t breed new microorganisms that will have antimicrobial resistance.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20k5wrgz13o

The sixth and last child of Mohammad Aslam from Budhal village of Rajouri in Jammu division has succumbed at GMC Jammu, taking the death toll in the ‘mysterious disease’ to 17.

An official told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that Yasmeena Jan, daughter of Mohammad Aslam was taken to GMC Rajouri last Sunday from where she was referred to GMC Jammu on Monday for advanced treatment however she died during treatment this evening.

Principal GMC Jammu, Dr Ashutosh Gupta confirmed her death and said that her condition was critical from day one.Buy vitamins and supplements

Yasmeen was the lone surviving child of Mohammad Aslam, who lost his all six children to this ‘mysterious illness’ now.

Aslam has lost four daughters, two sons and his maternal uncle and aunt in last one week.

Source : https://www.greaterkashmir.com/jammu/mysterious-illness-claims-one-more-life-in-budhal-rajouri-toll-reaches-17/

HEAVY snow has fallen in Florida, covering beaches in the south as a winter storm wreaks havoc across the United States.

Millions of Americans have been urged to stay indoors after a blizzard warning was issued for the first time ever in multiple southern states.

The blizzard warning is in effect across Florida, Central Louisiana, and Houston – where one of the largest ports in the world has been forced to close.

It comes as videos on social media showed snow falling in the Sunshine State – a rarity for the typically warm region.

The most snowfall ever recorded in Florida history was four inches, which fell in Milton in 1954.

Multiple inches of snow were expected in the state from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday.

Texas and Louisiana, meanwhile, saw 7 inches of snow and stunning photos showed it covering beaches in Galveston, Texas, and Mississippi.

New Orleans saw at least five inches of snow, while parts of Acadiana reported as much as 10 inches fallen by noon on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service in Lake Charles.

Forecasters in Louisiana said the rare whiteout has already exceeded some predictions for the maximum amount of snowfall.

St. Bernard Parish issued a curfew order due to the snowy conditions.

Law enforcement officials will enforce the curfew beginning at 6 pm on Tuesday until noon on Wednesday.

“This curfew is in place to ensure everyone’s safety and to allow emergency crews to work effectively,” the St. Bernard Parish Government said on X.

Officials urged drivers to stay off the road unless “absolutely necessary.”

The snow, sleet, and freezing rain in the southeast are part of a “generational winter storm event,” the National Weather Service warned on Monday.

The snowfall has brought chaos to areas like Tallahassee and parts of Alabama as the notoriously hot regions are unprepared for icy weather.

All roads and bridges in Mobile County, Alabama, were considered impassable, sparking a warning that it was safer to stay inside.

Meteorologists and city leaders also warned the snow could cause issues for days since many southern cities don’t have snow plows.

“I hope everyone is safe and warm at home with a big pot of gumbo,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said on X before urging drivers to stay off the roads.

The Houston Police Department also warned against traveling.

“The roadways are going to be completely impassable. Do not roll the dice, stay off the ice,” HPD’s Captain Reece Hardy said in a video.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire said officials are doing “everything we can to prepare for this winter storm.”

“We will be here to keep you safe and respond to emergencies, but we need your help,” he said, urging people to stay indoors.

“We don’t want you to risk your life or jeopardize the safety of our police officers and firefighters if they have to rescue you when you could have stayed home,” Whitmire said.

“Our first responders must remain focused on critical incidents as conditions worsen.”

Later on Tuesday, Port Houston announced its facilities would remain closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It came after vessel operations were halted and container terminal truck gates shuttered on Monday night.

Houston saw about three to four inches of snow fallen by Tuesday afternoon – the most in a generation.

TRAVEL CHAOS

The snowstorm hit nearly a dozen states in The Sun Belt area, halting travel from major hubs.

Houston’s airports George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby are closed in the face of the extreme weather.

Nearly 1,000 flights have been canceled at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.

Pensacola International Airport closed entirely and Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport shuttered at noon.

SNOW SHOCK

Southerners shared their stunned reactions to the rare snowflakes falling in the Sunshine State.

“For the first time in history, we actually have a blizzard warning in Northwest Florida,” one Floridian said on X.

“It just started snowing in Pensacola.”

“It may be snowing in Florida but it’s definitely snowing on the gulf coast of Texas!” another user wrote on X.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13348804/florida-snow-blizzard-texas-alabama/

DONALD Trump’s new press secretary is the youngest person ever to hold the powerful position.

Karoline Leavitt, 27, has already made waves on her first full day as the White House press secretary. On Tuesday, she teased a “massive” announcement from the president.

The job hasn’t been held by anyone under 30 since 1969 under former President Richard Nixon’s administration.

In a statement announcing her appointment in November, Trump said, “Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator.”

“I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium and help deliver our message to the American people,” he added.

In response to a video of workers cleaning the White House briefing room, Leavitt shared her excitement about her new position on X.

On January 20, she wrote, “Thank you to the hardworking White House staff for preparing for our arrival. See you soon!”

Hours later, she posted a picture from the Capitol Rotunda.

“The Golden Age of America has begun,” she wrote.

Leavitt previously served as the national press secretary for Trump’s 2024 campaign.

She also served as Trump’s assistant press secretary during his last administration when she was just fresh out of college.

The New Hampshire native graduated from Saint Anselm College in 2019 with communications and political science degrees.

She started her career as an intern at Fox News during college.

Before Leavitt’s senior year of college, she also interned in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence.

After graduating, she worked as Kayleigh McEnany’s assistant press secretary during Trump’s first presidency.

Her website stated that Leavitt helped prepare McEnany, another Fox News media personality, for “high-pressure briefings.”

A$300 million members-only luxury doomsday bunker complete with robotic medical suites, lavish swimming pool, and fine dining restaurants is set to revolutionize how the rich and powerful can shelter themselves in an apocalyptic disaster.

Due to open in the summer of 2026, the high-end underground fortress will provide a 5-star survivalist experience to those lucky few who are willing to fork out $20 million for a single membership, of which there are only 625 available.

The bunker, which has been named “Aerie,” will be part of a network of similar sanctuaries that cater to the 1%, providing them with a unique opportunity to safeguard their futures, no matter what disasters might lie ahead.

It is a far cry from the off-grid homesteads and stark nuclear shelters favored by traditional doomsday preppers—some of whom have earned viral stardom by showcasing the many ways in which they are readying themselves and their families to ride out a potential societal collapse.

But where the more stereotypical preppers have vegetable patches and remote cabins, Aerie offers “AI-powered” medical care, “wellness programs,” and the promise to “blend protection and luxury” in a way that has never been done before.

The bunker is the work of SAFE (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments), a Virginia-based company that specializes in secure property designs. The company has previously earned acclaim for creating all manner of unique bunkers, including one outfitted with a Formula 1 track.

However, Aerie transcends anything the company has unveiled in the past, according to SAFE’s founder and president, Al Corbi, who says the underground hideaway will transform the high-end security space.

The bunker will cost the building business a whopping $300 million to complete, with Safe charging the upper class an eye-watering $20 million to even step foot inside the high-tech structure.

Al and SAFE’s director of medical preparedness, Naomi Corbi, exclusively reveals to Realtor.com® that they will be offering four tiers of memberships, noting that the cheapest can be afforded by a “moderately successful CEO,” while a secretive top tier known as the “Asylum Membership” will be by invite only, with the security moguls admitting that the “board” is still deciding who will be lucky enough to get the bid for the most lavish entrance to the protection center.

SAFE plans to build the luxe underground pads in each of the 5o U.S. states but has opted to build the first in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, where President-elect Donald Trump will take office for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025.

The decision to base the first Aerie bunker in Virginia was, according to Al, purely “strategic,” and was not in any way motivated by the changing political landscape, but rather a desire to offer those who are able to afford membership a convenient place in which to do so.

Speaking about the decision to put the very first Aerie in DC, Al insisted: “It’s coincidental, but it’s the wealthiest state per capita. It’s ground zero for the finest demographic for something like this in the world.”

Although the underground abode will be decked out with a number of lavish amenities such as wellness areas, gourmet dining, and a medical suite with robots for doctors, the bunker’s primary goal is to keep its residents safe from harm—even those who are wealthy enough to secure one of the protection center’s upper-level penthouse suites.

Far from being just place to hunker down during a global crisis, Al notes that the bunker can be used on a more temporary basis, explaining that members can hide away inside it whenever they feel their safety is threatened.

He explains that the setup was actually inspired by one of SAFE’s clients, who shelled out $103 million to install a custom security system at his home, only to then get caught up in a concert massacre. Far from his home, the client had nowhere to turn when the gunfire began.

“Imagine you are one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world and then something unimaginable happens and you’re a regular guy, you have no place to go in the moment,” Al says. “Going to a hotel isn’t the same as going to a sanctuary that is waiting for you.”

Naomi describes Aerie bunkers as a “home away from home” for their most “famous and infamous clients.”

They reveal that while the bunkers will take several years to open, the first experience center will be available to the rich in 2026 and will allow the wealthy to splash out cash to purchase a shelter.

The safety experts noted that Aerie is a “necessity” for the rich who already “love” the idea, adding that they have memberships capped at 625 and have already had “thousands” of requests from the elite to join.

Speaking about the types of disasters Aerie can offer protection from, Al tells Realtor.com that they envision the problem to be “civil unrest.”

He notes that SAFE’s bunkers could even protect people in case of wildfires such as the devastating California flames that have already killed 27 people, per Cal Fire.

“Wildfires could go over bunkers and everyone would be saved indefinitely,” Al reveals.

The protection pro confesses that although they have designed a slew of protection pads for many A-listers, they are not able to share their names publicly.

Meanwhile, Ron Hubbard, founder and CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, who has built a slew of lavish bunkers for the wealthiest A-listers such as Kim Kardashian, the Tate brothers, Mr. Beast and more, echoes Al’s thoughts and notes that the lavish protection pads will come in handy when “civil war” occurs.

While speaking to Realtor.com, Hubbard also reveals that he believes below-the-dirt bunkers will be “standard” when building homes in the next two to three years.

While speaking to Forbes, Al and Naomi further detailed the perks that will await the residents inside.

“Aerie’s impenetrable residences include SCIF-compliant (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) environments for ultimate privacy and security. Each facility features AI-powered medical suites, gourmet dining, and wellness programs, which will blend protection and luxury.”

Naomi explained that the bunker was made with wellness in mind as the rich have become more involved with unlocking the key to the fountain of youth.

“The wealthy are becoming more interested in wellness and longevity offerings as part of their fortified residences. Aerie will utilize advanced AI-integrated medical care, connecting members to specialists around the clock,” she said.

After forking over millions for their posh protection pads, Aerie members are given the opportunity to customize their bunkers with a number of amenities.

For safety purposes, every bunker is underground except for the members’ club and its rooftop penthouse; however, the security-conscious millionaires will still be able to enjoy the sights from below the dirt thanks to interactive walls, ceilings, and special lighting effects that offer residents panoramic views that create the illusion of being perched atop a cliff.

Al added: “The whole reason Aerie came to be is that after building multimillion-dollar sanctuaries for our clients on their estates and superyachts, they still traveled away from their protected homes to locations with a lower level of protection. When something terrible happens, they can use one of the bunkers and facilities in the city they find themselves in.

“Aerie is a multifaceted club where members can conduct business in complete privacy because of its SCIF, airgap, and hardwired environments. The Sentinel system protects its members’ privacy, security, and freedom underground.”

In addition to feeling secure, the bunkers give the rich an enormous amount of space to live in, with individual suites coming in at 2,000 square feet and penthouse pads offering up 20,000 square feet of space.

The penthouse areas are described as “the pinnacle of exclusivity, resilience, and luxury” and blast-resistant walls and ballistic glass.

SAFE builders clearly thought of everything when it comes to combining safety and luxury as residents can head to the grand medical suites when they feel under the weather.

The illness centers, known as MediShield, provide full intensive care, offering life-saving techniques to the elite thanks to its state-of-the-art AI technology, which sees robots doubling as doctors.

SAFE describes the medical areas, “The company’s team of highly specialized medical professionals will deliver the same standards of the White House Medical Unit straight to you. The cutting-edge robotic services provide top-tier medical care and emergency response, regardless of location.”

After getting grade-A treatment from the robots, guests can take a dive into the cold plunge centers, where they can improve their circulation and better their mental health.

Source : https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/doomsday-bunker-aerie-luxury-robots-rich-wealthy/

President Claudia Sheinbaum called for cool heads to prevail after Donald Trump’s vow to impose hefty tariffs sent the country’s currency tumbling on fears that Mexico will become a target of his administration.

On his first day in the White House, Trump renewed his pledge to slap 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods, saying he may do so as soon as Feb. 1 if the countries don’t move to clamp down on migration and drugs. He also signed a raft of orders on immigration, declared an emergency on the southern border and pledged to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Sheinbaum responded on Tuesday as the aggressive day-one moves from Washington caused the peso to weaken as much as 1.4%. It later trimmed losses to around 0.6%, still by far the worst performer in emerging markets.

She warned the Trump administration against interventions in her nation’s territory and pledged support for Mexican citizens who may face deportation. Sheinbaum avoided a direct rebuke of the proposed tariffs, saying only that the decree Trump signed includes preparation for the 2026 review of the North American free trade agreement known as the USMCA.

“It’s important to always keep a cool head and refer to the signed orders beyond the actual rhetoric,” she said at her daily morning news conference. “That’s what counts before the law, strictly speaking.”

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struck a similar note, saying that Trump is trying to weaken the negotiating position of his trading partners by creating uncertainty. The Canadian dollar hit its weakest level in nearly five years following Trump’s remarks, falling as much as 1.4% in Asia trading before recovering most of the losses.

“We know that there is always going to be a certain amount of unpredictability and rhetoric coming out from this administration,” Trudeau told reporters, adding that Canada doesn’t want a tariff war but is ready to retaliate if necessary.

Investors have for months attempted to forecast how much of Trump’s campaign rhetoric would become policy, while trying to position themselves for the impact of tariffs. The peso, one of the most heavily-traded emerging-market currencies, lost 18.5% against the greenback last year, and now trades around the lowest level since mid-2022 at 20.6 per dollar.

Sheinbaum has sought to avoid tariffs on all Mexican goods, which could jeopardize nearly $800 billion in annual trade between Mexico and the US and call into question protections of the USMCA agreement, which Trump signed in 2020.

Her government has cracked down on cheap Chinese imports in a bid to appease the new US leader before he took office. But the revival of tariff threats sent a strong signal that Mexico remains particularly vulnerable to Trump, who held off on new China-specific trade levies on Monday.

“It’s a lot easier for the Trump administration to pick on Mexico than China,” said Jack McIntyre, a money manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management. “It’s part of Trump’s love for weaponizing uncertainty.”

Trump has also said previously that he is considering asking for a renegotiation of the USMCA. Still, there is deep uncertainty among analysts about whether he will follow through on pledges to impose the tariffs by the start of next month or other plans that could affect Mexico.

“Right now it’s a little speculative as to what is actually going to happen,” said Greg Lesko, a money manager with Deltec Asset Management in New York. “I would lean toward the view that there’s no serious damage here and that the weakness is short-lived as likely the 25% is a negotiating position.”

Sheinbaum, who has spoken with Trump twice by phone and pledged to seek strong relations with him, reiterated Tuesday that the Mexican government wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with the US. She added that she was waiting for Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to begin formal talks between the two nations.

Migration and Cartels

Sheinbaum downplayed Trump’s migration orders, saying the text of the decree is similar to the actions he took during his first term as president.

Mexico will act in a humanitarian manner but also seek to repatriate foreigners to their countries of origin if the US removes them, she said. “Remain in Mexico,” the program Trump’s government said it would reinstate, required migrants to wait for their US immigration court cases in Mexican territory.

Mexico also outlined its strategy for the deportation of its own citizens from the US, with Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez stating that it would provide hundreds of buses to transport them from the border to Mexican help centers and their states of origin. De la Fuente emphasized a series of options for those detained, including an app with a panic button and access to support at consulates in the US.

Source : https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-must-keep-cool-head-141019594.html

A meme coin known as “Elon Hitler” launched Monday after billionaire Elon Musk was accused of performing a Nazi salute during a rally after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The token, which is listed under the ticker symbol $EItler, was built on the Solana blockchain and is traded on the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Raydium.

Since its launch, the meme coin, a term that refers to cryptocurrencies based off internet in-jokes and current events, surged in price by at least 450%.

Across social media, cryptocurrency traders are pushing the token as a way to make a quick buck, urging followers to get in on the meme coin as well.

“It’s definitely kinda crazy people are even entertaining this but hey why not make yourself some money off it,” one user said of the token.

But people probably aren’t going to be getting rich off of it.

$Eltler currently has a Rugcheck Score of 0, which signals the highest potential risk for investors. A rug pull in cryptocurrency is a type of scam where developers create a token, attract investors, and then abruptly withdraw all liquidity from the project. In turn, investors are left with worthless tokens while the developers run off with the funds others invested.

Did Elon Musk do a Nazi salute?

Although Musk has not overtly denied performing a Nazi salute, the tech CEO appeared to dismiss the accusation in a statement on X.

“Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk said.

The Anti-Defamation League, meanwhile, which tracks and monitors antisemitism, came to Musk’s defense.

“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” the group said on Monday.

But not everyone could dismiss it. Israeli newspaper Haaretz described Musk’s gesture as “a fascist salute most commonly associated with Nazi Germany.”

Source : https://www.dailydot.com/debug/elon-musk-hitler-meme-coin-nazi-salute/

Officers enforcing immigration laws will now be able to arrest migrants at sensitive locations like schools and churches after the Trump administration threw out policies limiting where those arrests could happen as the new president seeks to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations.

The move announced Tuesday reverses guidance that for over a decade has restricted two key federal immigration agencies — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — from carrying out immigration enforcement in sensitive locations.

“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday.

The department said Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued the directive Monday.

The ICE guidance dates back to 2011. Customs and Border Protection issued similar guidance in 2013.

Trump has made cracking down on immigration a top priority, just as he did during his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021. On Monday he signed a slew of executive actions that included cutting off access to an app that facilitated the entry of hundreds of thousands of migrants; suspending the refugee system; and promoting greater cooperation between ICE and local and state governments.

He has often portrayed his efforts as unleashing the ability of ICE agents and others in immigration enforcement from Biden-era guidelines that he said restricted their efforts to find and remove people who no longer have the authority to remain in the country.

The announcement Tuesday had been expected as Trump works to deliver on his campaign promise to carry out mass deportations of anyone in the country illegally. But it was still jarring for advocates who have argued that raising the prospect of deportation at churches, schools or hospitals can prevent migrants from getting medical attention or allowing their children to attend school.

“This action could have devastating consequences for immigrant families and their children, including U.S. citizen children, deterring them from receiving medical attention, seeking out disaster relief, attending school, and carrying out everyday activities,” Olivia Golden, interim executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, said in a statement.

“Should ICE presence near such locations become more common, the likelihood also increases that children could witness a parent’s detention, arrest, or other encounters with ICE agents,” Golden said.

Under the “sensitive locations” guidance, officers were generally required to get approval for any enforcement operations at those locations, although exceptions were allowed for things like national security.

Trump kept the guidance on sensitive locations in place during his first administration although he did remove similar guidance that restricted immigration enforcement at courthouses. That courthouse guidance was put in place once again during the Biden administration, which also issued its own update to the “sensitive locations” guidance limiting where ICE and CBP officers could carry out immigration enforcement.

Many schools around the country have been preparing for just this eventuality by reaching out to immigrant families and local law enforcement.

In California, officials have offered guidance to schools on state law limiting local participation in immigration enforcement.

“Our policy is clear and strong that immigration enforcement is not allowed on our campuses unless forced through a valid court order,” said Diana Diaz, spokeswoman for the Fresno Unified School District, one of the largest in California. “We’ve been in communication with local law enforcement who has assured us that they will not be supporting immigration enforcement across any of our schools.”

Source : https://apnews.com/article/immigration-enforcement-sensitive-locations-trump-ab0d2d2652e9df696f14410ebb52a1fc

Elon Musk’s baby mama Grimes wants the world to know: She is against Nazism.

She made the statement in the hours following a particularly evocative salute made by Musk on stage during President Donald Trump’s inaugural proceedings—which many online have likened to the “Sieg Heil” gesture used in Nazi Germany.

“I’m happy to denounce Nazism and the far alt-right,” the Canadian singer, 36, posted on X as fans expressed frustration at her silence on Musk’s controversial gesture.

Grimes, whose legal name is Claire Elise Boucher, said she wasn’t aware that the father of her three kids had starred in yet another controversy.

“[I] am still debating how to approach things diplomatically because I feel in over my head,” she wrote. “But if there’s concern about that, I am happy to set the record straight in a meaningful way.”

At Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Musk came on stage to give a brief speech and concluded with two salutes that many have likened to the Nazi or Roman salute.

A Grimes fan later said they were considering getting rid of their tattoo of the artist over the issue, prompting the singer to issue a lengthy response.

“It’s absurd that someone can be this canceled for something their ex did before they even heard it happened,” Grimes said. “I am not him. I will not make a statement every time he does something.”

The singer argued that she was not a U.S. citizen and did not want to issue a rash statement before knowing what happened.

Source : https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-ex-grimes-addresses-his-very-evocative-salute/

Prince Harry and the publisher of The Sun’s trial is “very close” in negotiations on a potential settlement, the High Court has heard.

The Duke of Sussex and former Labour deputy leader Lord Tom Watson are suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) over allegations of unlawful information-gathering.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned NGN, which also ran the now-defunct News Of The World, denies any unlawful activity took place at The Sun.

The trial had been due to start at the High Court in London at 10.30am today but was delayed twice, before barristers for both sides requested an adjournment until 10am on Wednesday.

The request was refused by Mr Justice Fancourt – who said the two sides had already had “ample time to seek to resolve their differences”.

They could now go to the Court of Appeal in a bid to challenge the judge’s decision.

Requesting the third adjournment, NGN’s barrister Anthony Hudson said both parties “have been involved in very intense negotiations over the last few days and the reality is we are very close”.

He said: “Very unusually, both parties are in complete agreement that this is a very important step.

“The number of times the parties have been in agreement in this litigation are very few and far between.

“Both parties feel they have no choice but to persist in this.”

Mr Hudson added there had been difficulties today due to “time difference issues” in reference to Harry, who lives in California.

David Sherborne, for the duke and Lord Watson, said: “Mr Hudson and I would not be asking for further time if we did not think it stood any prospect of potentially saving a lot of court time.”

Donald Trump sat stony-faced as a bishop told him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now” at an interfaith prayer service.

The US president began day two of his second term with the event at the Washington National Cathedral, where he and wife Melania sat in the front row alongside vice president JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde was among the speakers who addressed the congregation – and she finished her address with a direct appeal to the returning president.

She began: “Let me make one final plea, Mr President. Millions have put their trust in you.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in democratic, republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

As she listed groups including “the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings” and those “who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals”, Mr Trump turned away and looked over his shoulder, before examining the booklet he was holding.

“They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said. Mr Trump then looked down at the floor.

Bishop Budde continued: “I ask you to have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.

“And that you help those who are fleeing war and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.

“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

It wasn’t just Mr Trump who looked uncomfortable. At the mention of the LGBT+ community, Mr Vance raised his eyebrows and turned to share a look with his wife, whose gaze remained firmly forward.

He repeated the move after the bishop spoke about immigrants, and followed it up by whispering to Mrs Vance.

At another point in the sermon, Mr Trump turned towards his VP and the pair shared a wordless exchange of looks.

Asked what he thought of the sermon as he returned to the Oval Office, the president told reporters: “They could have done better.”

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/bishop-rebukes-trump-as-she-tells-him-to-have-mercy-on-lgbt-community-and-immigrants-13293807

A Moroccan national with a US green card stabbed and wounded four people in a terror attack in Israel on Tuesday before he was shot dead, officials said.

Abdelaziz Kaddi, 29, went on a rampage attacking four men between the ages of 24 to 59 in Tel Aviv, the Times of Israel reports.

Kaddi, who held a US permanent resident card, had entered Israel on Jan. 18 with a tourist visa, Israeli officials said.

Israeli police say the attack happened in Tel Aviv’s Nahalat Binyamin neighborhood Tuesday evening, with witnesses reporting that Kaddi was killed by an armed civilian.

Tel Aviv District Commander Asst.-Ch. Haim Sargaroff told reporters that Kaddi appeared to act alone and there was no evidence of another terrorist in the attack, The Jerusalem Post reports.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said two of the victims, aged 24 and 28, were listed in moderate condition, with a 24-year-old and a 59-year-old listed in good condition.

Officials say they are investigating the attack and Kaddi’s movements after arriving in Israel. The case is being treated as a terror attack.

Tuesday’s mass stabbing was only the latest such attack on Israeli soil that have been occurring regularly since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Last October, six people were wounded after a moped-riding Arab Israeli went on a stabbing spree in the city of Hadera.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/01/21/world-news/us-green-card-holder-stabs-4-in-tel-aviv-terror-attack-then-is-shot-dead/

The director of The Brutalist has defended his lead actors’ performances after it emerged that artificial intelligence had been used to “refine” their Hungarian accents.

Brady Corbet insisted that the performances of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were “completely their own”.

Brody leads the three-hour film, playing Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth, a man trying to rebuild his life in the US following World War Two. Felicity Jones plays his wife, Erzsebet.

The film won three Golden Globes earlier this month, and is expected to receive nods at the forthcoming Oscar nominations.

In a statement, shared with Deadline, Corbet said: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”

He said they had “worked for months” with a dialect coach “to perfect their accents”, but that technology provided by the company Respeecher had been used “in Hungarian language dialogue editing only”.

Based in Ukraine, Respeecher says it offers filmmakers the chance to “experience the future of voice cloning” with their “cutting-edge AI solutions”.

Corbet said it had been used “specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy”, going on to say “no English language was changed”.

It was described as “a manual process”, carried out by “our sound team and Respeecher in post-production”.

Corbet said it had been done “with the utmost respect for the craft”, adding that “the aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them”.

He also said production designer Judy Becker and her team “did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings” shown in the movie’s closing sequence.

Corbet’s remarks followed an interview with the film’s editor David Jansco, who told tech magazine Red Shark News that changes had been made to “perfect” Brody and Jones’s Hungarian accents.

A native Hungarian himself, Jansco said it was one of the “most difficult languages to learn to pronounce”.

He said they had tried to use ADR (automated dialogue replacement) on some of the sounds and letters but it hadn’t worked, and attempts to “ADR them completely with other actors” also failed.

He said they then “looked for other options of how to enhance it”, eventually recording the actors’ voices with the AI software, along with his own voice.

He went on: “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there.

“We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there.”

Jansco also said AI had been used to create a series of architectural drawings and finished buildings at the end of the film.

Meanwhile, the same AI company, Respeecher, appears to have worked on another film getting plenty of Oscars buzz, the operatic musical Emilia Perez.

The company congratulated the film’s cast and creatives on their Facebook page after they won four Golden Globes earlier this month.

They wrote: “At Respeecher, we’re proud to have been credited in this incredible production, which continues to spark important conversations and push creative boundaries.”

They did not specify what part they had played in the production.

But in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the film’s re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz spoke about using AI software to increase the vocal range of one of the film’s stars, trans actress Karla Sofia Gascon.

Holtz said the singing voice of Camille, a French pop star who co-wrote the film’s score, was blended into Gascon’s to increase their upper range.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/the-brutalist-director-defends-use-of-ai-to-refine-stars-performances-13293656

Germans who get their news via the social media giant TikTok, especially those of a younger age, are more likely to hold sympathetic opinions of Russia and China, a poll has concluded.

The poll, conducted by Allensbach Institute for Germany’s business-focused Free Democrats (FDP), asked some 2,000 people at the end of 2024 about their views on matters ranging from whether they see China as a dictatorship to how they see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Respondents were also asked about their opinion on the Covid-19 pandemic and its vaccines.

TikTok, which is vastly popular among younger users, is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

What were the findings of the poll?

The poll compared the political views of respondents who relied on newspapers and TV to get their news to those who were keeping updated with the latest via social media platforms, especially TikTok. It factored in the respondents’ ages.

When asked whether they fully agreed that China was a dictatorship, 57% of German newspaper readers and 56.5% of public TV viewers agreed. This came up against merely 28.1% of TikTok users, with X, YouTube and podcasts users falling in between.

Although younger respondents generally agreed more with the statement — 67% of 16-29-year-olds — there was a similar split with the share of TikTok users in that age group agreeing with the statement dropping to 62%.

Some 40.2% of national newspaper readers fully agreed with the importance of Western backing to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. In contrast, only 13.6% of TikTok users agreed with the statement, and 29.8% of X users, the social media platform now owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

When presented with the statement that “Russia is conducting an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine,” the overall agreement was over 78%. The figure dipped to 70% among 16-29 year olds.

When asked about the pandemic, 71% of respondents under 29 years old believed that vaccines had saved millions of lives. Among TikTok users, the number stood at 69%.

“Young people are far more vulnerable to information and TikTok plays a decisive role,” said Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, deputy chair of the foundation that commissioned the survey. “We mustn’t allow Chinese and Russian misinformation to spread in our midst.”

TikTok’s influence sparks debate in Western nations

The poll comes in the midst of an ongoing debate over TikTok temporarily going dark in the US ahead of a federal ban recently upheld by the US Supreme Court, citing national security concerns.

On Sunday, incoming US President Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order delaying the ban as soon as he is sworn in on Monday.

There have been growing concerns in Western countries over Beijing potentially using TikTok to extract critical information on its users, as well as fears that Russia is using the platform to seed disinformation with the intention of advancing its agenda.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/tiktok-germany-china-russia-views/a-71352124

The modern world has given us many confounding things. Here’s another new addition for that extensive list: the phrase “adult diaper influencer.”

In this new field of human enterprise, Pree is the world’s first. “Incontinent or not, let’s embrace adult diapers together!” she declares in a recent YouTube video, as footage of the pink-haired 27-year-old in an array of crop-tops and diapers fills the screen.

She has popped up in videos for the leading ‘indie’ diaper brands in the US, whose products come in tie-dye, llama print, extra-fluffy, and super-discreet. Her flat stomach and pierced belly button peek over the top of NorthShore’s MegaMax—the Tesla of adult diapers—and her YouTube page is full of diaper reviews and diary-style “try-on” videos.

“Where is the person that has incontinence that’s talking about it?”

At the age of 19, Pree was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which is what causes her bladder control issues. She never aspired to be an adult diaper advocate, but after turning to the internet for support with her MS, she started her “Bumble Pree” YouTube channel in 2018 and has slowly grown into the role.

Pree’s first YouTube videos were incredibly honest, but focused on her pain, or her diet, or the problems she was having moving her body. What she didn’t talk about was her adult diapers—and she noticed that nobody else with MS seemed to be talking about them either, despite incontinence being a common symptom of the condition.

“I was just like, ‘Where is the person that has incontinence that’s talking about it?’ And then I realized: I have to be that person,” she explains. At first, she was worried about how people would react, and then a funny thing happened: “I noticed my numbers grew.”

Pree is one of millions of young adults living with incontinence. Many wear diapers, but Pree is one of the few young people publicly sharing their experience with bladder control issues. The $15.2 billion adult diaper industry is doing what it can to change this, starting by tackling the perception that their products are only for the elderly.

One company, InControl, posts videos of attractive young women in crop-tops and diapers dancing to Chappell Roan. Another called NorthShore has an Instagram that is full of sexy people having a great time at concerts. Their competitor, Depend, partnered with water brand Liquid Death to design a goth-style diaper for people to wear in mosh pits. “The idea was rooted in a cultural phenomenon that we’ve recently seen with concertgoers—especially Swifties choosing to wear diapers so they didn’t have to miss any part of the concert,” said Erin Przybylo, Depend’s Senior Brand Manager.

While these brands cater to those experiencing incontinence, there’s another audience with their own distinct interest in adult-sized diapers: the Adult Baby Diaper Lover (ABDL) community. It’s this group—who fetishize diapers or wear them for emotional comfort—who boosted Pree’s YouTube views when she began opening up about wearing them.

Understandably, Pree had mixed feelings on this at first. “I didn’t want people to think that I had a fetish for diapers,” she said. But once she got to know some ABDL’ers, her attitude changed. “A lot of people who are ABDL also have incontinence,” she says.

After discovering her favorite model, Pree reached out to the company, who responded by signing her to a six-month contract to create social media videos.

“She’s just so open and honest about the issues that she’s dealt with, from a psychological and stigma standpoint,” says NorthShore Care Supply’s Adam Greenberg. Stigma is the reason Greenberg founded NorthShore in 2002, after his father was diagnosed with cancer and became incontinent. His dad was embarrassed to buy diapers at the store. “He was even more bothered by the incontinence aspect than the cancer aspect,” says Greenberg.

Greenberg’s goal is to normalize the term “adult diapers,” which are now usually referred to as “pull ups” or “briefs.” “Not using the phrase ‘adult diapers’ reinforces our stigma,” he explains, which is exactly why the company has sponsored radio ads that run during Chicago Cubs games. Whenever there’s a wild pitch, the announcer says, “That control problem event is sponsored by NorthShore adult diapers.”

At first, Greenberg sold diapers in plain white colors, but after researching diaper stigma he began producing versions in pink, purple, and blue. He sent free samples to customers, and one said she started crying when she saw them. “I felt like you were actually marketing to me as a normal person, not as a medical patient,” Greenberg recalls her saying.

The colors and high quality diapers also attracted members of the ABDL community, who tend to be highly communicative about what they want. “They make charts of all the features and absorbencies, and test them,” says Greenberg, adding that the company recently hired an ABDL’er to create diaper superhero stickers. All this is an attempt to draw diapers out of the “aisle of death” in big box stores, as Greenberg calls the aisle with walkers and diapers.

Source : https://www.vice.com/en/article/adult-diaper-influencer-bumble-pree/

United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (Jan 21) he would be open to tech billionaire Elon Musk – the owner of social media platform X – buying Chinese-owned app TikTok.

“I would be if he wanted to buy it,” Trump told reporters when asked if he was open to Musk, the world’s richest man and the head of a budget-cutting initiative in the new administration, acquiring the video-sharing platform.

TikTok is facing down a US law that ordered the company to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the US.

In one of his first acts in office, Trump ordered a pause on enforcing the law that should have seen TikTok effectively made illegal in the country on Sunday, a day before he took office for a second term.

The executive order directed his attorney general to delay the implementation of the law for 75 days.

To save the company’s US operations, Trump on Monday also floated the idea of a 50-50 partnership between “the US” and its Chinese owner ByteDance, though he did not provide details on how this could be achieved.

The TikTok ban passed due to concerns that the Chinese government could exploit the app to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion through data collection and content manipulation.

Asked on Tuesday if his phone had TikTok, which is banned on US government devices, Trump said: “No, but … I think I’ll get it right now.”

TikTok briefly shut down in the US late on Saturday as the law’s sale deadline approached, leaving millions of dismayed users barred from the app.

With the tacit cooperation of Oracle, its server provider, TikTok restored service in the US on Sunday crediting Trump’s commitment to save the app for making the reversal possible.

But even if existing users can still enjoy TikTok, Apple and Google have not made the app available in their app stores, therefore denying downloads to new users as well as updates to those who have it.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/trump-tiktok-ban-us-elon-musk-buy-app-bytedance-china-partnership-4888206

Donald Trump was called out by an Episcopal Church bishop during the inauguration prayer service, during which she asked him to “have mercy” on LGBTQ+ children.

Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, addressed Trump directly as the newly inaugurated president sat with his family and Vice President JD Vance at Washington National Cathedral.

In what she referred to as “one final plea,” Budde told Trump from the altar, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.”

The bishop also used her time to ask Trump to also “have mercy” on undocumented immigrants, who she said have families and contribute to American society.

“They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors,” Budde continued. “May I ask you to have mercy Mr. President on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.”

Budde added that she wished Trump would “help those fleeing warzones and persecution in their own lands” by welcoming them to the United States, adding, “for we were all once strangers in this land.”

As the bishop’s sermon progressed, Trump could be seen watching her between switching from looking at the ground or at his prayer booklet. His daughter Tiffany Trump, who sat in the row behind him, turned to her husband at one point, while Vance turned to look at his wife, Usha Vance.

Trump has already signed an executive order stating that only two sexes, male and female, will be recognized by the U.S. government. The order stated that government officials or documents use the word “sex” instead of “gender” in the name of protecting “women’s rights,” NBC News reported.

Advocates have already expressed concerns about the implications for LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly transgender children and adults who have come under fire by politicians in recent months.

Trump also took down the border app CBP One which migrants had been able to use to enter the border legally, in addition to beginning the process of eliminating birthright citizenship, as reported by CNN.

Source : https://www.latintimes.com/bishop-unexpectedly-calls-trump-out-during-inauguration-prayer-service-have-mercy-lgbt-children-572931

Outgoing President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons on Monday for several of his immediate family members and people that incoming President Donald Trump has targeted for retaliation, including Republican former lawmaker Liz Cheney and Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The pardons, issued in Biden’s last hours as president, cover the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, as well as all lawmakers, including Cheney, who served on the congressional committee and police officers who testified before it. They also covered Anthony Fauci, who served as White House chief medical advisor during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just before he handed over the office to Trump on Monday, Biden also pardoned five members of his family, saying he wanted to protect them from politically motivated investigations.
He also commuted the life sentence imposed on Native American activist Leonard Peltier, over the objections of his own law enforcement officials including his FBI director. Peltier will serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

Trump, who was sworn in as president at noon, has repeatedly called for the prosecution of his perceived enemies since winning the White House in November.
Biden praised public servants as the “lifeblood of our democracy.” Without mentioning Trump, he expressed alarm that some of them were subjected to threats and intimidation for doing their job.
“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden’s last pardons included his siblings — James Biden, Frank Biden and Valerie Biden Owens — as well as their spouses, John Owens and Sara Biden.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Speaking at the Capitol after his swearing-in, Trump questioned Biden’s pardons of Cheney and Milley, referring to “pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes, like the unselect committee of political thugs.”
“I think it was unfortunate that he did that,” Trump said of Biden’s last-minute pardons of his family members.
Later, in the Oval Office, Trump said Biden’s move created a precedent.
“Now I have precedent to do it,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t want to do that, no. I think it makes you look very guilty. I think it makes Biden look very bad, very weak and very guilty.”
In December, Biden pardoned his son Hunter after repeatedly saying he would not. Hunter is a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans and pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges.
Biden commuted the life sentence imposed on Peltier, 80, who has been imprisoned for nearly five decades for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents. The move came over long-time FBI opposition.
Former FBI director Christopher Wray sent Biden a letter, opens new tab on Jan. 10 expressing his “vehement and steadfast opposition” to the commutation of Peltier’s sentence. “Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law,” Wray said.
The U.S. Constitution gives a president broad pardon powers for federal offenses. While pardons are typically given to people who have been prosecuted, they can cover conduct that has not resulted in legal proceedings.
Trump in December backed a call for the FBI to investigate Cheney over her role in leading Congress’ probe of the Jan. 6 assault.

Cheney and Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s vice chairs, expressed gratitude to Biden for recognizing the threats and harassment they and their families have endured.
“We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” they said in a statement.
Fauci often clashed with Trump during the pandemic, and Trump’s supporters have continued to attack the former senior health official.
Fauci told Reuters the White House had reached out about the issue a month ago and he had not sought the pardon. “I appreciate the president reaching out and trying to protect me from baseless accusations,” Fauci said. “I’ve done nothing wrong and this is no admission of any guilt.”
Milley, who was Trump’s top military advisor between 2019 and early 2021, said in a statement he was “deeply grateful” for Biden’s pardon.

‘EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES’

Trump’s rivalry with Milley ran deep.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, Milley called Beijing to reassure China of U.S. stability. Trump, in a social media post, described the phone call as “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
Some of Trump’s supporters, seeing Milley as disloyal, demanded he be called back to active duty and tried for treason.
Milley took a veiled jab at Trump during his 2023 retirement speech, saying U.S. troops take an oath to the U.S. Constitution and not a “wannabe dictator.”
Trump later in the day lashed out at him with a series of insults, calling Milley “slow moving and thinking” and a “moron.”
Milley was quoted in the book “War” by Bob Woodward, published last year, calling Trump “fascist to the core.” Trump’s allies have targeted him for perceived disloyalty to Trump.
Reuters reported in November that the Trump transition team was drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, citing perceived connections to Milley.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, repeatedly lashed out at Milley in his latest book, using profanities.
Biden praised both Milley and Fauci as longtime dedicated public servants who have defended democracy and saved lives. He said the select committee established to investigate the Jan. 6 attack had fulfilled its mission with integrity.
Without identifying the individuals, he pardoned all members of Congress who served on the panel, their staff and the U.S. Capitol and Washington, D.C., police officers who testified before the committee.
Biden said that those pardoned had done nothing wrong, but that simply being investigated or prosecuted could harm reputations and finances.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-issues-pardons-protect-milley-fauci-others-trump-retaliation-statement-2025-01-20/

Billionaire Elon Musk’s hand gesture while he spoke during a celebration of President Donald Trump’s inauguration drew online comparisons to a Nazi salute on Monday, but a leading tracker of antisemitism said it appeared to represent a moment of enthusiasm instead.
Musk dismissed criticism of the hand gesture as a “tired” attack.
Musk took to the Capital One Arena stage in Washington to huge cheers, pumping his arms and shouting, “Yesssss.”

“This was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization,” he said. “This one really mattered. Thank you for making it happen! Thank you,” he said.
Biting his bottom lip, he thumped his right hand over his heart, fingers spread wide, then extended his right arm out, emphatically, at an upward angle, palm down and fingers together. Then he turned and made the same hand gesture to the crowd behind him.

“My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured,” he said as he finished the gesture.
The gestures were quickly scrutinized online.

“Did Elon Musk Sieg Heil at Trump’s inauguration?” asked the Jerusalem Post.
The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitism, disagreed.
“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” it posted on Monday.

“Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk said on his social media platform X late on Monday.
Soon after his speech, Musk posted a Fox video clip of portions of his speech on X, that cut away from the podium when he made the first gesture while facing the cameras. “The future is so exciting,” he wrote above it.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Some X users came to Musk’s defense, claiming that Musk was expressing “my heart goes out to you” and criticizing posts that suggested otherwise.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musks-hand-gesture-during-trump-inauguration-festivities-draws-scrutiny-2025-01-21/

Donald Trump pardoned about 1,500 of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol four years ago as he moved swiftly to impose his will on the U.S. government just hours after reclaiming the presidency on Monday.
After a day of ceremony, Trump signed a series of executive actions to curb immigration and roll back environmental regulations and racial and gender diversity initiatives. He did not take immediate action to raise tariffs, a key campaign promise, but said he could impose 25% duties on Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1.

That sent the Mexican peso sliding 1% against the dollar while the Canadian dollar tumbled to a five-year low of C$1.4515.
The news also quickly reversed gains in global stock markets and sent the greenback strongly rebounding across the board in choppy trade.
Trump’s decision to pardon supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is sure to enrage police, lawmakers and others whose lives were put at risk during an unprecedented episode in modern U.S. history.

Roughly 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack, with some sprayed with chemical irritants and others struck with pipes, poles and other weapons. Four people died during the chaos, including a Trump supporter who was shot dead by police.
Trump ordered 14 leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militant groups, who were serving long prison sentences, released from prison early, but left their convictions intact.

Earlier in the day, Trump, 78, took the oath of office in the Capitol Rotunda, where a mob of his supporters had rampaged on Jan. 6 in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
At the ceremony, Trump portrayed himself as a savior chosen by God to rescue a faltering nation. His inauguration amounts to a triumphant return for a political disruptor who survived two assassination attempts and won election despite a criminal conviction and a prosecution stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.
Trump is the first president in more than a century to win a second term after losing the White House and the first felon to occupy the White House. The oldest president ever to be sworn in, he is backed by Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Trump moved quickly to clamp down on illegal immigration, a signature issue since he first entered politics in 2015.
Shortly after he took the oath of office, U.S. border authorities shut down a program that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. legally by scheduling an appointment through a smartphone. Existing appointments were canceled.
Nearly 1,660 Afghans who had been cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, were having their flights canceled under a Trump order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.

BORDER EMERGENCY DECLARED, CLIMATE DEAL NIXED

At the White House, Trump signed an order that declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, which would unlock funding and allow him to dispatch troops there. He signed an order that would end a policy that confers citizenship to those born in the United States, which is certain to trigger a lengthy court fight. Another executive order designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
Trump once again withdrew the United States from the Paris climate deal, removing the world’s biggest historic emitter from global efforts to fight climate change for the second time in a decade.

“We’re getting rid of all the cancer … caused by the Biden administration,” Trump said as he signed a stack of executive orders in the Oval Office.
Other orders revoked Biden administration policies governing artificial intelligence and electric vehicles. He also imposed a freeze on federal hiring and ordered government workers to return to the office, rather than working from home. He also signed paperwork to create a “Department of Government Efficiency,” an outside advisory board headed by billionaire Elon Musk that aims to cut large swaths of government spending.
In the State Department, more than a dozen nonpartisan senior diplomats were asked to resign as part of a broader plan to replace nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists.
Trump said on social media his team was in the process of removing over a thousand appointees from the Biden administration.
He also said he would issue orders to scrap federal diversity programs and require the government to recognize only genders assigned at birth.
While Trump sought to portray himself as a peacemaker and unifier during his half-hour speech, his tone was often sharply partisan. He repeated false claims from his campaign that other countries were emptying their prisons into America and voiced familiar grievances over his criminal prosecutions.
With Biden seated nearby, Trump issued a stinging indictment of his predecessor’s policies from immigration to foreign affairs.
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people,” Trump said.
Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration – including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg – had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.
Trump said he would send astronauts to Mars, prompting Musk – who has long talked about colonizing the planet – to raise his fists.
Trump vowed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and repeated his intention to take back control of the Panama Canal, one of several foreign policy pronouncements that have caused consternation among U.S. allies.

RETURN TO POWER

Trump took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution at 12:01 p.m. ET (1701 GMT), administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.
Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, was seated next to Biden in a section with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, sat with her husband Bill. Obama’s wife, Michelle, chose not to attend.
The ceremony was moved indoors due to the extreme cold gripping much of the country.
Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration and has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was rigged.
Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people whom Trump has threatened with retaliation, including General Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Trump has suggested should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China. Milley’s portrait was removed from the Pentagon shortly after Trump’s inauguration.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/triumphant-trump-returns-white-house-launching-new-era-upheaval-2025-01-20/

More than 50 years after he died at age 39 from an assassin’s bullet, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. endures as one of the most influential and recognizable figures in American history.

His rise from the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to his groundbreaking work as a founder and leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference made him the driving force of the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century.

King was not yet 30 when he first made his mark on the national stage. His forceful use of non-violent protest, boycotts and civil disobedience to address the deplorable racism and the legal, political and economic discrimination that Black Americans faced made him a compelling personality at a time when local and national TV news was strengthening as a cultural force. King’s message and mission was embraced by prominent Hollywood liberals who helped bring more attention to the righteous causes championed by King and the SCLC.

King made his first appearance in Variety in the Sept. 4, 1957, New York-based weekly edition, in a story about NBC’s new Sunday public affairs series “Look Here,” hosted by journalist Martin Agronsky.

King was among the early guests on the show, putting him in the company of then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, then-Senator John F. Kennedy, playwright Tennessee Williams and authors Aldous Huxley and Howard Fast.

As the nation observes the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, here is a look at key moments in his public life as chronicled in the pages of Variety.

Source: https://variety.com/gallery/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination-academy-awards-harry-belafonte/

David Beckham has said that “girls are held back” in an awards ceremony speech in Davos.

“I want my daughter Harper to have the same opportunities as her brothers and that should be the case for all girls everywhere,” the former England captain said as he was recognised as a cultural leader in Davos during the World Economic Forum (WEF).

He was presented with a Crystal Award in Switzerland on Monday for what was described as his “extraordinary leadership and humanitarianism” in protecting “the rights of the most vulnerable children”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves travelled to the same event, held in the shadow of Donald Trump’s inauguration, in an attempt to drum up investors for growth projects in the UK.

Hilde Schwab, who presented the award to Beckham, said his legacy “reflects his dedication to using his fame for social change, leaving a lasting impact”.

On stage, the 49-year-old said: “Today, there are more children in need and at risk than any time in recent history, and it is always the most vulnerable children who face the biggest challenges – especially girls.

“Girls are held back by poverty, girls are held back by violence, girls are held back by discrimination.

“I’m lucky enough to be a father of three boys and one beautiful girl.

“I want my daughter Harper to have the same opportunities as her brothers, and that should be the case for all girls everywhere.

“Being a girl shouldn’t determine what you can do, where you can go, and who you can become.”

Beckham added that the female teenage population was the “largest generation of future leaders and innovators that the world has ever known”.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/david-beckham-says-girls-are-held-back-in-awards-speech-13293325

An inquiry into the Southport stabbings has been announced by the government.

It comes after Axel Rudakubana, 18, admitted murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in the attack in Southport, Merseyside, in July last year.

In a statement, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that now there has been a guilty plea, “the families and the people of Southport need answers about what happened leading up to this attack”.

Sir Keir Starmer will deliver a statement at 8.30am on Tuesday on Southport.

It has now emerged that Rudakubana was referred to the government anti-extremism scheme – known as Prevent – three times before the murders due to a fixation with violence.

In her statement, Ms Cooper said these three referrals happened in the 17 months between December 2019 and April 2021, when Rudakubana was 13 and 14 years old.

He was also in contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services.

“Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed,” Ms Cooper said.

“We also need more independent answers on both Prevent and all the other agencies that came into contact with this extremely violent teenager as well as answers on how he came to be so dangerous.”

Rudakubana is set to be sentenced on Thursday – with the judge saying a life sentence is “inevitable”.

Sir Keir said earlier today: “The news that the vile and sick Southport killer will be convicted is welcome.

“It is also a moment of trauma for the nation and there are grave questions to answer as to how the state failed in its ultimate duty to protect these young girls.

“Britain will rightly demand answers. And we will leave no stone unturned in that pursuit.”

After the attacks in July 2024, there were calls for more information about what was known by authorities to be released and violent riots took place across the country.

Ms Cooper said the government was not able to release more information sooner about Rudakubana because the Crown Prosecution Service wanted to “avoid jeopardising the legal proceedings” – including any potential trials – “in line with the normal rules of the British justice systems”.

However, the government launched an “urgent” review into Rudakubana’s contact with Prevent last summer – and details will be published this week.

Ms Cooper said this “terrible case” comes against a “backdrop” of increasing numbers of teenagers being referred to Prevent, investigated by anti-terror police being referred to other agencies “amid concerns around serious violence and extremism”.

“We need to face up to why this has been happening and what needs to change,” she said.

Speaking earlier today, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “As we learn more details of Axel Rudakubana’s horrific crimes, my thoughts are first and foremost with the victims’ families.

“We will need a complete account of who in government knew what and when. The public deserves the truth.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/the-families-need-answers-home-secretary-announces-public-inquiry-into-southport-stabbings-13293130

Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and former UK prime minister Boris Johnson are among the famous faces in Washington DC for Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The three men were sitting in the same row at St John’s Church as the president attended a church service before his swearing in.

Other high-profile names who had a prime seat for the big moment included Tesla boss Elon Musk, who appeared momentarily transfixed by the ceiling of the US Capitol.

The Tesla boss was perhaps Mr Trump’s most famous backer during the election race and he’ll help lead an “efficiency” department in the new government.

Mr Musk was seen chatting to Google boss Sundar Pichai in the moments before the swearing-in, with Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez on the other side.

Mr Musk later spoke after the inauguration ceremony.

In an energised speech, he said he would plant the US flag on Mars, saying: “Can you imagine how awesome it would be to plant the American flag on another planet for the first time?”

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was a few spaces along with wife Priscilla Chan – as the titans of tech waited for Mr Trump to arrive.

The multi-billionaires will be hoping the new president’s policies will boost, or at least not hinder, their vast money-making machines.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook was also at the swearing in, while TikTok’s boss Zhang Yiming was also expected to be in Washington DC.

Mr Trump has pledged to give the app a reprieve from a ban that made it temporarily go “dark” in the US on Sunday.

Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, was one of only a few world leaders in attendance.

Mr Milei, with his “rock and roll” hair cut and sideburns, was pictured laughing arm in arm with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was also invited, according to Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, but is believed to have declined.

Foreign leaders are not normally invited to presidential inaugurations but Mr Trump broke with tradition.

UFC boss Dana White was also suited and booted for the swearing-in ceremony and seen standing next to Barack Obama.

The mixed martial arts promoter often hosts Mr Trump at his events and is credited with helping boost his appeal among young men.

Influencers and fight stars Jake and Logan Paul were also in the building, watching from a nearby area called the Emancipation Hall.

Gianni Infantino, the controversial boss of FIFA, was there too (circled above), as was media mogul and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.

As is customary, the other living former presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush also turned out.

Mr Trump’s family were all there of course, with wife Melania wearing a wide-brimmed hat alongside their son Barron.

However, there was an awkward moment when Donald Trump went in for a kiss but came up short – seemingly blocked by her choice of headwear.

Outgoing president Joe Biden appeared relaxed as his final minutes as commander in chief ticked down.

The Democrat received an ovation as he entered the Capitol’s rotunda with first lady Jill Biden.

Defeated candidate Kamala Harris also watched the handover of power – at times stony-faced as Mr Trump said he would declare an emergency at the southern border to halt migration – and to “drill baby, drill” for oil.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK’s Reform Party and long-time supporter of Mr Trump, is believed to be in Washington but – like Boris Johnson – hasn’t been seen at the inauguration ceremony itself.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/tech-billionaires-influencers-and-fighters-whos-at-trumps-inauguration-13293076

One of the things that made President Donald Trump’s inauguration distinctive was the prominence of Silicon Valley elite.

Easily identifiable were the world’s three richest men – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. And that’s not to mention some of the billionaires not placed directly in view of the cameras.

When the riches of the billionaire tech founders, millionaire business people and wealthy politicians are totted up there was more than $1trn – over a thousand billion – in the rotunda of the Capitol on Monday morning.

First lady Melania Trump dressed to the nines for President Donald Trump’s inaugural ball Monday evening.

The former model wore a stunning strapless black-and-white gown as the couple took the stage for the Commander in Chief Inaugural ball.

For her husband’s inauguration ceremony earlier in the day, Melania wore a custom double-breasted navy coat by New York designer Adam Lippes, along with a matching boater hat crafted by American milliner Eric Javits.

The 54-year-old FLOTUS finished the ensemble with lack leather gloves and navy suede pumps.

“The tradition of the presidential inauguration embodies the beauty of American democracy and today we had the honor to dress our first lady, Mrs. Melania Trump,” Lippes captioned an Instagram post showcasing his creation.

“Mrs. Trump’s outfit was created by some of America’s finest craftsmen and I take great pride in showing such work to the world.”

At her first inaugural ball in 2017, Trump wowed in a white silk crepe Hervé Pierre gown with an off-the-shoulder neckline, slit skirt and a red ribbon around the waist, which she helped design.

That same year, the first lady donated the dress to the Smithsonian’s “First Ladies” exhibit, which has been a tradition for over a century.

“It can be a daunting task to choose an outfit that will be mesmerized [sic] and become part of our nation’s story and forever history,” she explained at the museum’s donation ceremony, adding that she “expressed desire for a modern, sleek, light, unique and unexpected look.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/01/20/style/melania-trump-stuns-in-black-and-white-strapless-gown-at-president-trumps-inaugural-ball/

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order telling the Department of Justice to not enforce a rule that demands TikTok spin off from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or face a ban.

The order, issued on Trump’s first day of office, is meant to effectively extend the deadline established by The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for ByteDance to sell its stake by undercutting penalties on American companies like Apple and Google working with TikTok. It directs the Attorney General “not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today to allow my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way.” The AG is supposed to “issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred.”

The order furthermore instructs the Department of Justice to “take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act” and says they should be barred from doing so “for any conduct that occurred during the above-specified period or any period prior to the issuance of this order, including the period of time from January 19, 2025, to the signing of this order.”

Trump, who issued an executive order banning TikTok during his first term in 2020, is now trying to circumvent a bipartisan law that took effect January 19th. He posted on Truth Social before taking office that he was “asking companies” to keep working with TikTok, a move that could mean risking hundreds of billions of dollars in fines if Trump’s assurances don’t stand up in court. TikTok briefly went down on Sunday but quickly came back online — though it was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores and has not come back.

It’s unclear whether Trump can legally pause the TikTok ban. The law allowed for a 90-day extension if ByteDance announced a sale to a non-”foreign adversary”-based company before the deadline, but not only has no such sale been announced, it’s legally ambiguous whether the extension can be used after the 19th. Trump, in any case, isn’t so far using the deadline — he’s just attempting to override the law.

Despite that reassurance, it still may not be enough to convince service providers covered by the law to reinstate TikTok. As many legal experts have pointed out, those companies could face up to about $850 billion in potential penalties for violating the law — which was passed by a bipartisan Congress, signed by former President Joe Biden, and upheld by the entire Supreme Court. The government could act on any potential violation even five years after it happens — and an executive order doesn’t change that, though it might help give the companies a slightly better due process defense to fight it. Companies still might not risk litigation over such a large potential fine, though they may also be wary of raising Trump’s ire by refusing to work with TikTok.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/20/24348213/trump-tiktok-ban-executive-order-sale-delay-china

China has executed a man found guilty of killing at least 35 people in a car attack in November, in what is thought to be the deadliest attack in the country for a decade.

Fan Weiqiu, 62, injured dozens more when he drove his car into people exercising outside a stadium in the southern city of Zhuhai.

State media said a second man was executed for a separate attack that came days later. Xu Jiajin, 21, killed eight people in a stabbing spree at his university in the eastern city of Wuxi.

Authorities said Fan was driven by “dissatisfaction” over how his property had been divided following his divorce, while Xu carried out his attack after “failing to obtain his diploma due to poor exam results”.

Fan was detained at the scene on 11 November, where police said he was found with self-inflicted wounds.

In December, he was found guilty of “endangering public safety”, with the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court describing his motive as “extremely vile” and the methods used “particularly cruel”.

His execution on Monday comes less than a month after the court sentenced him to death.

In the case of Xu, police said he confessed to his crime “without hesitation” on 16 November. He was sentenced to death on 17 December, with the court hearing that the circumstances of his crime were “particularly bad” and “extremely serious”.

Human rights groups believe China is the world’s leading executioner, killing thousands of people every year. The country does not release details about its use of the death penalty, so reliable numbers are unavailable.

China has been grappling with a spate of public violence, with many attackers believed to have been spurred by a desire to “take revenge on society” – where perpetrators target strangers over their personal grievances.

The number of such attacks across China reached 19 in 2024.

Within days of the Zhuhai and Wuxi attacks, a man drove into a crowd of children and parents outside a primary school in Changde city, injuring 30.

Authorities said the man, Huang Wen, wanted to vent his anger after dealing with investment losses and family conflict.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70kz32l98do

Joe Biden, in one of his final acts as president, pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in an extraordinary use of executive power to guard against potential “revenge” by the new Trump administration.

The decision Monday by Biden came after now-President Donald Trump had warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the Capitol siege four years ago. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”

The prospect of such pardons had been the subject of heated debate for months at the highest levels of the White House. It’s customary for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but those acts of mercy are usually offered to Americans who have been convicted of crimes.

Trump said after his inauguration that Biden had pardoned people who were “very very guilty of very bad crimes” — “political thugs,” Trump called them.

Biden, a Democrat, has used the power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated. His decision lays the groundwork for an even more expansive use of pardons by Trump, a Republican, and future presidents.

While the Supreme Court last year ruled that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for what could be considered official acts, the president’s aides and allies enjoy no such shield. There is concern that future presidents could use the promise of a blanket pardon to encourage allies to take actions they might otherwise resist for fear of running afoul of the law.

“I continue to believe that the grant of pardons to a committee that undertook such important work to uphold the law was unnecessary, and because of the precedent it establishes, unwise,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who worked on the committee. “But I certainly understand why President Biden believed he needed to take this step.”

It’s unclear whether those pardoned by Biden would need to apply for the clemency. Acceptance could be seen as a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, validating years of attacks by Trump and his supporters, even though those who were pardoned have not been formally accused of any crimes. The “full and unconditional” pardons for Fauci and Milley cover the period extending back to Jan. 1, 2014.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said, adding that “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong — and in fact have done the right thing — and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”

Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health for nearly 40 years, including during Trump’s term in office, and later served as Biden’s chief medical adviser until his retirement in 2022. He helped coordinate the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and raised Trump’s ire when he resisted Trump’s untested public health notions. Fauci has since become a target of intense hatred and vitriol from people on the right, who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights, even as hundreds of thousands of people were dying.

“Despite the accomplishments that my colleagues and I achieved over my long career of public service, I have been the subject of politically-motivated threats of investigation and prosecution,” Fauci said in a statement. “There is absolutely no basis for these threats. Let me be perfectly clear: I have committed no crime.”

Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called Trump a fascist and has detailed Trump’s conduct around the Jan. 6 insurrection. He said he was grateful to Biden for a pardon.

“I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said in a statement. “I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”

Biden also extended pardons to members and staff of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the House committee about their experiences that day, overrun by an angry, violent mob of Trump supporters. It’s a “full and unconditional pardon,” for any offenses “which they may have committed or taken part in arising from or in any manner related to the activities or subject matter.”

The committee spent 18 months investigating Trump and the insurrection. It was led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and then-Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who later pledged to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and campaigned with her against Trump. The committee’s final report found that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

“Rather than accept accountability,” Biden said, “those who perpetrated the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who participated in the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6th for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecutions.”

Biden’s statement did not list the dozens of members and staff by name. Some did not know they were to receive pardons until it happened, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Cheney and Thompson said in a statement on behalf of the committee that they were grateful for the decision, saying they were being pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”

“These are indeed ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent false prosecution by the government for having worked faithfully as members of Congress to expose the facts of a months long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 election, including by inciting a violent insurrection,” the said in the statement.

The extent of the legal protection offered by the pardons may not fully shield the lawmakers or their staff from other types of inquiries, particularly from Congress. Republicans on Capitol Hill would still likely have wide leverage to probe the committee’s actions, as the House GOP did in the last session of Congress, seeking testimony and other materials from those involved.

Biden, an institutionalist, has promised a smooth transition to the next administration, inviting Trump to the White House and saying that the nation will be OK, even as he warned during his farewell address of a growing oligarchy. He has spent years warning that Trump’s ascension to the presidency again would be a threat to democracy. His decision to break with political norms was brought on by those concerns.

Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He also pardoned his son Hunter for tax and gun crimes. Moments before leaving office, he pardoned his siblings and their spouses in a move designed to guard against potential retribution.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-fauci-milley-pardons-january-6-3cba287f89051513fb48d7ae700ae747

Melania Trump joined her husband, Donald Trump, at St. John’s Episcopal Church for a service ahead of his inauguration.

Attending a church service on Inauguration Day is a long presidential tradition.

The Trumps spent the night at Blair House and will head to the White House for a coffee and tea with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden following the service.

Melania Trump’s inauguration outfit

Melania Trump arrived at St. John’s Episcopal Church in a double-breasted navy coat by Adam Lippes, a New York-based designer, and a matching statement hat by Eric Javits, according to Vogue. She paired the looks with black leather gloves and dark blue suede pumps.

On Sunday night, Melania Trump donned Caroline Herrera, Dolce & Gabbana and Saint Laurent to a Candlelight Dinner at the National Building Museum.

What did Melania Trump wear last inauguration?

A Look Back : Melania Trump wore a sky-blue cashmere jacket and mock turtleneck dress by Ralph Lauren for Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

For night, the new first lady wore ivory, in an off-the-shoulder gown by Herve Pierre, former creative director of Carolina Herrera, and first daughter Ivanka Trump wore a sparkling, blush-tone gown by Herrera, Women’s Wear Daily reported.

Mrs. Trump’s look, with its bolero-style jacket, prompted comparisons to a fashion icon of the past, Jacqueline Kennedy, who wore an outfit by Oleg Cassini with a matching pillbox hat to husband John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration.

Live coverage of inauguration

FOX 5 DC will be airing the inauguration live on Monday.. Want to stream the inauguration? Download FOX Local on your smart TV. You can also take FOX 5 DC on the go with the FOX Local mobile app or on fox5dc.com. FOX 5 will be in wall-to-wall coverage all day, wherever you’re watching.

Source : https://www.fox5dc.com/news/melania-trump-dons-statement-hat-church-service

Snoop Dogg has found himself facing huge backlash after performing at a party for Donald Trump’s imminent inauguration.

The rapper and actor, 53, was filmed performing at the first ever ‘Crypto Ball’ hosted by former PayPal COO David Sacks.

Silicon valley investor and millionaire Sacks is set to step into the White House in his formal capacity as AI and Crypto Czar (a real job title) for cryptocurrency-shilling President-to-be Trump.

Follow Metro’s live blog for the latest updates on Donald Trump’s inauguration

After footage of his performance was uploaded to The Shade Room on Instagram, Snoop (real name Calvin Broadus Jr.) came under fire, with some describing the move as ‘culturally embarrassing’ and ‘disrespectful.’

This comes after Snoop set aside his Trump-trolling days to back the controversial President-elect, declaring last year that he had ‘nothing but love and respect’ for the Donald.

Needless to say, a large portion of the star’s fans have not taken it well.

‘wait a goddamn minute, @SnoopDogg is playing Trump’s inauguration???? aw hell naw,’ wrote Doubt_everything on the social media site X.

‘I never thought I’d have Snoop Dogg being a Trump supporter on my bingo card…. But here we are,’ said matthewtravis08.

‘What is Snoop Dogg’s new name? I’ll go first: Snoop Fraud,’ said quadcarl_carl.

‘What the F**K@snoopdogg? Traitorous bulls**t,’ said SarahLarchmont.

‘I have deleted all Snoop dogg songs from my playlists.. i have blocked him from my accounts. I will not listen to his music after i found out that he will be there to perform for the traitors on Monday…’ said glenntunes.

Taking place at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. on Friday night, tickets for the event ranged between $2,500 to $5,000 apiece.

Dressed in a black jacket with gold buttons and a bowtie, Snoop performedhit single Drop It Like It’s Hot and reportedly played a DJ set which included Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

Early last year, the outspoken Trump critic backtracked, telling The Times: ‘Donald Trump? He ain’t done nothing wrong to me. He has done only great things for me.’

Referring to Trump’s pardoning of collaborator Michael Harris, who had been in prison for drugs charges, Snoop elaborated: ‘So I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump.’

Snoop Dogg is the latest star confirmed to perform at events related to the President-elect’s inauguration.

Taking place on January 20, the inauguration will feature performances from Billy Ray Cyrus and the Village People. Meanwhile, Hot In Herre rapper Nelly is also reported to be performing at the Inaugural Liberty Ball.

Meanwhile, country singer Carrie Underwood confirmed last week that she would perform at his inauguration ceremony. In a statement shared with Metro, Carrie, 41, said: ‘I love our country and am honoured to have been asked to sing at the Inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event.

‘I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.’

Source : https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/19/snoop-dogg-faces-huge-backlash-performing-trump-inauguration-party-22390507/

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman arrived at Donald Trump’s Inauguration ceremony to be the 47th president of the United States in gym shorts and a hoodie, raising eyebrows.

Fetterman was dressed in a black hoodie, gray shorts, and sneakers, despite the frigid temperatures that pushed the ceremony indoors into the Capitol Rotunda.

Everyone else in attendance is in formal attire. Fetterman, a Democrat, met Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week.

Fetterman has previously worn a suit, including when presiding over the Senate for votes in line with the policies.

Donald and Melania Trump arrived at the North Portico of the White House where they were greeted by outgoing President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. Unlike Trump who refused to be present at Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Biden graciously welcomed his successor.

Biden said, “Welcome home” to Trump as he greeted his successor at the North Portico at the White House. Biden appeared composed as he shook hands with Trump before hosting him for the traditional tea and coffee ceremony before Trump’s Inauguration.

Source : https://www.the-express.com/news/politics/161044/john-fettermans-donald-trump-inauguration-gym-shorts

Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian television to appeal to Donald Trump not to start World War III and congratulated him on his win, hours before Donald Trump’s Inaugural address as the 47th President of the United States.

“We hear [Trump’s] statements on the need to prevent World War III. We undoubtedly welcome such a disposition and congratulate the elected US president,” Putin said in a televised session of Russia’s Security Council.

He emphasized the potential of rebuilding relations with the US following Trump and his team talking about re-establishing communication as Moscow continues to wage a war in Ukraine.

Putin said that he has heard Trump and his team’s “statements on their wish to restore direct contacts with Russia, which the outgoing [Biden] administration had cut off through no fault of our own.”

Putin has previously issued a chilling threat to the West after former President Joe Biden authorized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to use US-made ATACMS missiles to strike deeper into Russia to counter Moscow’s relentless three-year-long war in Ukraine.

Putin’s comments show a sharp change in the Kremlin’s stance back in November when they refused to congratulate Trump on his victory, stating the US being “unfriendly” to Russia as the reason.

On his presidential campaign trail, Trump vowed to end the war in Ukraine.

Recently, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, too, emphasized Russia’s interest in conversing with the US about the war in Ukraine.

“No special conditions are needed for this. What is required is the mutual intent and political will to have a dialogue,” Peskov said.

Fear continues to mount in Ukraine with an increasing threat of Trump cutting off US aid to Ukraine.

Trump, whose Inauguration theme is “strength, unity, and fairness,” is the second US President in history to win a non-consecutive second term after Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Trump’s inauguration will take place indoors due to the dangerously frigid temperatures in Washington D.C. It is projected to be the coldest Inauguration Day since 1985 when former President Ronald Reagan, too, was sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda.

Source : https://www.the-express.com/news/us-news/161034/vladmir-putin-donald-trump-russia-usa-ukraine

Elon Musk was accused of performing a bizarre Nazi-style salute during a Donald Trump inauguration rally in Washington DC.

After Trump was sworn in as the 47th US President, the Tesla founder who is set to head the Department of Government Efficiency to hold government spending accountable, spoke to the crowd of supporters who were gathered at the Capital One Arena.

“This is what victory feels like,” Musk, who appeared visibly excited, said.

“And this was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization,” he said to the crowd, adding, “You know, there are elections that come and go. Some elections are, you know, important, some are not. But this one, this one really mattered.”

He then thanked those present.

“And I just wanna say, ‘thank you, thank you for making it happen. Thank you,'” he said, before slapping his chest with his palm, grunting, and raising his hand in a gesture that some online have compared to a Nazi salute.

“What did he just do at the end of this seven-second clip?” a shocked user asked.

Another claimed, “Elon Musk just Sieg Heiled on stage.”

Despite the uproar among netizens on Musk’s own platform, X, it seemed that the moment was one of excitement and festivity, rather than an intentional reference to Adolf Hitler. The “Hitler Salute,” or “Sieg Heil,” is a phrase meaning “Hail Victory” in English, notoriously associated with Hitler’s rule from 1933 to 1945.

Large crowds of people who made their way across the nation to see Trump’s inauguration gathered at the Capital One Arena after the ceremony was pushed indoors by frigid temperatures.

It is projected to be the coldest Inauguration Day since 1985 when former President Ronald Reagan, too, was sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda. Trump’s swearing-in ceremony, like Reagan’s, was televised.

Upon being sworn in, Trump has already lived up to the border crackdown threats he made during his campaign trail by issuing executive orders that include the immediate termination of outgoing President Joe Biden’s mass parole program and other humanitarian programs for asylum-seekers. Migrants in Mexico were seen bursting into tears after they were told that their asylum appointments were canceled moments after Trump was sworn in.

Trump’s inauguration was a melting pot of Silicon Valley billionaires. Notably, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg were among the attendees who cheered the President on as he addressed the crowd.

Source : https://www.the-express.com/news/politics/161085/elon-musk-hitler-salute-trump-inauguration

A leading NGO warned Monday of an emerging “aristocratic oligarchy” with massive political clout and primed to profit from Donald Trump’s presidency, as global elites descend on Davos for their annual confab.

The World Economic Forum kicks off in the Swiss Alpine resort on the same day as the presidential inauguration of Trump, who will not be in Davos but will make an online appearance later in the week.

Global charity Oxfam said in a report that Trump’s election win and tax-cut plans are a boon to billionaires, whose combined wealth already grew by another $2 trillion last year to $15 trillion.

“Trillions are being gifted in inheritance, creating a new aristocratic oligarchy that has immense power in our politics and our economy,” Oxfam said in its traditional annual pre-Davos report on the super rich.

The organisation echoed similar language used last week by outgoing US President Joe Biden, who sounded the alarm about an extremely wealthy oligarchy that “literally threatens our entire democracy”.

Oxfam pointed out that Tesla and X owner Elon Musk helped to bankroll Trump’s campaign.

“The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, running the world’s largest economy,” said the charity’s executive director Amitabh Behar.

“We present this report as a stark wake up-call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few,” Behar added.

– Five trillionaires –

The report, titled “Takers Not Makers”, found that 204 new billionaires emerged last year — almost four every week — to bring the total to 2,769.

Total billionaire wealth grew three times faster last year than in 2023, each billionaire seeing their fortune increase by $2 million per day on average. And, according to Oxfam, five trillionaires could emerge in a decade.

Trump’s election “gave a huge further boost to billionaire fortunes, while his policies are set to fan the flames of inequality further”, Oxfam said.

In the United States “we are in a situation where you can buy a country, with the risk of weakening democracy”, said the head of Oxfam France, Cecile Duflot.

The world’s three richest men will be at his inauguration: Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta empire owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The tech trio is not expected in Davos, however.

– ‘Tax the rich’ –

Some 3,000 participants are expected at the Swiss ski village for the forum ending Friday — including 60 heads of state or government and more than 900 CEOs — for days of schmoozing and behind-the-scenes dealmaking.

A few hundred protesters blocked an access road to Davos on Sunday, holding banners reading “tax the rich” and “burn the system”, and causing a traffic jam until police dispersed them.

“The WEF symbolises how much power wealthy people like me hold,” said Austrian-German heiress Marlene Engelhorn, who gave away the bulk of her multi-million-euro inheritance to dozens of organisations working on social issues.

“Because just because we are born millionaires, or because we got lucky once — and call that self-made — we now get to influence politicians worldwide with our political preferences,” she told AFP.

While Trump will not be in Davos in person, his presidency will dominate discussions. His plans to impose trade tariffs, loosen regulations, extend tax breaks and curb immigration will have far-reaching effects on the global economy.

He has named hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as his Treasury secretary, while billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick will head the Commerce Department.

Rising inequalities have fuelled debates about imposing a global tax on the super-rich.

Source : https://www.yahoo.com/news/oligarchy-under-fire-elites-descend-010319460.html?guccounter=1

A Polish general was dismissed last week by the nation’s defense minister after reportedly misplacing a batch of anti-tank mines that were later found in an Ikea warehouse, according to Polish news outlet Onet.

Maj. Gen. Artur Kępczyński was fired Jan. 9 for reasons that were not specified by Polish military officials, though numerous local reports suggested the missing explosives were — naturally — the catalyst for his dismissal.

In June 2024, a train carrying more than 1,000 tons of explosives was improperly unloaded by Polish troops, the report said, who mistakenly left the anti-tank mines to continue their rail-bound journey around the country until they were eventually offloaded in the furniture behemoth’s warehouse.

Kępczyński, meanwhile, reportedly kept the mishap from his superiors while furnishing subsequent supply reports that featured false numbers.

That approach appeared to have worked — at least until an Ikea warehouse representative telephoned military officials and inquired about “when they would collect their mines,” according to one report.

The Polish defense ministry posted on X confirming the dismissal of Kępczynski, who was reportedly a lead figure in the service’s logistics support element. An investigation into the incident is ongoing, the report said.

Though the story is indeed eccentric, Ikea, which was once exposed for using horse meat in over a dozen countries to craft their delectable Swedish meatballs, is no stranger to outlandish episodes. The furniture store’s cavernous confines, surpassed only by Moria when it comes to mine-hosting capacity, has playing host to all manner of stranger-than-fiction tales.

In 2012, for instance, a Japanese macaque monkey named Darwin escaped his Ontario-based owner’s crate and was later seen galavanting through an Ikea store wearing a sheepskin coat and diaper.

The following year, New Jersey-based couple Rashid Smith and Shirley Stewart were married in the same Ikea where they’d met eight years prior. It’s a Jersey thing.

And who could forget 12-year-old Peng Yijian of China, who in 2014 ran away and hid for six days in a Shanghai Ikea before he was found by local police.

Classic Peng.

Whether Kępczyński will face further punishment remains to be seen, though the sheer humiliation of the ordeal may offer retribution enough.

Source : https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2025/01/17/polish-general-fired-after-anti-tank-mines-found-in-ikea-warehouse/

Kim Janas leaves little doubt about her experiences as an elite gymnast in Germany.

“From a human perspective, it was absolutely awful,” she told DW.

Identified as a future star, Janas grew up training at the elite center in her hometown of Halle in eastern Germany. It was there that she soon discovered the dark side of her beloved sport.

“When I was eight or nine, I was told I was too fat,” Janas said. “I was told that I had a medicine ball in my stomach that absolutely had to go, and that I was banned from eating my food and even (drinking) water, because it has carbohydrates.”

Janas, now 25, is one of a dozen former German gymnasts who have gone public with their stories of abuse, with the sport in the country once again facing a reckoning, as it did after a scandal surrounding the Olympic training center in Chemnitz in 2020.

The latest wave of allegations, initially made on social media, were apparently triggered by the surprise retirement of 17-year-old Meolie Jauch at the end of last year. Jauch had trained in Stuttgart, where much of the abuse is alleged to have occurred.

In a statement on December 31, the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) said it was investigating the complaints and had taken unspecified “measures,” with local media reporting that two coaches from Stuttgart had been suspended.

Allegations of abuse widespread
The gymnasts have revealed a catalogue of mistreatment and health problems, including being threatened and humiliated; developing eating disorders; and training with broken bones.

Janas says she also endured pain during training but was cast aside after suffering the first of three cruciate ligament tears.

“I was dropped like a hot potato, because nobody thought I could come back and compete with a torn cruciate ligament,” the former German youth champion said.

“I was basically no longer worth anything to my coach. And then you think: ‘Oh, is the injury my fault?’ You keep blaming yourself over and over, and at some point, this completely destroys you.”

Aged 14 and no longer feeling welcome in Halle, Janas switched to the Olympic training center in Stuttgart. She says the move was the best decision for her gymnastics career but now, in hindsight, recognizes that she was affected by her treatment there, too.

“I made the comparison that I went from one hell to a better hell,” she said.

“We know competitive sport requires going beyond your limits. But that doesn’t mean that children should be abused psychologically, because that happened to me in Halle and in Stuttgart.”

‘I tried to do something’
Michelle Timm tells a similar story.

A product of the Stuttgart system, she says she was forced to train when injured but normalized such practices, believing it wasn’t worth saying anything because of the “influence” her coaches had on her.

“It’s just the case that you start so young and you’re so dependent on these coaches that you just don’t realize it,” the former German national team member told DW.

“Once you’re out of this bubble and can look at it from the outside, then you really notice that a lot of things weren’t right.”

Since bowing out of elite gymnastics in 2022, Timm has been coaching a group of seven to nine-year-old boys, sharing the training hall in Stuttgart with the women’s team and witnessing the same problems that she herself had experienced.

That prompted the 27-year-old to write to the DTB in October 2024, raising her concerns.

“I had to weigh up whether I could live with seeing these things and not do anything,” she said. “In the end, it didn’t leave me alone. And that’s why I tried to do something.”

Despite receiving an initial phone call, Timm felt her concerns went unaddressed.

Did promised ‘culture change’ happen?
In the wake of the Chemnitz scandal, the DTB promised a “culture change,” vowing, among other things, to take into account the needs of young gymnasts. Having indicated the problems went beyond Chemnitz, the organization set up a working group to look at other training centers in Germany. However, the results were never published, with the DTB previously admitting no other coaches had been sanctioned.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-gymnastics-scandal-from-one-hell-to-another/a-71314082

New research suggests that memory can impact the type of food—and how much of it—we eat, potentially setting the stage for more effective obesity treatments.

The Monell Chemical Senses Centerstudy found that there’s a connection between food memory and overeating—and it starts in the hippocampus.

“The hippocampus (HPC) has emerged as a critical player in the control of food intake, beyond its well-known role in memory,” the study reads. “While previous studies have primarily associated the HPC with food intake inhibition, recent research suggests a role in appetitive processes. Here we identified spatially distinct neuronal populations within the dorsal HPC (dHPC) that respond to either fats or sugars, potent natural reinforcers that contribute to obesity development.”

Basically, the hippocampus is known for helping us with learning and memory. But now, researchers have discovered there are neurons in the hippocampus that encode food-specific memories.

“What’s surprising is that we’ve pinpointed a specific population of neurons in the hippocampus that not only forms these food-related memories but also drives our eating behavior,” explained lead study author Dr. de Lartigue. “This connection could have significant implications for body weight and metabolic health.”

Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/food-memories-are-making-you-overeat/

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany’s responsibility to pass down the memory of the Holocaust to each generation “will not end.” He also warned of an “alarming normalization” of antisemitism on social media.

Scholz said the collective memory of the Holocaust is based on “indisputable facts” that everyone in Germany must faceImage: Boris Roessler/dpa/picture allianceGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday spoke at a gathering of the Jewish community in Frankfurt to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.

“Jewish life, that is Frankfurt. Jewish life, that is Germany. That is us,” Scholz said in remarks at the commemoration.

In Frankfurt, Scholz said that Germany had a responsibility to uphold the memory of the Holocaust committed by Germans during World War II.

Scholz also underscored the “worrying and alarming normalization” of antisemitism, hate and the far right, especially on social media.

“The internet and social networks in particular often become a hotbed for extremist positions, incitement and hatred,” Scholz warned.

German responsibility ‘will not end’
More than one million people died at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Most of the victims were Jews — over 1 million according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum — but they also included non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Soviet soldiers.

“I am against turning the page, saying ‘that was long ago’,” Scholz said.

“We keep alive the memory of the civilizational breakdown of the Shoah (Holocaust) committed by Germans, which we pass down to each generation in our country again and again: our responsibility will not end,” he said.

The Holocaust is “millions of individual stories,” people “like you and me.”

“It is also this awareness that we must pass down in our remembrance,” he added.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/olaf-scholz-germany-cannot-turn-page-on-holocaust/a-71344978

There is increasing disparity in the world today as an “aristocratic oligarchy” is amassing wealth at unforeseen levels, a report published by development organization Oxfam said.

Published ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the report titled “Takers Not Makers” said billionaire wealth soared by $2 trillion (€1.94 trillion) in 2024, growing three times faster than the previous year.

While the richest 1% now own 45% of global wealth, 44% of humanity lives on less than $6.85 per day, and global poverty rates have barely changed since 1990, the report said.

“We present this report as a stark wake-up call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few,” Oxfam executive director Amitabh Behar said.

The rich are getting richer
The report also predicted that the world’s first trillionaires would emerge within the next decade, as the wealth of the richest 10 billionaires grew by $100 million per day on average, over the last 10 years.

Last year saw the emergence of 204 new billionaires, with total billionaire wealth increasing by $2 trillion in 2024.

Behar warned that an economic system has been created where “billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit.”

The report also pointed out that one in ten women globally lives in extreme poverty, earning less than $2.15 a day. It further added that women provide 12.5 billion hours a day of unpaid labor, adding an estimated $10.8 trillion to the global economy, three times the global tech industry’s value.

Trump policies might fuel inequalities
US President Donald Trump also found a mention in the Oxfam report as his policies, including tax cuts and deregulation, are being criticized for potentially fueling inequality and further enriching billionaires — including Elon Musk — a major supporter of Trump’s reelection campaign.

“The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, running the world’s largest economy,” Behar said.

In Davos, protesters with banners reading “tax the rich” and “burn the system” gathered ahead of the summit expected to focus largely on economic strategies, artificial intelligence, and global conflicts.

Its 3,000 attendees include world leaders and business executives.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/oxfam-report-billionaire-wealth-growth-2025/a-71345320

Three Israeli hostages have been reunited with their families, while 90 Palestinian prisoners were released in return in a ceasefire deal that has put an end, for now, to 15 months of bitter war in Gaza.

Amid a chaotic crowd in Gaza, the Israeli hostages were handed by masked, armed gunmen to the Red Cross on Sunday, before being transferred to the Israeli military and then entering southern Israel.

All three were in a stable condition, Sheba Medical Center said, and authorities released footage of them fiercely hugging their families and sobbing.

“An entire nation embraces you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian families welcomed the 90 prisoners freed by Israel early on Monday morning, with crowds gathering to celebrate with the first bus of detainees in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

All are from the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem. The youngest is a 15-year-old boy from East Jerusalem. Two 17-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were also named.

Israel had detained them for what it said were offences related to Israel’s security, from throwing stones to more serious accusations like attempted murder.

One of the three hostages released by Hamas was 28-year-old British-Israeli Emily Damari, who was shot in the hand and taken to Gaza during the 7 October attack that sparked the war in 2023.

The other two hostages freed on Sunday were 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher, abducted from the same Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel as Ms Damari, and Romi Gonen, 24, who was taken from the Supernova music festival.

Emily Damari’s mother, Mandy Damari, thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal”.

Relief and grief in ravaged Gaza

In Gaza, Palestinians have been both celebrating the relief from the bombing and grieving the loss of loved ones and livelihoods.

Some started the trek back through the rubble to what is left of their bombed-out homes, hoping to pick up any pieces of their lives.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after getting lost in the desert for 15 months. I feel alive again,” said a woman from Gaza City, who had been sheltering in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, for over a year.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/three-israeli-hostages-returned-and-90-palestinian-detainees-released-as-part-of-ceasefire-deal-13292111

Trump’s return to the White House marks an extraordinary ascent to power as he is set to become the 47th president in a swearing-in ceremony later today.

Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States today – marking an astonishing return to the White House for the businessman and former reality TV star.

Today’s inauguration comes after a tumultuous four years out of office that saw assassination attempts and several serious legal cases against the 78-year-old.

Mr Trump will be sworn in at the US Capitol Rotunda buildings rather than outdoors due to the cold weather in Washington DC – the first time this has happened in 40 years.

The Capital One Arena in Washington will host a live viewing of the ceremony – due to start at 5pm UK time – as well as the Presidential Parade.

Last night the president-elect held a rally at the same venue and gave a wide-ranging speech to his supporters, promising to tackle illegal immigration, pardon Capitol rioters and offer a temporary reprieve for TikTok.

He credited the video-sharing platform for helping him secure more younger voters, adding: “Frankly, we have no choice. We have to save it.”

Speaking about his inauguration, he said it “closes on four long years of American decline” and “we begin a grand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride”.

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and past presidents will attend the swearing-in ceremony – but notably, Barack Obama’s wife Michelle will be absent with no explanation offered.

Mr Trump has invited several world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, Argentina’s Javier Milei, and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, to his inauguration – the first president-elect to do so.

Several high-profile “tech bros” will also be in attendance including Mr Trump’s close confidante Elon Musk, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, and TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew – fresh from the US ban which saw the app shut for several hours before it was restored.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/trump-to-sign-close-to-100-executive-orders-as-he-is-set-to-become-47th-us-president-13292786

The rooms are filled with elderly residents, their hands wrinkled and backs bent. They shuffle slowly down the corridors, some using walkers. Workers help them bathe, eat, walk and take their medication.

But this isn’t a nursing home – it’s Japan’s largest women’s prison. The population here reflects the aging society outside, and the pervasive problem of loneliness that guards say is so acute for some elderly prisoners that they’d prefer to stay incarcerated.

“There are even people who say they will pay 20,000 or 30,000 yen ($130-190) a month (if they can) live here forever,” said Takayoshi Shiranaga, an officer at Tochigi Women’s Prison located north of Tokyo, during an extremely rare visit granted to CNN in September.

Within the prison’s light pink walls and strangely serene halls, CNN met Akiyo, an 81-year-old inmate with short gray hair and hands dotted with age spots. She was serving time for shoplifting food.

“There are very good people in this prison,” said Akiyo, who CNN is identifying by a pseudonym for privacy. “Perhaps this life is the most stable for me.”

The women in Tochigi live behind bars and must work in the prison’s factories, but that suits some just fine.

One inmate, Yoko, 51, has been imprisoned on drug charges five times over the last 25 years. Each time she returns, the prison population seems to get older, she said.

“(Some people) do bad things on purpose and get caught so that they can come to prison again, if they run out of money,” said Yoko, who CNN is identifying by a pseudonym for privacy reasons.

Struggling in isolation

Akiyo knows the burden of isolation and poverty too well. This is her second stint in prison, after being previously jailed in her 60s for stealing food.

“If I had been financially stable and had a comfortable lifestyle, I definitely wouldn’t have done it,” she said.

When she committed her second theft, Akiyo was living off a “very small” pension that was only paid every two months. With less than $40 left and two weeks until her next payment, “I made a poor decision and shoplifted, thinking it would be a minor issue,” she said. Her prior conviction meant that she was imprisoned.

Her 43-year-old son, who lived with her before she was imprisoned, often told her: “I wish you’d just go away.”

“I felt like I didn’t care what happened anymore,” she said. “I thought, ‘There’s no point in me living,’ and ‘I just want to die.’”

Theft is by far the most common crime committed by elderly inmates, especially among women. In 2022, more than 80% of elderly female inmates nationwide were in jail for stealing, according to government figures.

Some do it for survival – 20% of people aged over 65 in Japan live in poverty, according to the OECD, compared to an average of 14.2% across the organization’s 38 member countries. Others do it because they have so little left on the outside.

“There are people who come here because it’s cold, or because they’re hungry,” said Shiranaga, the prison guard.

Those who fall ill “can get free medical treatment while they are in prison, but once they leave, they have to pay for it themselves, so some people want to stay here as long as possible.”

Can Japan fill the gap?
CNN only passed through one security gate at Tochigi, where one in five inmates is elderly, and the prison has adjusted its services to account for their age.

Across Japan, the number of prisoners aged 65 or older nearly quadrupled from 2003 to 2022 – and it’s changed the nature of incarceration.

“Now we have to change their diapers, help them bathe, eat,” Shiranaga said. “At this point, it feels more like a nursing home than a prison full of convicted criminals.”

Part of the problem for former inmates is a lack of support once they re-enter society, said Megumi, a prison guard at Tochigi, who CNN is identifying by her first name only for privacy.

“Even after they are released and return to normal life, they don’t have anybody to look after them,” she said. “There are also people who have been abandoned by their families after repeatedly committing crimes, they have no place to belong.”

Authorities have acknowledged the issue, with the welfare ministry saying in 2021 that elderly inmates who received support after leaving prison were far less likely to re-offend than those who didn’t. The ministry has since ramped up its early intervention efforts and community support centers to better support vulnerable elderly, it said.

The Ministry of Justice has also launched programs for female inmates that provide guidance on independent living, substance addiction recovery, and how to navigate family relationships.

The government is now considering proposals to make housing benefits accessible to more elders, with 10 municipalities across Japan already testing initiatives to support elderly people with no close relatives.

But it’s not clear whether that will be enough, in a country with one of the world’s longest lifespans and lowest birthrates.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/18/asia/japan-elderly-largest-womens-prison-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

Stargazers will be treated to a rare alignment of seven planets on 28 February when Mercury joins six other planets that are already visible in the night sky. Here’s why it matters to scientists.

Peer up at the sky on a clear night this January and February and you could be in for a treat. Six planets – Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – are currently visible in the night sky. During just one night in late February, they will be joined by Mercury, a rare seven-planet alignment visible in the sky.

But such events are not just a spectacle for stargazers – they can also have a real impact on our Solar System and offer the potential to gain new insights into our place within it.

The eight major planets of our Solar System orbit the Sun in the same flat plane, and all at different speeds. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, completes an orbit – a year for the planet – in 88 days. Earth’s year, of course, is 365 days, while at the upper end, Neptune takes a whopping 60,190 days, or about 165 Earth years, to complete a single revolution of our star.

The different speeds of the planets mean that, on occasion, several of them can be roughly lined up on the same side of the Sun. From Earth, if the orbits line up just right, we can see multiple planets in our night sky at the same time. In rare events, all the planets will line up such that they all appear in our night sky together along the ecliptic, the path traced by the Sun.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, while Uranus and Neptune require binoculars or a telescope to spot.

In January and February, we can witness this event taking place. The planets are not exactly lined up, so they will appear in an arc across the sky due to their orbital plane in the Solar System. During clear nights in January and February, all of the planets except Mercury will be visible – an event sometimes called a planetary parade. On 28 February, though – weather permitting – all seven planets will be visible, a great spectacle for observers on the ground.

“There is something special about looking at the planets with your own eyes,” says Jenifer Millard, a science communicator and astronomer at Fifth Star Labs in the UK. “Yes, you can go on Google and get a more spectacular view of all these planets. But when you’re looking at these objects, these are photons that have travelled millions or billions of miles through space to hit your retinas.”

While fascinating to observe, do such alignments have any impact here on Earth? Or might they have a use for increasing our understanding of our Solar System and beyond?

In fact, says Millard, “it’s just happenstance that they happen to be in this position of their orbits”. And while there have been suggestions from some scientists that planetary alignments might cause impacts on Earth, the scientific basis for most of these claims is weak or non-existent.

In 2019, however, researchers suggested that planetary alignments could have an impact on solar activity. One of the main outstanding questions about the Sun is what drives its 11-year cycle between periods of peak activity, known as solar maximum (which we are currently in), and periods of weakest activity, solar minimum. Frank Stefani, a physicist at Helmholtz-Zentrum research centre in Dresden-Rossendorf in Germany, believes the combined tidal forces of Venus, Earth and Jupiter could be the answer.

While the tidal pull of each planet on the Sun is extremely small, Stefani says that when two or more of the planets line up with the Sun – known as a syzygy – they might combine to cause small rotations inside the star, called Rossby waves, which can drive weather events.

“On Earth, Rossby waves cause cyclones and anticyclones,” says Stefani. “We have the same Rossby waves in the Sun.” Stefani’s calculations showed that the alignments of Venus, Earth and Jupiter would cause a periodicity to solar activity of 11.07 years, almost exactly matching the length of solar cycles that we see.

Not everyone is so sure about the idea, with some noting that solar activity can already be explained by processes within the Sun alone. “The observational evidence suggests that the planets directly causing the solar cycle just doesn’t happen,” says Robert Cameron, a solar scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System research in Germany, who published a paper on the subject in 2022. “There’s no evidence of any synchronisation.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250117-planetary-parade-what-the-alignment-of-seven-planets-really-means-for-science

Prince Harry will get his long-awaited day in court against Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids on Monday, as his lawsuit against News Group Newspapers for unlawful gathering of private information finally goes on trial in London.

Harry himself is not expected to take the stand for at least the first two weeks of the trial, which will be devoted to “generic issues” relating to the practices of the papers from the 1990s to the early 2010s, when lawyers say their reporters routinely hacked the prince’s cellphone and those of other celebrities to dig up intimate details.

The hearings could nonetheless prove damaging to Mr. Murdoch and several of his former lieutenants. Lawyers for Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles III, will set out to show that the News Group executives concealed and sought to destroy evidence of hacking and other improper practices.

Harry is one of only two plaintiffs left from an original group of about 40; the rest, including the actor Hugh Grant, have settled with News Group. The other plaintiff, who is also scheduled to take the stand, is Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, who alleges that News Group hacked his phone and targeted him for political reasons.

Harry has so far refused to settle, casting his suit as a last chance to hold the British press to account for one of its darkest periods. In addition to hacking phones, the tabloids hired private detectives and encouraged journalists to lie and misrepresent themselves to gain access to highly personal data.

“One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability, because I am the last person that can actually achieve that,” Harry said last month in an interview at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit.

He acknowledged that any settlement might not compensate him for his legal costs, and that with News Group aggressively seeking to settle its remaining litigation out of court, it was not clear whether any cases would follow his.

Still, the prospect of multiple days of testimony by the prince, who left Britain for Southern California in part because of what he said was the relentless press intrusion into his life, guarantees a riveting spectacle.

Harry has testified once before, in June 2023 in a hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers. At the time, he was the first senior member of the royal family to take the stand in court since 1891, when Queen Victoria’s eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, testified about wrongdoing during a game of baccarat at which he was present.

Timothy Fancourt, the judge in the 2023 case as well as the current one, ruled that Harry had been a victim of “widespread and habitual hacking,” and awarded him 140,600 pounds, or $171,600. Harry settled the remainder of his privacy claims against the Mirror Group for at least £400,000, or $488,000.

Lawyers involved in previous hacking cases said Harry was taking a risk in exposing himself to several days of cross-examination. He is citing 30 articles that span a period from 1996 to 2011, some of which asserted that he was a regular drug user. His lawyer, David Sherborne, said that was not true.

If Harry continues to reject any settlement offer from News Group, under English law he is at risk of paying substantial legal costs if the court does not award him a commensurate amount at the end of the trial. While a last-minute settlement is still possible, lawyers said he seemed intent on airing his charges in open court.

“Harry appears to have reconciled himself that this is a price worth paying for getting to what he believes is the truth,” said Daniel Taylor, a media lawyer in London who has represented other former plaintiffs in the case. “His overriding imperative is to take the matter to trial in order to expose what he believes is their egregious wrongdoing.”

That, in turn, raises the stakes for Mr. Murdoch’s former associates. Among those who could come under unwelcome scrutiny is Will Lewis, a former News executive who helped manage the company’s response to the hacking scandal in 2010 and 2011, and is currently the publisher of The Washington Post.

Lawyers for Harry say Mr. Lewis was part of a scheme to conceal evidence of hacking by removing files from a computer belonging to Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News U.K. The files were transferred to a USB drive that either was lost or has not been opened because it was encrypted, according to a complaint submitted by the plaintiffs.

News Group has said Ms. Brooks was questioned about deleting emails during her criminal trial in 2014, and was cleared of the charges. Mr. Lewis was never charged. He later was chief executive of Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, before being named publisher of The Post in 2023.

“Any allegations of wrongdoing are untrue,” Mr. Lewis said in a statement to The New York Times last June. “I have no further comment to make.”

Lawyers for News Group argue that Harry is trying to turn the trial into a broader public inquiry into phone hacking. In May, Judge Fancourt rejected a bid by Harry’s lawyers to draw Mr. Murdoch into the case, saying, “There is a desire on the part of those running the litigation on the claimants’ side to shoot at ‘trophy’ targets, whether those are political issues or high-profile individuals.”

Mr. Murdoch, who is 93, testified before Britain’s Parliament in 2011 that he should not be held personally responsible for hacking, given that he ran a global company with 53,000 employees. But he shut down News of the World, the tabloid most closely linked to hacking, and issued a contrite apology.

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2025/01/18/prince-harry-takes-on-rupert-murdochs-u-k-tabloids-in-a-high-stakes-trial/

Snoop Dogg has found himself facing huge backlash after performing at a party for Donald Trump’s imminent inauguration.

The rapper and actor, 53, was filmed performing at the first ever ‘Crypto Ball’ hosted by former PayPal COO David Sacks.

Silicon valley investor and millionaire Sacks is set to step into the White House in his formal capacity as AI and Crypto Czar (a real job title) for cryptocurrency-shilling President-to-be Trump.

After footage of his performance was uploaded to The Shade Room on Instagram, Snoop (real name Calvin Broadus Jr.) came under fire, with some describing the move as ‘culturally embarrassing’ and ‘disrespectful.’

This comes after Snoop set aside his Trump-trolling days to back the controversial President-elect, declaring last year that he had ‘nothing but love and respect’ for the Donald.

Needless to say, a large portion of the star’s fans have not taken it well.

‘wait a goddamn minute, @SnoopDogg is playing Trump’s inauguration???? aw hell naw,’ wrote Doubt_everything on the social media site X.

‘I never thought I’d have Snoop Dogg being a Trump supporter on my bingo card…. But here we are,’ said matthewtravis08.

‘What is Snoop Dogg’s new name? I’ll go first: Snoop Fraud,’ said quadcarl_carl.

‘What the F**K@snoopdogg? Traitorous bulls**t,’ said SarahLarchmont.

‘I have deleted all Snoop dogg songs from my playlists.. i have blocked him from my accounts. I will not listen to his music after i found out that he will be there to perform for the traitors on Monday…’ said glenntunes.

Taking place at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. on Friday night, tickets for the event ranged between $2,500 to $5,000 apiece.

Dressed in a black jacket with gold buttons and a bowtie, Snoop performedhit single Drop It Like It’s Hot and reportedly played a DJ set which included Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

Early last year, the outspoken Trump critic backtracked, telling The Times: ‘Donald Trump? He ain’t done nothing wrong to me. He has done only great things for me.’

Referring to Trump’s pardoning of collaborator Michael Harris, who had been in prison for drugs charges, Snoop elaborated: ‘So I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump.’

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/19/snoop-dogg-faces-huge-backlash-performing-trump-inauguration-party-22390507/

Itamar Ben-Gvir stepped down as Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security minister in protest at the planned released of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s far-right national security minister resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet in fury over the Gaza ceasefire deal – warning it will “destroy all of Israel’s achievements.”

The resignation of Itamar Ben-Gvir does not threaten the ceasefire, but it does weaken Netanyahu’s governing coalition. If other far-right lawmakers leave the government — as Ben-Gvir has encouraged them to do — the prime minister could lose his parliamentary majority, potentially forcing early elections.

It was the latest act of defiance by the 48-year-old ultra-nationalist settler leader who transformed himself over the decades from an outlaw and provocateur into one of Israel’s most influential politicians.

The ceasefire will pause the war and free dozens of hostages held by militants in Gaza. Ben-Gvir opposed the deal because it requires Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and to withdraw troops from Gaza’s southern border with Egypt — and because it leaves open the possibility of Hamas staying in power in Gaza.

Ahead of the resignation, he said the ceasefire was “reckless” and would “destroy all of Israel’s achievements.”

In his Cabinet post, Ben-Gvir oversaw the country’s police force. He used his influence to encourage Netanyahu to press ahead with the war in Gaza and recently boasted that he had blocked past efforts to reach a ceasefire.

He also has paid multiple visits to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site — the contested hilltop compound that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque — including last month. In one such visit in July, he said he came to pray for the return of the hostages “but without a reckless deal, without surrendering.”

The move, while legal, was seen as a provocation, violated a longstanding ban on Jewish prayer there, and threatened to disrupt months of sensitive negotiations. The site is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Ben-Gvir has been convicted eight times for offenses that include racism and supporting a terrorist organization. As a teen, his views were so extreme that the army banned him from compulsory military service.

Ben-Gvir gained notoriety in his youth as a follower of the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane. He first became a national figure when he broke a hood ornament off then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car in 1995.

“We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too,” he said, just weeks before Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Two years later, Ben-Gvir took responsibility for orchestrating a campaign of protests, including death threats, that forced Irish singer Sinead O’Connor to cancel a concert for peace in Jerusalem.

The political rise of Ben-Gvir was the culmination of years of efforts by the media-savvy lawmaker to gain legitimacy. But it also reflected a rightward shift in the Israeli electorate that brought his religious, ultranationalist ideology into the mainstream and diminished hopes for Palestinian independence.

Source: https://www.the-express.com/news/world-news/160930/who-itamar-ben-gvir-far-right-minister-who-resigned-from-netanyahu-s-cabinet

THE fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has finally come into effect after 15 months of relentless warfare.

The truce was set back by a few hours on Sunday after intense last-minute negotiations and a near-collapse of the deal just hours before its implementation.

In a critical first step, 33 hostages, including women, children, and elderly individuals held captive by Hamas, are set to be released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas released the names of the three Israeli hostages set to be freed on the first day of the ceasefire deal – one of whom is British citizen Emily Damari, 28.

Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, are also to be released following a tense few hours after Hamas failed to initially hand over a list of hostages.

The release of the three women held by Hamas will take place after 2pm today.

Emily’s family’s lawyer Adam Rose told The Sun that whether the Brit is “alive or dead” is unknown “even on the day of her release”.

He said that this has “compounded the torture the family have been going through” since she was brutally taken on October 7.

Mr Rose told The Sun: “Every minute is just another layer of torture.

“Emily’s name appeared on the list of three hostages to be released at 8:10am but we just don’t know if she is alive or dead.

“You hope she’s alive but until that exchange takes place we just don’t know.

“The ongoing torture, the ongoing emotional stress and strain of dealing with this is huge.”

He added: “It’s coming up to 500 days now. Our view throughout this has been that until the person, the hostage, is in your arms, until you can hug them and talk to them you can’t assume anything.

“We have to have hope – if you give up hope you just stop.”

Emily Damari grew up in southeast London before moving to Israel in her 20s.

The Spurs fan was shot in the hand and suffered shrapnel wounds to the leg when she was snatched from the Kfar Aza kibbutz village on October 7.

Her London-born mum Mandy, 63, has desperately campaigned for her daughter’s release who was kidnapped from her home by Hamas alongside her twin brothers Ziv and Gali Berman, 27.

Every morning since her daughter was snatched, Mandy has given her daughter an imaginary hug and sent her a virtual message to “keep strong, keep alive,” telling her “you are going to be okay”.

She has described the past 15 months as “a nightmare, living a life like this.”

Mandy added: “What she’s been feeling there – who knows. It must have been ten times worse for her than it has been for me.”

She is praying Emily will be back in Israel alive today and after nearly 500 torturous days, is desperate to finally be able to give her that hug she has dreamt of giving her since her daughter was taken.

The worried sick mum said: “My nightmare is still going on until I see Emily and all the other 98 hostages back in Israel with their families.

“I have more hope now than I’ve had in the last 15 months.

“It would be the most wonderful feeling in the world if she comes back, the most wonderful feeling – but I won’t believe it until I see and feel it for myself.”

The initial group of freed hostages will be met by medical teams and psychological support staff at three designated points along Gaza’s border before being reunited with their families.

Four more hostages will be returned on the seventh day then every week for a period of four weeks.

Finally, 14 hostages will be returned in the sixth week from the group of 33 made up of 12 women and children, 10 men over the age of 50 and 11 younger men.

Negotiations will start again to secure the release of 65 hostages still in Gaza on the 16th day of the ceasefire.

Palestinian prisoners released on Sunday include 95 individuals, many of whom have not been convicted or tried.

Israel’s occupation has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians since terrorists triggered the conflict by killing 1,200 on October 7, according to Hamas.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/13327486/israel-ceasefire-deal-brink-collapse-hamas-hostage-list/

A sociable sunfish who was reportedly missing its human audience during a temporary closure of its aquarium in Japan has been comforted in an unorthodox way.

In a photo posted by the Kaikyokan aquarium in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi prefecture, the sunfish is seen swimming in front of photos of human faces attached to a row of uniforms.

The move was a “last resort” to solve the sunfish’s health issues, which a staff member believed had stemmed from loneliness, the aquarium said on its X account earlier this month.

And it apparently worked. “It seems to be in good health again!” the aquarium wrote on X the next day.

After the aquarium shut for renovation in December, the sunfish stopped eating jellyfish and started rubbing its body against the tank, the Mainichi Shimbun reported on Monday.

Some staff members had initially suspected a case of parasites or digestive issues, but one of them suggested the fish might have been lonely without visitors showing up to its tank.

Sunfish, found in every ocean in the world, are a delicacy in Japan. They are believed to be able to live up to 10 years in captivity, though they are not commonly found in aquariums due to the meticulous care needed to host them.

The sunfish in Kaikyokan is about 80cm long (31in) and weighs nearly 30kg (66 lb).

Mai Kato, a staff member, told Mainichi Shimbun that the sunfish, which arrived at the aquarium a year ago, had a “curious” personality and “would swim up to visitors when they approached the tank”.

After the photos and uniforms went up, the fish “felt better” the following day and was seen “waving its fins” in the tank, the aquarium said in its X post.

The post has been met with an outpouring of support from social media users. Some shared photos and videos of they had taken of the sunfish on previous visits, and others promised to go and see it when the aquarium reopened.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjv4lz7g57o

Incoming first lady Melania Trump has launched a cryptocurrency on the eve of her husband’s inauguration as US president.

The announcement comes after President-elect Donald Trump launched the $Trump cryptocurrency. Both coins have risen but have seen volatile trade.

“The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $Melania now,” she posted on the social platform X on Sunday.

Disclaimers on the websites of both the $Trump and $Melania coins said they were “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security.

According to the CoinMarketCap website, $Trump has a total market valuation of about $12bn (£9.8bn), while $Melania’s stands at around $1.7bn.

Trump had previously called crypto a “scam” but during the 2024 election campaign became the first presidential candidate to accept digital assets as donations.

During the campaign, his family launched a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial – which aims to lead “a financial revolution by dismantling the stranglehold of traditional financial institutions”, and is also selling a crypto coin.

The new Trump coin was launched from Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC, which is linked to previous sales of crypto collectable NFTs launched in 2022 that made millions of dollars but have since fallen dramatically in value for their owners.

According to CoinGecko, the NFTs once sold for more than $1,000 but have since dropped in value to around $300.

Crypto campaign
On the campaign trail, Trump also said he would create a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and appoint financial regulators that take a more positive stance towards digital assets.

That spurred expectations that he would strip back regulations on the crypto industry.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, Bitcoin jumped to a record high of around $109,000 according to crypto trading platform Coinbase.

On Friday, the incoming artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto tsar David Sacks held a “Crypto Ball” in Washington, DC.

Other cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin – which has been promoted by high-profile Trump supporter Elon Musk – have also risen sharply this year.

Under President Joe Biden, regulators cited concerns about fraud and money laundering as they cracked down on crypto companies by suing exchanges.

The growth of Dogecoin has significantly increased the interest in so-called “meme coins” – cryptocurrencies typically linked to a viral internet trend or moment.

Melania’s Meme coin has come from her own incorporated company MKT World LLC – a firm she has used since 2021 for various ventures including selling portraits of her as first lady.

Meme coins can be created and launched by anyone, and there are thousands in existence.

With their profile and social media presence, Trump coin and Melania coin have already entered the top 100 coins in terms of value, and Melania’s coin is now worth more than AI entrepreneur Sam Altman’s Worldcoin.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98y47vrv2jo

Three Israeli women hostages held Hamas in Gaza have been released on the first day of a long-awaited ceasefire deal with Israel.

Fifteen months after the 7 October 2023 attacks, Israel says that 91 of the 251 captives remain unaccounted for, although it believes only 57 of these are still alive.

A total of 120 hostages have now been freed from captivity, including 81 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals who were released as part of a previous deal between Israel and Hamas that saw a week-long ceasefire in November 2023.

Emily Damari, 28, who holds dual British-Israeli nationality, was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She was one of the three Israeli women who became the first of the 33 hostages due to be released by Hamas under the ceasefire deal that took effect on 19 January 2025.

Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a Romanian-Israeli veterinary nurse, was in her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas attacked. At 10:30 on 7 October, she sent a voice message to friends: “They’ve arrived, they have me.” Doron was also freed on the first day of the new ceasefire.

The third woman to be released was Romi Gonen, 24, who was ambushed as she tried to escape from the Supernova festival.

On 27 August 2024, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said it rescued Kaid Farhan Elkadi, 52, a father of 11 and grandfather of one, in a “complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip”. Mr Elkadi is from a Bedouin village in the Negev desert and had been working as a security guard at Kibbutz Magen when he was abducted.

The IDF rescued Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrei Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, in a daylight raid in central Gaza on 8 June 2024. The IDF said they were freed during a “high-risk, complex mission” from two separate buildings in the Nuseirat area. It happened as scores of Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the same area.

Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were rescued during fighting in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, on 12 February.

They had been kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak along with three other members of their family, all of whom were released in November 2023. They are Mia Leimberg, 17, her mother Gabriela, 59, and Mia’s aunt Clara Marman, 63.

Amit Soussana, 40, a lawyer, was at home with a fever when Hamas attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Her family told the Times of Israel she had messaged to say she could hear shooting and was going to hide in her safe room.

Mia Schem, 21, holds dual French-Israeli nationality. She appeared in the first hostage video released by Hamas saying that she had been abducted from the Supernova festival.

Aisha Zyadna, 16, and her brother Bilal, 18, have been released, but their brother Hamza, and their father, Youssef, were killed in captivity, the IDF says.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67477240

CapCut, ByteDance’s video editing app for TikTok, is still down in response to the federal ban.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri just announced a video editing app called Edits. Mosseri said the app is meant to rival CapCut, a video editing app that went offline along with TikTok. Edits is available for preorder on the iOS App Store.

“There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Mosseri said in a video posted to Instagram. He goes on to describe the app:

Edits is more than a video editing app; it’s a full suite of creative tools. There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera (which I used to record this video), all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and — if you decide to share your videos on Instagram — powerful insights into how those videos perform.

The insights he mentions include “a live insights dashboard,” a breakdown of follower and non-follower engagement, and metrics for how often users skip specific ones. It will also include editing tools that let people use green screens and video overlays, both common features of TikTok videos, according to its App Store listing.

In a reply to The Verge’s Chris Welch on Threads, Mosseri said Meta has been working on the app “for months.” He also said it will “end up pretty different than CapCut,” adding that “Edits will have a much broader range of creative tools and probably a smaller addressable audience.”

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/24347358/instagram-edits-capcut-video-app-tiktok-ban

TikTok is bringing its service back online in the US, after shutting down for about half a day. The company said this afternoon that it is “in the process of restoring service” and thanked President-elect Trump for “providing the necessary clarity” to do so.

US users were shut out of TikTok last night ahead of the federal ban coming into effect, with the app displaying a message that its services were “temporarily unavailable.” Service started to be restored on Sunday around 12PM ET in TikTok’s mobile app and on the web.

The app now displays a message saying “Welcome back!” and crediting Trump with restoring service. “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” the message reads.

Trump said this morning that he would issue an executive order on Monday, once he takes office, extending TikTok’s timeline to be sold. He said there would be “no liability” for companies that support TikTok even before his order goes into effect.

TikTok’s hosting provider, Oracle, and its CDN partner, Akamai, have restored service and are relying on Trump’s promise, according to NPR’s Bobby Allyn and The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell.

However, the app’s return is happening without support from Apple and Google, as it remains unavailable in the App Store and Google Play. Those companies may still not be comfortable with the risk of breaking the law banning TikTok, which remains in effect and levies steep fines on those who break it.

Both app stores currently display messages explaining why the app isn’t available if you’re searching for TikTok:

Still, TikTok appears confident in its return. The company sent a memo to advertisers Sunday afternoon letting them know that its service will soon “become available for the majority of U.S. users” and that ad campaigns will resume with “certain limitations” on live campaigns.

The state of the ban has been up in the air over the past few days. TikTok lost a Supreme Court case on Friday, allowing the ban to go into effect. But the Biden administration punted on enforcement, declaring that it “will be up to the next administration to implement” the ban.

That led to Trump’s declaration today that he would extend the sale deadline. The incoming president said he would still require that the app be sold, adding that it would possibly be through “a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50 percent ownership.”

After losing at the Supreme Court, TikTok has been openly pandering to Trump as a last-ditch effort to avoid the ban. TikTok CEO Shou Chew attempted to flatter Trump in a video ahead of the deadline, and TikTok has released multiple statements and pop-up notices crediting Trump with helping to restore service.

Trump and TikTok are receiving pushback on their attempt to skirt the ban, though. Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts put out a joint statement Sunday morning saying there was “no legal basis” to extend the ban’s effective date beyond January 19th while praising Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for pulling the app from their stores. Both senators had called “some of the major tech companies in recent days to say they needed to comply with the law,” according to The New York Times.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/24347280/tiktok-ban-shutdown-ends

Karen Myles, 66, walked out of her Altadena, California home in the middle of the night in her pajamas, confronted by a forest of red and orange flaming trees and live wires from tumbled electric poles sparking in the street. Her son, who had woken her from a deep sleep, navigated their path to safety.

The fire destroyed her neighborhood this month, and she is not going back.

“I’m not going to rebuild. Oh no. Hell no. That fire took everything out of me. I’m going to fly away somewhere, somewhere nice. Maybe Colorado,” the retiree said outside a disaster recovery center. She lived in the house for more than 40 years and will miss friends, she said, but “the fire left me no choice.”

Across Los Angeles on the coast, Pacific Palisades residents Sonia and James Cummings lost a house they bought in 1987 and renovated a decade ago.

“It was with the intention of staying there until we were no longer above ground,” said James Cummings, 77.

Now they see a wasteland.

“I worked two years nonstop building our ideal home,” Sonia added. “We were at the point where everything was perfect. I don’t want to do that again.”

Victims of one of the most destructive fires in California history are struggling to decide whether to rebuild, facing a bewildering array of challenges, including soaring construction costs, years of effort, and the question of whether the tight-knit communities, especially middle-class Altadena, will rise again.

10,000 BURNED STRUCTURES

One issue for many is the toxic ash and other pollutants that blanket destroyed neighborhoods, stretching block after block. The fires have killed about two dozen people and destroyed more than 10,000 structures.

“Think of ash like fine, dangerous dust that can be inhaled deep into the lungs and can cause major problems everywhere it lands. It’s not just dirt,” an advisory from the L.A. County Public Health Department warned.

Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works, said he is setting up a program free to homeowners to clear out the hazardous waste.

“We will dispose of material properly and we will deliver a lot to you ready to build (on),” he told residents recently, adding that the county would also allow private contractors. State and local officials are promising to cut red tape to speed reconstruction.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/la-fire-victims-fear-rebuilding-ordeal-some-will-not-do-it-2025-01-19

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to seize greater control of the federal government than any modern president before him when he takes office on Monday, charging ahead with plans to dismantle what he and his allies call the “deep state,” according to two sources familiar with transition discussions.
The effort could get underway as early as Trump’s first day as president, according to one of the sources, with an executive order aimed at stripping job protections from an estimated 50,000 career federal employees, allowing their replacement by handpicked loyalist appointees.

The Trump administration will also push to fill the thousands of political appointments across government as soon as possible, another source told Reuters.
The goal is to inject political loyalists deep into the workings of government, perhaps more so that any other recent president.
In a harbinger of what may lie ahead, Trump’s team has requested the resignation of three senior career diplomats who oversee the U.S. State Department’s workforce and internal coordination, Reuters reported this week.

Trump allies blame bureaucrats they deem disloyal for thwarting his agenda during his first term in the White House by slow-walking initiatives in the Justice Department, the Department of Education and other agencies.
Nearly a dozen of Trump’s top appointees for his second term have been given an explicit mandate to shake up the federal workforce or expressed support for those plans, according to personnel announcements and media interviews reviewed by Reuters.

Russell Vought, nominated by Trump to return as director of the Office of Management and Budget, played a central role in crafting an earlier version of the reclassification order, known as Schedule F, as Trump was leaving office in 2020.
The revived executive order on Schedule F would allow agency officials to reclassify positions from career posts to political appointments, one of the sources familiar with transition planning said.

FIRING LINES

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration is reconsidering plans for immigration raids in Chicago next week after details were leaked, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan told the Washington Post in an interview on Saturday.
The new administration “hasn’t made a decision yet,” said Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the report. “We’re looking at this leak and will make decision based on this leak,” he added.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials and rights advocates had said Trump’s administration would launch sweeps in multiple U.S. cities almost as soon as he takes office on Monday, with Chicago considered a likely first location.
Dulce Ortiz, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told Reuters that as many as 200 ICE agents were expected to start raids in the Chicago area on Monday at 5 a.m., aiming to catch people heading into work or starting their day.

The enforcement had been expected to continue for several days, she said. An ICE spokesperson referred questions to the Trump transition team, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters reported Friday that agents would also conduct raids in New York and Miami. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that ICE would stage a week-long operation in Chicago with potentially hundreds of agents.

Trump said in an NBC News interview on Saturday that launching the mass deportations he promised in his election campaign would be a top priority. But he declined to identify the cities targeted or when deportations would start.
“It will begin very quickly,” said Trump. “We have to get the criminals out of our country.”
Homan himself had appeared to confirm the raids earlier on Saturday, telling Fox News that “targeted enforcement operations” would quickly pursue some of what he said were 700,000 migrants who are in the U.S. illegally and under deportation orders. He indicated the efforts would occur in several cities.

“President Trump has been clear from day one … he’s going to secure the border and he’s going to have the deportation operation,” Homan told Fox News ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
Homan said the agency had carefully planned the operation and identified specific individuals for enforcement.
“Every target for this operation is well-planned, and the whole team will be out there for officers’ safety reasons,” he said.
Asked how the detention operations would be received in so-called sanctuary cities, which have pledged not to use city resources for federal immigration raids, Homan said sanctuary city policies were “unfortunate.”
In the case of targeted individuals who are already in local jails, he said the cities’ stance creates a threat to public safety. Cities would “release that public safety threat back into the community….and force (ICE) officers into communities,” Homan said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-immigration-forces-target-multiple-cities-border-czar-says-2025-01-18/

Hundreds of supporters of South Korea’s arrested president, Yoon Suk Yeol, stormed a court building early on Sunday after his detention was extended, smashing windows and breaking inside, an attack the country’s acting leader called “unimaginable”.
Yoon on Wednesday became the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested as he faces allegations of insurrection related to his stunning, short-lived Dec. 3 declaration of martial law that has plunged the country into political turmoil.

Shortly after the court announced its decision around 3 a.m. (1800 GMT) on Sunday, Yoon’s supporters swarmed the building, overwhelming riot police trying to keep them at bay.
Protesters blasted fire extinguishers at lines of police guarding the front entrance, then flooded inside, destroying office equipment, fittings and furniture, footage showed.
Police restored order a few hours later, saying they had arrested 46 protesters and vowing to track down others involved.

“The government expresses strong regret over the illegal violence… which is unimaginable in a democratic society,” acting President Choi Sang-mok said in a statement, adding that the authorities would step up safety measures around gatherings.
Nine police officers were injured in the chaos, Yonhap news agency reported. Police were not immediately available for comment on the injured officers.
About 40 people suffered minor injuries, said an emergency responder near the Seoul Western District Court.

Several of those involved live-streamed the intrusion on YouTube, showing protesters trashing the court and chanting Yoon’s name. Some streamers were caught by police during their broadcasts.

CONCERN YOON MAY DESTROY EVIDENCE

With Yoon refusing to be questioned, investigators facing a deadline on detaining the impeached president asked the court on Friday to extend his custody.
After a five-hour hearing on Saturday, which Yoon attended, a judge granted a new warrant extending Yoon’s detention for up to 20 days, due to “concern that the suspect may destroy evidence”.

South Korean regulations require a suspect detained under a warrant to undergo a physical exam, have a mugshot taken and wear a prison uniform.
The leader is being held in a solitary cell at the Seoul Detention Centre.
The corruption investigation office leading the probe said it had called Yoon in for further questioning on Sunday afternoon, but the prosecutor-turned-president has so far stonewalled their efforts to interrogate him.
His lawyers have argued the arrest is illegal because the warrant was issued in the wrong jurisdiction and the investigating team had no mandate for their probe.
Insurrection, the crime that Yoon may be charged with, is one of the few that a South Korean president does not have immunity from and is technically punishable by death. South Korea, however, has not executed anyone in nearly 30 years.
“President Yoon Suk Yeol and our legal team will never give up,” lawyers representing Yoon said in a statement.
“We will do our best in all future judicial procedures to correct the wrong,” the lawyers said, adding that the violence at the court was an “unfortunate” incident.
Separate to the criminal probe that sparked Sunday’s chaos, the Constitutional Court is deliberating whether to permanently remove him from office, in line with parliament’s Dec. 14 impeachment, or restore his presidential powers.

POLITICAL PARTIES WEIGH IN

Yoon’s conservative People Power Party called the court’s decision to extend his detention on Sunday a “great pity”.
“There’s a question whether repercussions of detaining a sitting president were sufficiently considered,” the party said in a statement.
The main opposition Democratic Party said the decision was a “cornerstone” for rebuilding order and that “riots” by “far-right” groups would only deepen the national crisis.
Support for the PPP collapsed after his martial law declaration, which he rescinded hours later in the face of a unanimous vote in parliament rejecting it.
But in the turmoil since – in which the opposition-majority parliament also impeached his first replacement and investigators botched an initial attempt to arrest Yoon – the PPP’s support has sharply rebounded.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-court-grants-extension-president-yoons-detention-2025-01-18/

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal aims to end the war and free hostages kidnapped during the 7 October attack – but in Israel, opinions on the agreement are divided.

The deal would see Israel free between 990 and 1,650 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in return for the release of the hostages.

The 7 October attacks by Hamas saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel and about 250 people taken hostage. Gaza officials say more than 46,000 Palestinians have since been killed.

While some Israeli hostages have been killed, rescued by IDF forces, or returned home in an exchange, many remain unaccounted for – it’s thought some 94 are yet to return home.

Sky News spoke to people in Tel Aviv and heard a range of contrasting views about the ceasefire deal.

Elan

Palestinians afraid of what future could bring

As the ceasefire approaches, hundreds of thousands of Gazans hope to return to what remains of their homes.

Hanaa Dabban, a nurse who was displaced from the Jabalia refugee camp, said the first thing she wanted to do was return to her home in northern Gaza.

“We are going through the hardest days of our lives and of this war,” the 24-year-old told DW by phone from Gaza. “We are waiting for the ceasefire on Sunday. I don’t know what that day will bring, but I am afraid of what lies ahead — afraid that I will not find our home in Jabalia camp, from which we fled under fire. The details of that moment will stay with me forever.”

On Saturday evening, the Israeli military warned displaced people not to approach certain areas where the military is still present, including the Netzarim corridor, which divides southern and northern Gaza. The military presence there does not allow movement between the two areas.

This is only one of many obstacles. Much of the small Palestinian territory has been destroyed and many will have no home to return to. But Dabban is determined to return home.

“We’ll set up our tent there, and I hope to find a wall to lean my back against,” Dabaan said.

But she also acknowledged that there is still a long way to go: “Gaza and the north will be crowded again, but it will never be the same as it was before the war. Not everyone we lost will return, and our mental state will never fully recover.”

This was echoed by Mahmound Tawil, who was displaced to Deir al-Balah. He and his family were displaced from the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

“I have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” he said. “Yes, I will return to al Shati camp, but not on the first day — I don’t know how dangerous the road will be. I know our house was destroyed in the first days of the war, but I will return with my wife, four children, my mother, sisters and brothers.”

But Tawil said he is also worried about the future.

“The war is not truly over,” he said. “The killing continues, and I don’t know if the bloodshed will end after the ceasefire. We are no longer the same people. While I am relieved that the war is ending, I am heartbroken over what has happened, why it happened, and how long it will take for us to rebuild our lives. All we want is security, peace, justice, and a decent life — nothing more.”

Hostages’ relatives see glimmer of hope on eve of ceasefire

As they have for every Saturday night for almost 15 months, hundreds of people gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence to demand the release of the hostages in Gaza. Some held posters of the 98 remaining hostages taken during the Hamas terror attack on southern Israel on 7 October. Most had taped stickers on their jackets with the number 470 — the number of days the hostages have been held in captivity.

But tonight, there was a glimmer of hope that finally, by tomorrow evening, the first hostages will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

“We’ve been here every Saturday night, it’s better than staying at home alone in this difficult situation,” Inbar told DW, declining to give her last name. Her partner, Eshel, added: “We’re really unsure of what’s going to happen. We just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, trying to stay optimistic, but that’s all we can do right now and just stay together.”

Marc Glassman, another protester, said he hoped as many hostages as possible would be freed.

“We just hope, and we care about the hostages,” he said. “It’s a harder experience than I want anybody to go through.

“We also hope that there is a way to get to a better place for the people on the other side, for the Palestinians,” Glassman said. “But we don’t think that Hamas running Gaza is going to lead to peace in the long term. And that’s a great failure of our government. We don’t have plan for the day after.”

Many here fear that some hostages to be released in the second phase of the ceasefire deal may be left behind. According to the current agreement, the second phase is to be negotiated from day 16. Still, some Cabinet ministers in Netanyahu’s government have already said they won’t support negotiations for a permanent ceasefire.

“That’s what we’re scared about, if they don’t go to a second phase. I think that’s the next political struggle. We have to protest for them to go all the way into a deal and to bring them all home, and to respect all the agreements. Because if it doesn’t happen, some of the hostages will remain back there,” said Michael, holding a sign with the names of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, two young children who were taken hostage with their parents in Gaza.

He said he knows one of the hostage families well and has come to the nearly every week to protest.

“I’m anxious. I think we all are anxious because a lot of things can go wrong. And if things go wrong, people will sadly die or be harmed,” he added. “But still, I feel it’s important to show everyone that we’re here supporting an agreement to save lives, to save the hostages, to save the people in Gaza as well. And to end this war once and for all and bring some justice to this land.”

A shooting incident occurred at the Supreme Court in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Saturday, with two judges killed.

What do we know about the incident?

The judiciary identified the slain judges as Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini.

“Three judges of the Supreme Court were targeted. Two of them were martyred and one was injured,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

It added that the “assailant killed himself.”

The third judge was also wounded in the attack, as well as a bodyguard.

Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir told state television later on Saturday that “a person armed with a handgun entered the room” of the two judges and shot them.

He added that the two judges had long been involved in “national security cases, including espionage and terrorism.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/iran-two-judges-shot-dead-outside-supreme-court-in-tehran/a-71335185

Fans are losing it over Joe Jonas dressing in drag in a TikTok video he posted Friday.

The musician’s clip shows him sporting a silky black dress and a dirty blond wig with a short hairstyle. He also had his makeup done, complete with red lipstick, blush, eyeliner and mascara.

Jonas lip-synced to sassy audio from the 1990s horror TV show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”

“I’m going rollerskating. Don’t touch my stuff,” he mouthed before dramatically walking away from the camera.

Fans immediately took to Jonas’ comment section to share their excitement over the unexpected video, with the skincare, body care and hair care brand Kiehl’s commenting, “Who is this diva?? ✨”

“I wasn’t expecting this at all,” another shocked viewer wrote, while a third person added, “Not on my Bingo card this year but here we are 😂😂😂.”

A fourth fan joked that the looming US TikTok ban was “getting to” the Jonas Brothers member.

“No I actually have so many questions,” yet another perplexed fan commented.

Showing their support, a different fan said, “I just remembered why I’m so in love with you 😭✨.”

It’s unclear why Jonas — who recently divorced Sophie Turner — was dressed in drag. Page Six reached out to his rep but did not immediately receive a response.

Shortly before posting his buzz-stirring clip, Jonas, 35, shared a comical video about what he thinks will happen to him if TikTok is pulled from the US on Sunday.

In the video, the “Sucker” singer sat alone at a snow-covered table. He held a cup between his hands and gazed into the distance with a look of despair.

Text was written over the video that read, “Day 436 without TikTok. it’s cold yet … I feel nothing … this morning I tried to swipe up for 2 hours … until I realized I was looking in the mirror.”

The video continued, “I’ve forgotten how to spell my name … plz send help.”

“Hello darkness, my old friend,” Jonas captioned the video.

The “Cake by the Ocean” hitmaker’s video echoed the voices of many people devastated by the impending ban.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/01/18/celebrity-news/fans-freak-over-joe-jonas-dressing-in-drag-in-viral-tiktok-video/

President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised at times to use the vast powers of his office to seek revenge against politicians and officials who he contends have wronged him. Over the past several years, he has publicly named a range of those people and specified what he believes should happen to them.

“I am your warrior, I am your justice,” Mr. Trump told supporters in 2023. “And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Prosecutors and Judges

• Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel who oversaw two indictments of Mr. Trump, related to election interference and mishandling of classified documents

“Jack Smith should be considered mentally deranged, and he should be thrown out of the country,” Mr. Trump said in October 2024.

• Letitia James, the New York State attorney general who sued Mr. Trump over the valuation of his real estate properties, costing him hundreds of millions of dollars

Ms. James “should be prosecuted,” Mr. Trump said in November 2023.

• Arthur F. Engoron, the New York State Supreme Court judge who oversaw that case

Mr. Trump said at a campaign rally last January that both Judge Engoron and Letitia James “should be arrested and punished accordingly.”

• Alvin L. Bragg, Manhattan district attorney who led a prosecution against Mr. Trump that resulted in a felony conviction

“Alvin Bragg should be held accountable for the crime of ‘interference in a presidential election,’” Mr. Trump said in March 2023.

• Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who indicted Mr. Trump in Georgia in an election interference case

Mr. Trump said Ms. Willis “should be impeached for many reasons,” August of 2023.

Jan 6. investigators

• Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chairman of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol

Ms. Cheney “should be prosecuted for what she has done to our country,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post last March, adding: “She should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee.”

• The other members of the committee — which included one other Republican, Adam Kinzinger, and seven Democrats

The whole Jan. 6 committee “should be prosecuted for their lies and, quite frankly, TREASON!” Mr. Trump wrote in March 2023.

First-term foes

• Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Mr. Trump called General Milley a “woke train wreck” who committed a treasonous act for calls he made to his Chinese counterpart as Mr. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Mr. Trump said in September 2023.

• Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, who pleaded guilty during Mr. Trump’s first term to paying to silence a woman who claimed she had sex with Mr. Trump

“Cohen should be prosecuted for lying and all of the tumult and cost he put the D.A.’s Office through,” Mr. Trump said in March 2023.

• John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, who wrote a critical book about Mr. Trump published during the 2020 election

“Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information,” Mr. Trump said in 2020.

The ‘Deep State’

• James Comey, F.B.I. director whom Mr. Trump fired after he investigated ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia

Mr. Trump repeatedly attacked Mr. Comey in public during his first term, including calling him a traitor and accusing him of breaking the law. “He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted,” Mr. Trump said in 2018.

• Andrew McCabe, deputy F.B.I. director under Mr. Comey

Mr. Trump has suggested Mr. McCabe committed treason and broke the law. Most recently, on June 18, 2024, he posted an article in which Steve Bannon said, in regards to Mr. McCabe, “we’re going to come and get you.”

• Peter Strzok, lead agent who investigated ties between the Trump campaign and Russia

Mr. Trump has on multiple occasions accused Mr. Strzok of treason, including in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2018.

• 51 former top intelligence officials — including former Obama officials John O. Brennan, James R. Clapper Jr. and Leon Panetta — who signed a letter before the 2020 election claiming laptop of Hunter Biden obtained by Republican operatives was potentially Russian disinformation.

“They should be prosecuted for what they did,” Mr. Trump said last June.

• The media

“CBS gets a license,” Mr. Trump said on Oct. 11, 2024. “And the license is based on honesty. I think they have to take their license away.”

At a Nov. 7, 2022, rally, Mr. Trump discussed jailing reporters who refuse to give up their sources: “You tell the reporter, ‘Who is it?’ and the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye. The reporter goes to jail,” Mr. Trump said.

• Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook

“We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Mr. Trump wrote in his latest coffee table book, “Save America,” released last September.

Since Mr. Trump won, Mr. Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, has donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund, Mr. Zuckerberg has met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago and he ended Meta’s fact-checking program, a move widely applauded by Mr. Trump’s supporters.

Politicians

• President Biden and his family

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said in June 2023.

• Former President Barack Obama

Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of “treason” in 2020 and reposted an image on Aug. 28, 2024 that called for a military tribunal for Mr. Obama.

• Vice President Kamala Harris

Ms. Harris should be “impeached and prosecuted” for her handling of the southern border, Mr. Trump said at a campaign rally on Sept. 29, 2024.

• Hillary Clinton

“I could have put her in jail,” Mr. Trump said at a rally on Aug. 21, 2024. “Wouldn’t it be terrible to put the wife of the president of the United States in jail?”

• Adam B. Schiff, California senator who, as a House member, led first impeachment of Trump

Source : https://dnyuz.com/2025/01/18/a-list-of-those-who-could-be-in-line-for-trumps-retribution/

Thousands of people gathered in Washington on Saturday to protest President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as activists for women’s rights, racial justice and other causes rallied against incoming policies they say will threaten their constitutional rights during the Republican’s second term.

Some in the crowd wore the pink hats that marked the much-larger protest against Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. They wound through downtown amid a light rain, past the White House and toward the Lincoln Memorial along the National Mall for the “People’s March.”

Protests against Trump’s inauguration are smaller this time, in part because the U.S. women’s rights movement seems more fractured to many activists after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Organizers predicted 50,000 would attend, while local police expected about 25,000. More than 300 other marches were planned nationwide.

Reproductive rights groups joined activists for civil rights, the environment and other causes in organizing the march against Trump. He is preparing to take office on Monday, having lost his first reelection bid in 2020 to President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

In both of his victories, Trump defeated candidates who each would have been the first female U.S. president: Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris last year. This time, Trump won all seven battleground states to secure the Electoral College needed for the presidency, and carried the popular vote in a first for Republicans in two decades.

Trump has vowed to make sweeping changes on day one, from immigration raids to dismantling parts of the federal government.

“A lot of people are disillusioned,” said Olivia Hoffman, 26, who works at the California-based Young Women’s Freedom Center, which supports impoverished women and transgender youth, and traveled with her mother to march in the nation’s capital. “A lot of people feel like we’ve been fighting for the same things for so long.”

Saturday’s march attracted a wide range of causes from immigration and democracy to climate change and the Gaza war. At least one protester called out Trump’s pressure on Canada, carrying a sign that read “We are not your 51st state.”

One-in-25 Brits reckon Donald Trump is actually a zombie. A poll of 2,000 Brits found that 4% think the 78-year-old Republican – who is due to be inaugurated as the 47th president on Monday – is a member of the undead.

Those polled were asked whether they reckoned Trump was either a zombie or a “hologram” created by the CIA.

Gen Z-ers, aged 18-29, were the most convinced that Trump wasn’t “real,” with 6% saying he was one or the other, and had been brought back from the dead by US operatives, who controlled him. The most famous hologram is Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf, played by actor Chris Barrie.

In the hit show, Rimmer is killed by a radiation leak in the first episode, but returns as a hologram, with feelings, touch and the ability to talk and interact with his surroundings.

He is also, worryingly, indestructible – and is even able to ditch the ‘H’ on his forehead when operating on ‘hard light’.

Alastair Taylor, 27, of Canterbury, Kent, said he knew that Donald Trump was a “real person” in the past, but that he suspected he had been “raised from the dead.”

He said: “I get Donald Trump the billionaire property mogul and TV star, but I don’t get Donald Trump the president.

“Certainly not president for a second time.”

The illustrator said: “I think with all that’s going on in the world – Ukraine, the Middle East, Palestine, global warming – the real people in power behind the scenes in America decided that only he could fix it.

“A zombie Donald Trump is only slightly worse than a hologram of him – but only in the sense that he might eat you if he’s a zombie.”

Sharon Groom, 31, of Amersham, Bucks, said she reckoned Trump would start “glitching” soon.

Source : https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/brits-reckon-donald-trump-zombie-34501019

President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview Saturday that he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. after he takes office Monday.

Trump said he hadn’t made a final decision but was considering a 90-day extension of the Sunday deadline for TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell to a non-Chinese-buyer or face a U.S. ban.

“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the phone interview.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he said.

A 90-day extension under specific conditions is explicitly allowed for in the bipartisan law passed last year. But an extension Monday may not be enough to avoid the app going dark for at least a day, because the current deadline for compliance is Sunday.

The fate of TikTok is one of the subjects that has consumed the final days of the Biden administration, and many of the app’s millions of U.S. users are eagerly awaiting a resolution.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said it does not plan to enforce the law, punting that responsibility to Trump, but TikTok said Friday that the White House’s assurances may not be enough to prevent the app from shutting down. TikTok has said it plans to “go dark” Sunday unless it receives greater “clarity and assurance” about potential legal fallout, including against third-party service providers.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s plans to go dark “a stunt” in a statement Saturday morning.

“We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok. It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday,” she said.

“We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them,” she said.

President Joe Biden signed the law last April. It requires the app’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell it to a non-Chinese buyer or face a nationwide prohibition in the United States, but in recent days his aides have been looking for ways to keep TikTok available when that law takes effect Sunday.

Under the law, the president can grant a one-time extension of 90 days if he certifies to Congress that three things are true: There’s a path to divestiture, there’s “significant progress” toward executing it, and “there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.”

No such binding legal agreements have been made public. If a last-minute buyer came forward, they would likely need to spend tens of billions of dollars for TikTok’s U.S. operations.

Trump did not say whether he was aware of any recent progress toward a sale.

Trump’s support for TikTok is a sharp reversal from his stance during his first term, when Trump signed executive orders to ban not only TikTok but also the Chinese messaging app WeChat. Trump’s attempt at the time was blocked by the courts. His reversal came after he met briefly with one of the app’s billionaire American investors last year.

Lawmakers who have supported a sale or ban say some action is necessary because of ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government, which they say shouldn’t have control of a major media property that could be used for propaganda purposes. They also cite the app’s collection of personal data from American citizens.

TikTok’s fans have protested the possible sale or ban, including by downloading other Chinese apps such as RedNote despite potential security concerns about those apps, too.

On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the law, rejecting the app’s free speech arguments in an unsigned opinion with no dissents.

Ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump asked the court to hit pause on the law, asking for some time for his administration to work on finding alternative solutions to banning the app.

In the wake of the ruling Friday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”

In the past, he has signaled his support for letting the app remain available to users in the U.S., citing the high number of views his TikTok accounts receive.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony Monday, along with other tech executives.

On Friday, TikTok’s future remained uncertain, as Chew thanked Trump for his efforts to keep the app running in the U.S.

Even before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Biden administration officials signaled that they would not enforce the law on Sunday, the last day of Biden’s term.

“Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday,” the White House’s Jean-Pierre said in a statement after the ruling.

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-likely-give-tiktok-90-day-extension-avoid-ban-rcna188258

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have suffered a “devastating” blow as new bullying claims have “poisoned the smiling image of the welcoming home-maker”, according to a royal expert.

Vanity Fair released an 8,000-word feature marking five years since the couple’s departure from the UK, based on months of interviews with dozens of sources close to the Sussexes.

The damning profile has sparked widespread negative reactions, threatening to derail the couple’s reputation in the United States just as they prepare to launch major projects, according to royal experts.

Former employees have reportedly come forward with allegations about their treatment whilst working with the Duchess of Sussex, with staff claiming they were left “having therapy” due to their experiences, echoing previous accusations from her time at Kensington Palace.

Royal author and investigative journalist Tom Bower has described the revelations as “devastating” for Meghan’s image.

Bower said: “Having strongly denied the accusations that she bullied her staff in Kensington Palace, the revival of her image of the Difficult Duchess who torments her staff into seeking therapy to alleviate the misery of working for Meghan is a disaster.”

Meghan will launch her new lifestyle Netflix show “With Love, Meghan” in March.

Bower added: “Having invested so much to re-brand herself as a loving, caring Californian mother and wife, the VF disclosures have poisoned the smiling image of the welcoming home-maker.”

Prince Harry was portrayed in the Vanity Fair piece as “lost, out of his depth, and naive.”

Tom Bower noted: “Worse for Meghan is the obvious breach of the draconian Non-Disclosure Agreements which all her staff have been forced to sign.”

Bower added: “Clearly their huge anger overcame any fear that she would seek legal retribution. It’s a bad weekend.”

Royal commentator, Richard Fitzwilliams, warned that the couple’s reputation in the US could be severely damaged.

He said: “Harry is portrayed as lost, out of his depth and naive. Neither, according to the article, appear to understand what a successful career in show business actually involves.”

Fitzwilliams suggests the couple’s attempts to project a caring, philanthropic image through efforts like helping victims of California’s wildfires are unlikely to gain traction in light of the ongoing allegations.

Source : https://www.gbnews.com/royal/prince-harry-meghan-markle-news-devastating-blow-bullying-claims

Five years ago he took the prestigious Michelin Guide to court and lost over an unfavorable review of a controversial soufflé. Now French chef Marc Veyrat has launched a fresh salvo against the fine-dining bible, banning its inspectors from his new restaurant.

“I’ve even got a small sign on the front door,” he tells CNN. “I’m turning 75 this year. I don’t want to be taking exams and getting ranked.”

Veyrat’s 450-euros-($465) a-head new venture, Le Restaurant Marc Veyrat, opened recently in the chic French ski resort of Megève. It’s his first new venture since the chef went to war with Michelin in 2019 after the guidebook downgraded his La Maison des Bois from three to two stars.

Outraged at the time, he filed a suit against Michelin Guide, demanding they remove his restaurant’s listing, pay him a symbolic one euro and explain its reasons for the demotion. He lost and was made to pay court costs.

A Michelin inspector had previously said the decision was because Veyrat’s restaurant used Cheddar in its soufflé. Veyrat argued he used local cheeses including Reblochon and Beaufort, and that inspectors may have confused the color with the hint of saffron used in the recipe.

“They are incompetent,” Veyrat maintains to this day.

La Maison des Bois, located near the French Alpine village of La Croix Fry, has since been taken over by Veyrat’s daughter, who renamed it Le Hameau de mon Père (“my father’s hamlet”) in honor of her father. “I’m very proud of her,” he says, “it’s a really magical place.”

Veyrat says he opened his new venture in Megève because he missed working in a restaurant, even if he strives to avoid the Michelin-level scrutiny which inevitably falls on a chef of his status.

It’s “the joy of hosting people” that motivated him to start over, he tells CNN.

But while his Michelin-ban could discourage the guide, there’s no guarantee an inspector won’t show up anonymously to test the restaurant.

That means it could still appear in the next edition. After all, Michelin included South Korean restaurant Eo in their 2019 guide to Seoul despite the owner, chef Eo Yun-gwon, asking them not to.

Guests shelling out for an eight-course meal at Veyrat’s restaurant also get to meet the chef himself. Veyrat will be on hand in between preparing dishes like his fine lobster tartlet topped with a fragrant meadowsweet emulsion and wild flowers.

In fact, he says, many customers come to his Megève restaurant just to shake hands with the renowned cook. With his signature black wide-brimmed hat, he’s become a bit of a celebrity.

“I don’t mean it in an egotistical way, I’m just part of the architecture,” he laughs.

‘The price of freedom’

At least 70 people have died after a petrol tanker exploded in north-central Nigeria, the country’s emergency forces have said.

The blast took place in the early hours of Saturday morning after a group of people attempted to move fuel from one tanker into another using a generator.

Kumar Tsukwam, from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), said most of the victims were local residents who had stopped to scoop up the spilled petrol after the truck overturned.

“[A] large crowd of people gathered to scoop fuel despite concerted efforts to stop them,” Mr Tsukwam said in an earlier statement.

“Suddenly, the tanker burst into flames, engulfing another tanker. So far 60 corpses [have been] recovered from the scene.”

Such accidents have become common in Africa’s largest oil producer, killing dozens as the country grapples with its worst cost of living crisis in a generation.

The price of petrol has soared more than 400% since May 2023, when the president scrapped a decades-old subsidy.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/fuel-explosion-kills-70-as-crowd-scooped-fuel-from-overturned-tanker-13291854

More than a dozen people have been injured, some seriously, in a ski lift accident in Spain.

The incident took place on a chair lift at the Astún ski resort, which is on the Spanish border with France, in the Pyrenees mountain range.

Astún Ski Resort said around 15 people were injured, three of them seriously.

The regional government has previously said at least 30 people were injured, nine of them very seriously injured.

“The causes of the accident are unknown which are currently being investigated,” the resort said in a statement. “The facility comes with all permits and inspections. The protocols for rescue and transfer of wounded have worked properly, evacuating all the uphill users within two and a half hours.”

It said the station would be open to the public tomorrow “at its usual hours”.

Jamie Pelegri, who was on the chair lift when it collapsed, told Sky News it was “a very scary moment” and that the incident took place “in a matter of seconds”.

“We were still going up, it looked like the cable lost tensity,” he said. “So at the same time, all of the chairs in the lift started to fall, and we actually were a part of that.”

He added that as he and his wife had just got on the lift, they were uninjured and “the chairs surrounding us were falling back”.

But higher up the lift, “it’s where… more dangerous things happened, and there were injured people”.

Mr Pelegri added that some skiers looked as though they had fallen “probably ten to over 15m… to the snow”.

State TV channel TVE reported that around 80 people remained trapped on the chair lift.

A witness told the broadcaster: “It’s like a cable has come off, the chairs have bounced and people have been thrown off.”

The cause of the incident is currently unknown.

Images and videos circulating on social media appeared to show people lying on the floor near a ski lift. A helicopter was also seen landing at the resort.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked by the news of the accident”.

“All our affection to the injured and their families,” he said.

President of the government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, said he had been informed of the incident and was travelling to the scene.

The Spanish prime minister also said he had spoken with Mr Azcón “to offer him the full support of the government”.

A telephone line has been set up for the families of those affected.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/ski-lift-collapses-in-spain-injuring-several-people-with-cause-unknown-13291261

US tennis star Danielle Collins was booed by the Australian Open crowd on Saturday when she walked on court and also when she left following her defeat to compatriot Madison Keys.

It comes after Collins, 31, played the role of “pantomime villain” as she taunted the crowd during her second-round win on Thursday over home favourite Destanee Aiava.

Collins, who was runner-up at Melbourne Park in 2022, shrugged off the abuse she got from dissenters in the match against the 24-year-old local qualifier as she blew kisses to the crowd, cupped her hand to her ear and touched her bottom – in a signal to hecklers to kiss her backside.

After her victory on Thursday, Collins said in a message to hecklers – “bring it on”, as she said the money she was earning during the tennis tournament was “all going towards the Danielle Collins fund”.

“One of the greatest things about being a professional athlete is the people that don’t like you and the people that hate you, they actually pay your bills,” Collins said.

The player, whose Instagram handle is DanimalCollins, said the cash would go towards a luxury holiday for her and her friends.

“I can guarantee you that cheque is going to go towards our next five-star trip, hopefully to the Bahamas,” she said.

After her straight sets defeat to 29-year-old Keys on Saturday, losing 6-4 6-4, Collins said: “The biggest thing is that nobody got hurt. Maybe some feelings got hurt or things were taken personally, and they probably shouldn’t have been taken personally by the crowd.”

“I feel like people take life way too seriously sometimes. I think in our sport, it’s like somebody was telling me that the average age of people watching and the fans of tennis is, like, 65.

“We need to kind of bring some entertainment to the game. I think we can try to make jokes and laugh.

“I don’t have a big ego when it comes to this.”

Collins postponed her retirement from tennis due to “fertility problems” from endometriosis at the end of last season and was the tournament’s 10th seed.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/danielle-collins-tennis-star-says-nobody-got-hurt-as-she-brushes-off-booing-from-crowd-13291510

Ahead of her husband’s second inauguration, Melania Trump wanted to get a few things straight.

“Maybe people see me as just a wife of the president,” she said, in an interview with Fox News. “But I’m standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts.”

Just before the election, Mrs Trump released her memoir. Later this year, she will be the focus of an Amazon documentary series she says will let viewers follow her journey back into the White House.

Like her husband, Donald Trump, Mrs Trump doesn’t play by the rules. When he was first elected in 2016, she approached her own role very differently to her recent predecessors, spending a lot of time away from the White House.

“She was the lowest profile first lady we’ve had for a long time – I would go back to Bess Truman in the 1940s and early 1950s,” says Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University and an expert in the role of first ladies.

For more than 100 years, most first ladies were quietly supportive, acting as official hostesses. Those who took on public service projects did so mainly in the background. Eleanor Roosevelt, supporting her husband Franklin D Roosevelt in 1933, ushered in a significant shift towards a higher-profile role.

“During her time as first lady, 12 years, that became an expectation,” says Professor Jellison. Mrs Truman did not emulate her predecessor, she adds, but “from Jacqueline Kennedy in the early ’60s onward, every first lady has had at least one major high-profile public service project”.

While traditions have been shaped by the women in the role over the years, the role is undefined in the American constitution. First ladies can spend as much – or as little – time at the White House, and supporting the president’s duties, as they wish.

Having been there before, Mrs Trump knows exactly what to expect. “She didn’t feel she was treated well by the press in the first term,” Professor Jellison says. “She felt that people were jumping on every perceived misstep. And so I think she will probably want to make herself less of a target this time in terms of her husband’s critics and in terms of critics in the press.”

But other experts say there is a sense things might be a little different this time around.

“We’ve already seen a little bit more of her, more interviews, more confidence,” says Anita McBride, former chief of staff to Laura Bush, who now runs the First Ladies Initiative at American University in Washington DC, and has written several books on the subject.

“Many of the household staff are still there, she has a familiarity with the place. There’s not this overwhelming sense of having to walk through this for the first time.”

‘The last time, it was a pretty hostile environment’

Mrs Trump has said she will not be defined by expectations of what the role should be. “She will define what she wants to do and I think that sets a tone,” Ms McBride says.

And this time round, public sentiment may be different. In 2016, there was fascination and criticism from some quarters about a model, particularly a model who had posed naked during her career, entering the White House.

If that view wasn’t antiquated then, it certainly seems it now. And this time, Mr Trump goes into the presidency after increasing his vote share in 90% of US counties, compared with the 2020 election. He is also only the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote.

“The last time she was here, she was here in a pretty hostile environment. It made it very hard… even her Christmas decorations were criticised,” says Ms McBride. “I think this is a very different environment now.”

In doing things her own way, Mrs Trump may have “hoped to establish a new precedent, actually making it a little bit easier for anyone that comes after her,” she adds.

“Were Americans ready for that? Not really, because they’ve come to expect that you’re there from day one with the president. But we have seen how people in this position have tried to use it in a way that fits them best.”

Indeed, Jill Biden, who followed Mrs Trump, also broke from tradition, becoming the first woman to continue her professional career outside the White House while serving as first lady.

Mrs Trump, 54, was born Melanija Knavs in what was then part of Yugoslavia, now Slovenia. She began working as a fashion model at 16, and met her future husband at a Fashion Week party in 1998, when she was 28. At the time, he had recently separated from his second wife, Marla Maples.

They wed in 2005, and their son, Barron, was born in 2006. Now 18 and a freshman at New York University, he will have a room for when he visits the White House.

During Mr Trump’s first term, Mrs Trump remained in New York with Barron and sought to maintain her privacy, staying largely out of the spotlight.

However, when she did appear in public, there were a few occasions when she gave an insight into her personality. In June 2018, she made headlines thanks to a jacket worn on a visit to see migrant children separated from their parents, which featured the statement “I really don’t care, do u?” emblazoned on the back.

At the time, her spokesperson said there was no hidden message and that Mrs Trump hoped the media would not “focus on her wardrobe” during such an important trip. However, Mrs Trump later said the jacket was a statement that any criticism she receives will not stop her from doing “what I feel is right”.

In terms of charity work, she used her platform to launch the Be Best initiative, which focused on childhood wellbeing and social media use. But this also came under fire, with critics highlighting Mr Trump’s social media use and how it sometimes did not match the campaign’s anti-bullying message.

She gave her final farewell speech as she left her role in January 2021, less than two weeks after the Capitol riots which saw crowds storming the building in an effort to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, after her husband claimed the vote had been rigged. “Violence is never the answer,” Mrs Trump told Americans ahead of Mr Biden’s inauguration.

After years under the microscope during his presidency, she chose, in the main, to remain in the background as her husband campaigned to gain power pack. While she attended his campaign launch event for the 2024 election, as well as the closing night of the Republican National Convention in the summer, she otherwise stayed away from the campaign trail.

She did, however, release a statement following the high-profile assassination attempt on her husband in July, describing the attacker as a “monster” and urging Americans to “ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence”.

In an interview a few months later, she blamed the Democrats and mainstream media for “fuelling a toxic atmosphere” and empowering those who “want to do harm” to her husband.

Her memoir followed a month later, and now she is planning the upcoming documentary. She has also said she plans to revitalise Be Best, despite the criticism she received before.

In the memoir, published on the cusp of what would be her husband’s election victory, Mrs Trump revealed she is in favour of abortion rights – in contrast with her husband’s stance on the issue.

“The Trumps don’t follow the usual script and I think both the memoir and this documentary are attempts for Mrs Trump to help control or influence her own narrative and her own story,” Professor Jellison says.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/melania-trump-the-first-lady-who-makes-her-own-rules-13289504

Cameron Diaz has said her decade-long retirement from acting was “the best 10 years of my life”.

The actress, 52, has partnered with Jamie Foxx for the Netflix blockbuster Back In Action, marking her first role since playing Miss Hannigan in the 2014 remake of Annie.

Speaking on the BBC’s Graham Norton Show alongside Foxx, Diaz said of her temporary retirement: “Oh my God, I loved it. It was the best 10 years of my life.”

She said she was “just free” to be a mum, a wife and to live her life somewhat privately.

“It was so lovely,” she added, saying that her eventual return to acting “made sense for my family” as they wanted to “switch it up a little bit”.

The Hollywood star, whose acting debut came in 1994 hit comedy The Mask, said she had turned down roles for years during her retirement until people “stopped asking” – but added she didn’t want to turn down the role alongside Foxx.

“If I’m going to leave my family for 10 hours a day – I want to do it with… the most talented man in entertainment,” she said of Foxx, 57, who she also co-starred alongside in Annie.

The Holiday star added: “It’s just a privilege to do this. I thought to myself, if I just like, let this go away, all of this goodwill that I got to build over so much time, the passion that I have for entertaining people and making movies that make people smile and laugh and have a good time… if I don’t engage in that again… then I would be a fool.”

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/cameron-diaz-says-retirement-was-best-10-years-of-my-life-13291203

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon was awarded an $80 million stock bonus to stay at the helm for another five years, a stark turnaround for a leader whose survival was questioned after the firm’s ill-fated foray into consumer banking.
John Waldron, Goldman’s (GS.N), president and chief operating officer, and who is widely seen as a successor to Solomon, was also awarded a retention bonus of $80 million in restricted stock, the bank said in a regulatory filing on Friday.

The bonuses, which vest in five years, are an effort by Goldman’s board to retain Solomon and Waldron as a senior leadership team, the company said in the filing.
Goldman also reported that Solomon’s compensation for 2024 rose by 26% to $39 million.
CEO succession is in focus across Wall Street. From Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase <JPM.N> to Brian Moynihan at Bank of America (BAC.N), investors are focused on the long tenures of executives running the largest U.S. banks.

The latest vote of confidence for Solomon, 63, comes after a turbulent period during which investment banking activity declined and Goldman’s consumer business lost money, prompting criticism of his leadership and speculation two years ago that his job was at risk. Solomon, 63, has faced off doubters as the bank’s stock rallied, markets rebounded and he slimmed down Goldman’s retail operations.
Goldman Sachs shares rose almost 2% on Friday afternoon.

The bank’s share price jumped 48% in the last year, and is up 174% since Solomon took over in 2018.
“The firm is delivering strong performance and the board is determined to maintain our momentum, ensure stability, and keep in place a solid succession plan,” Goldman Sachs spokesperson Tony Fratto said.
“The board is also evolving compensation to enhance the firm’s ability to continue to attract and retain the best talent at a time when the competition for Goldman Sachs talent is especially fierce, including from asset managers and other non-banks,” he added.

Goldman Sachs beat Wall Street estimates and earned its biggest quarterly profit in more than three years as its investment bankers brought in more deal fees, while its traders benefited from active markets. Net income climbed to $4.11 billion in the fourth quarter, the bank reported on Wednesday. Solomon told the Reuters Next conference in December that he will lead the bank as long as the board wants him to remain.
Solomon’s compensation rose from $31 million in 2023. His 2024 compensation included a $2 million base salary and $8.3 million in cash bonus, with the remainder in stock and a new type of incentive award.

BACK TO TRADITIONAL MAINSTAYS

After graduating from college, Solomon was rejected by Goldman for a job, and later joined as a partner in 1999 from Bear Stearns.
He climbed the ranks in investment banking and took over from Lloyd Blankfein, who steered Goldman through the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath.
Under Solomon, Goldman decided to shrink the consumer business that he once championed. Its retail operations lost billions of dollars and prompted the bank to sell assets and take writedowns.
The Wall Street powerhouse has since shifted its focus back to traditional mainstays of investment banking and trading, while pushing growth areas of asset and wealth management.
“This week it seems like things are going well, next week things could be tough,” Solomon told Reuters in December. “But we’re committed to a strategy, we have enormous support from our board, we have an incredible team and I think we’re making good progress, but more to do.”
Waldron, 55, who has been president and chief operating officer since 2018 and previously served as co-head of investment banking, is seen as Solomon’s closest lieutenant.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/goldman-sachs-boosts-ceo-pay-39-million-lines-up-five-more-years-helm-2025-01-17/

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian deepened military ties between their countries on Friday by signing a 20-year strategic partnership that is likely to worry the West.
Under the agreement, Russia and Iran will boost cooperation in a range of areas including their security services, military drills, warship port visits and joint officer training.
Neither will allow their territory to be used for any action that threatens the other and will provide no help to an aggressor attacking either nation, according to the text, which also said they would work together to counter military threats.

But it did not include a mutual defence clause of the kind included in a treaty between Russia and North Korea, which the West says has seen North Korean troops deployed to fight in Ukraine, something Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied.
Nor was there specific mention of arms transfers, a topic of particular concern to the U.S. and its allies, though the two sides said they would develop “military-technical cooperation”.

Pezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July, hailed the treaty as an important new chapter in bilateral relations, while Putin said Moscow and Tehran shared many views on international affairs.
“This (treaty) creates better conditions for bilateral cooperation in all areas,” said Putin, emphasising the upside for economic ties and trade, which he said was mostly carried out in the two countries’ own currencies.

“We need less bureaucracy and more concrete action. Whatever difficulties are created by others, we will be able to overcome them and move forward,” Putin added, referring to Western sanctions on both countries.
Putin said Russia regularly informed Iran about what was going on in the Ukraine conflict and that they closely consulted on events in the Middle East and the South Caucasus region.
Russia and Iran were the main military allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Moscow after being toppled last month. The West also accuses Iran of providing missiles and drones for Russian attacks on Ukraine. Moscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed against other countries.

Putin said work on a potential gas pipeline to carry Russian gas to Iran via Azerbaijan was progressing despite difficulties. He added that, despite delays in building new nuclear reactors for Iran, Moscow was also open to potentially taking on more nuclear projects.

‘MULTI-POLAR WORLD’

Pezeshkian, whose words were translated by Russian state TV, said the treaty showed that Moscow and Tehran did not need to heed the opinion of what he called “countries over the ocean”.
“The agreements we reached today are another stimulus when it comes to the creation of a multi-polar world,” he said, adding that he hoped the war in Ukraine could be ended at the negotiating table.
“War is not a good solution to resolve problems and we would welcome talks and achieving peace between… Russia and Ukraine,” Pezeshkian said.
Moscow has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other nations hostile towards the U.S. since the start of the Ukraine war. It already has strategic pacts with North Korea and close ally Belarus, as well as a partnership agreement with China.
Moscow has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine. The United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.
The Kremlin has declined to confirm it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran includes “the most sensitive areas”.
Russia has supplied Iran with S-300 air defence missile systems in the past and there have been reports in Iranian media of potential interest in buying more advanced systems such as the S-400 and of acquiring advanced Russian fighter jets.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/iranian-president-arrives-moscow-treaty-signing-with-putin-tass-says-2025-01-17/

Former Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday announced that she would take part in the contest to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal Party.
Freeland, who was one of Trudeau’s closest political allies for a decade, quit last month after resisting his demands for more spending and wrote a letter denouncing his governing style.
Her unexpected departure prompted an uproar from Liberal legislators already unhappy about the party’s miserable showing in the polls after nine years in power and widespread voter unhappiness about high prices and a housing crisis.

The mutiny forced Trudeau to announce that he would step down once the party had chosen a replacement. He will stay in office until March 9, when the new leader is due to be unveiled.
“I’m running to fight for Canada,” Freeland said in a post on X, saying her formal campaign launch would be on Sunday.
Trudeau’s replacement is unlikely to be in office long, given polls show that the Liberals are set to be crushed by the official opposition Conservatives. The next election must be held by Oct 20 and could happen as early as May.

The challenge for Freeland, 56, will be to portray herself as different from Trudeau, given how closely they worked together after the Liberals took power in November 2015 and how often she backed him in public.
Her likely main opponent is former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who has never been part of the government and portrays himself as an outsider. He announced on Thursday he would be running.

Freeland had been finance minister since August 2020 and helped craft the government’s multibillion-dollar social spending program to help fight the pandemic.
She had previously been foreign minister and led the Canadian team that successfully renegotiated a trilateral trade deal with the United States and Mexico after then-President Donald Trump threatened to tear up the agreement.
She joined the government in November 2015, first serving as trade minister.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/former-canada-finance-minister-freeland-running-replace-trudeau-2025-01-17/

The house proved it: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could have it all. Their Montecito home offered all the fresh promises of a 21st-century California mansion and the cloistering of a gated neighborhood from which they could emerge on their own terms. In the house’s 13 fireplaces, described as “mostly centuries old examples brought over from France,” there was even some European history, stripped of any potentially uncomfortable context.

At $14.65 million for more than 18,000 square feet, half the current median price per square foot in Montecito, Rockbridge was a steal. The oligarch owner’s romantic relationship had deteriorated to the point where he was compelled to offload far below market value, according to a source with knowledge, and the property seemed just right for the duke and duchess, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It was the perfect launchpad for Archewell, their nonprofit and entertainment studio—an approximation of a part noblesse oblige, part aspiring independently wealthy mogul model, one that Elizabeth, Charles, and William rejected by fiat during the January 2020 “Sandringham Summit.”

This January marks five years since that failed parley. Leaving the royal family has brought tests for the couple—legal, financial, reputational, personal, and practical. Going from divinely chosen (or at least chosen by someone else who was divinely chosen) members of a 1,200-year-old institution to start-up founders in exile is a tough adjustment. But there has also been opportunity. Over many months, Vanity Fair spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and lived alongside the couple to understand the impact they’ve had on their new coastal California community, the challenges of enacting the ambitions of two first-time CEOs, and how their experience with the monarchy foreshadowed some of their current difficulties. (Harry and Meghan declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Harry still works closely with the charities he founded: the Invictus Games Foundation and Sentebale, an organization focusing on “mental fitness” and the impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS in southern African countries. “He has real gravitas when he speaks about his work in Africa,” says someone inside the couple’s circle. And he is free from “Willy,” as well as the future king’s supposed dominion over that continent, as Harry confessed in his 2023 memoir, Spare. “Africa was his thing,” Harry said. Archewell also encompasses Meghan’s efforts to empower and educate young women, like the 40×40 initiative, where for her 40th birthday she asked 40 well-known friends, such as Melissa McCarthy and then first lady of Canada Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, to each spend 40 minutes on Zoom mentoring a woman returning to the workplace in the wake of the pandemic. On March 14 of last year, the fourth anniversary of their flight to California, Meghan rejoined Instagram to announce American Riviera Orchard, a home goods and sundries line. The Sussexes have announced Meghan’s second podcast, though not the title or premise of it. Archewell Productions also recently produced two high-profile Netflix series—a docuseries called Polo, which premiered December 10 and features the world of Harry’s buddy Nacho Figueras, and the reality show With Love, Meghan. The latter is a hospitality endeavor that, according to the Netflix promotional language, “reimagines the genre of lifestyle programming, blending practical how-to’s and candid conversation with friends, new and old.” Three days before her show’s scheduled premiere date of January 15, Meghan announced that the series would be pushed to March 4 “as we focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires in my home state of California.” The couple has been volunteering amid the crisis in Los Angeles and donating to people displaced by the fires, as well as taking in friends who had to evacuate their own homes.

Source : https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/prince-harry-meghan-markle-cover-story-2025

Long-lost secret diaries of ‘Hitler’s English girlfriend’ are today unveiled by the Mail.

In a world publishing coup, aristocrat Unity Mitford’s leather-bound journal reveals fresh insights into the dictator widely reviled as the most evil man in history – whom she worshipped.

Decades after her diaries were lost to historians, their discovery by the Mail is set to cause a global sensation.

The young upper-class beauty scandalised British society by fawning over Hitler and becoming closer to him than any other Briton. She confided secrets of their extraordinary liaisons to her daily diary over five years running up to the Second World War.

This precious record has never been seen before, but now in a world exclusive the Mail is able to reveal it to the public for the first time. It will be showcased in a landmark series in print, on MailOnline and via gripping podcast episodes debuting today, offering a treasure trove to historians.

The diaries are packed with intimate and horrifying revelations about Hitler and the Englishwoman who became his sycophantic confidante.

While plotting global carnage, Hitler was said to have ‘behaved as a 17-year-old’ around the 6ft statuesque blonde beauty.

Celebrated historian Lord (Andrew) Roberts said: ‘It is extremely rare in modern times for the diaries of a well-known figure of the Nazi movement to be discovered and published, and the Daily Mail deserves to be congratulated on this remarkable scoop.’

It is 42 years since the infamous ‘Hitler diaries’ debacle, when German magazine publisher Stern and its British partner The Sunday Times were duped into publishing journals supposedly written by the Nazi leader which were immediately exposed as audacious forgeries.

The Mail has taken every precaution to establish that the newly discovered Mitford volume is not a hoax, commissioning meticulous tests by renowned experts in handwriting, ink and paper to prove its authenticity.

One of the world’s foremost scholars on Unity, the historian and her biographer David Pryce-Jones, said: ‘I am confident they are genuine.’

Unseen for 80 years, Unity’s diaries span 1935 to 1939 and chronicle an extraordinary 139 meetings with Hitler, whose monstrous regime murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust. A virulent Nazi worshipper, the Honourable Unity Mitford venerated the vile dictator whom she unfailingly referred to as ‘the Führer’ or ‘He’ and ‘Him’ as if he were a god.

Also starting today, an exclusive Mail podcast series explores Unity’s insights in depth, allowing listeners to make up their own minds about her scandalous life. Set across four episodes, Hitler’s English Girlfriend: The Secret Diary of Unity Mitford delves into the chilling hatred of Jews she shared with Hitler.

So infatuated that she moved to Munich aged 20 to obsessively stalk the Nazi leader, she wormed her way into his warped affections, making Hitler’s lover Eva Braun seethe with jealousy.

The black leather-bound journal, measuring seven-and-a-half inches by four-and-three-quarter inches (19cm x 12cm), exposes for the first time that Unity was almost certainly sexually active while associating with leading Nazis in Germany. This raises the tantalising prospect of whether she had a sexual relationship with the Führer himself, who was 25 years her senior.

Source : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14296313/amp/Secret-diary-Hitler-English-girlfriend-unity-mitford.html

Israel’s full cabinet has approved the Gaza ceasefire deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said.

It comes after Israel’s security cabinet recommended the deal be approved earlier on Friday. The truce is likely to begin on Sunday.

According to reports 24 ministers voted in favour of the accord and voted against it.

An Israel government statement said: “The government has approved the outline for the return of the abductees.

“The outline for the release of the abductees will enter into force on Sunday, 19 January, 2025.”

In its first stage, the deal would see 33 of the 98 hostages freed over the course of six weeks. About half of the 98 are believed to be alive.

The remainder are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first.

Hamas has said it won’t release everyone without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.

Between 990 and 1,650 Palestinian prisoners and detainees will be released in exchange, depending on the number of hostages freed.

Hardliners in Israel’s coalition government have criticised the deal as giving in to Hamas and security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved.

However, he said he wouldn’t bring down the government.

The ceasefire has been long in the works and there have been false dawns, but on Wednesday a deal was done after mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the US.

Israel has continued strikes on Gaza in the meantime, and Palestinian officials said 86 people were killed the day after the agreement was unveiled.

More than 46,000 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza – mostly women and children – according to officials there.

Around 1,200 were murdered in Israel – alongside more than 250 who were kidnapped – in the October 2023 Hamas terror attack that started the war.

Israel has said it wants to wipe out the group and that it has killed some 17,000 of its fighters.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/israels-cabinet-approves-gaza-ceasefire-deal-13290532

Three lawyers for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been sentenced to years in a Russian penal colony.

Igor Sergunin, Alexei Liptser and Vadim Kobzev were found guilty by a Russian court on Friday of belonging to an extremist group.

The trio were arrested in October 2023 before being added to an official list of “terrorists and extremists”.

They were sentenced respectively to three and a half, five and five and a half years after a trial held behind closed doors in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Navalny, a staunch Vladimir Putin critic, said: “Vadim, Alexei and Igor are political prisoners and must be released immediately.”

Human rights activists say the prosecution of lawyers who defend people speaking out against the authorities and the war in Ukraine crosses a new threshold in the repression of dissent under the Russian president.

“Lawyers cannot be persecuted for their work,” rights group OVD-Info said in a statement.

“Pressure on defence lawyers risks destroying the little that remains of the rule of law, whose appearance the Russian authorities are still trying to maintain.”

It said Navalny’s lawyers were being prosecuted “only because the letter of the law still matters to them and they did not leave the man alone with the repressive machine”.

Navalny, who died suddenly aged 47 in an Arctic penal colony in February last year, was himself convicted of extremism and other charges, all of which he said were manufactured by authorities to silence his criticism of Putin.

The Kremlin says it does not comment on individual court cases, but authorities have long sought to portray Navalny and his supporters as Western-backed traitors seeking to destabilise Russia.

Despite his imprisonment, Navalny was helped by his lawyers to post on social media and file frequent lawsuits over his treatment in prison, using the resulting legal hearings as an opportunity to continue speaking out against the government and the war.

The lawyers were accused of enabling him to continue to function as the leader of an “extremist group”, even from behind bars, by passing his messages to the outside world.

Source : https://news.sky.com/story/navalnys-lawyers-sentenced-to-years-in-russian-penal-colony-13290774

Outgoing US President Joe Biden on Friday announced that 2,500 convicts would be subject to individual pardons and commutations for non-violent narcotic offenses.

Presidents typically order a round of pardons toward the end of their time in office. Biden, whose term concludes next week with Donald Trump’s inauguration, said that this round would make him the president who has issued the most individual pardons and commutations.

Non-violent drug offenders to benefit

“Today, I am commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses who are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House.

“Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,” Biden said.

The US president said that the action was “an important step toward righting historic wrongs.”

In December, Biden announced there would be commuted sentences for 37 out of 40 inmates on death row, with sentences converted to life imprisonment without parole.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-president-biden-commutes-prison-sentences-of-nearly-2500/a-71324278

Kim Janas leaves little doubt about her experiences as an elite gymnast in Germany.

“From a human perspective, it was absolutely awful,” she told DW.

Identified as a future star, Janas grew up training at the elite center in her hometown of Halle in eastern Germany. It was there that she soon discovered the dark side of her beloved sport.

“When I was eight or nine, I was told I was too fat,” Janas said. “I was told that I had a medicine ball in my stomach that absolutely had to go, and that I was banned from eating my food and even (drinking) water, because it has carbohydrates.”

Janas, now 25, is one of a dozen former German gymnasts who have gone public with their stories of abuse, with the sport in the country once again facing a reckoning, as it did after a scandal surrounding the Olympic training center in Chemnitz in 2020.

The latest wave of allegations, initially made on social media, were apparently triggered by the surprise retirement of 17-year-old Meolie Jauch at the end of last year. Jauch had trained in Stuttgart, where much of the abuse is alleged to have occurred.

In a statement on December 31, the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) said it was investigating the complaints and had taken unspecified “measures,” with local media reporting that two coaches from Stuttgart had been suspended.

Allegations of abuse widespread

The gymnasts have revealed a catalogue of mistreatment and health problems, including being threatened and humiliated; developing eating disorders; and training with broken bones.

Janas says she also endured pain during training but was cast aside after suffering the first of three cruciate ligament tears.

“I was dropped like a hot potato, because nobody thought I could come back and compete with a torn cruciate ligament,” the former German youth champion said.

“I was basically no longer worth anything to my coach. And then you think: ‘Oh, is the injury my fault?’ You keep blaming yourself over and over, and at some point, this completely destroys you.”

Aged 14 and no longer feeling welcome in Halle, Janas switched to the Olympic training center in Stuttgart. She says the move was the best decision for her gymnastics career but now, in hindsight, recognizes that she was affected by her treatment there, too.

“I made the comparison that I went from one hell to a better hell,” she said.

“We know competitive sport requires going beyond your limits. But that doesn’t mean that children should be abused psychologically, because that happened to me in Halle and in Stuttgart.”

‘I tried to do something’

Michelle Timm tells a similar story.

A product of the Stuttgart system, she says she was forced to train when injured but normalized such practices, believing it wasn’t worth saying anything because of the “influence” her coaches had on her.

“It’s just the case that you start so young and you’re so dependent on these coaches that you just don’t realize it,” the former German national team member told DW.

“Once you’re out of this bubble and can look at it from the outside, then you really notice that a lot of things weren’t right.”

Since bowing out of elite gymnastics in 2022, Timm has been coaching a group of seven to nine-year-old boys, sharing the training hall in Stuttgart with the women’s team and witnessing the same problems that she herself had experienced.

That prompted the 27-year-old to write to the DTB in October 2024, raising her concerns.

“I had to weigh up whether I could live with seeing these things and not do anything,” she said. “In the end, it didn’t leave me alone. And that’s why I tried to do something.”

Despite receiving an initial phone call, Timm felt her concerns went unaddressed.

Did promised ‘culture change’ happen?

In the wake of the Chemnitz scandal, the DTB promised a “culture change,” vowing, among other things, to take into account the needs of young gymnasts. Having indicated the problems went beyond Chemnitz, the organization set up a working group to look at other training centers in Germany. However, the results were never published, with the DTB previously admitting no other coaches had been sanctioned.

As far as those making the latest allegations are concerned, what might look good on paper hasn’t translated into actual change. Only now, they say, has there been a reaction.

“The positive thing is that it’s getting so much attention, because of course it’s now forcing people to act,” Timm said. “And I have to say, I don’t think that would have happened otherwise.”

In a written response to a query from DW, the DTB said it had been “shocked” by the individual reports, while insisting the reforms it introduced in 2021 had “achieved important changes and improvements.”

“The current statements show that we have not yet reached our goals,” the DTB said. “We must acknowledge that it takes time for changes in attitude and mindset to become part of everyday training. We are very aware that we will be judged on how we deal with the current accusations. This is the only way we will be able to maintain and regain trust.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-gymnastics-scandal-from-one-hell-to-another/a-71314082

MAGA sources could not care less that Michelle Obama is snubbing Donald Trump’s inauguration, a source tells Page Six.

“They are having a good laugh,” a source says of those involved in planning the inaugural festivities.

“They didn’t expect her to come anyway.”

A Democratic source tried to play down the diss, noting, “Donald Trump and Melania didn’t go to Joe Biden’s inauguration and nobody cared. No one said anything.”

Barack and Michelle Obama’s office announced this week that Michelle will skip the 60th inaugural ceremonies on Jan. 20, but that the former president will attend.

Michelle also skipped former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Jan. 9 because she was on an “extended vacation” in Hawaii.

She apparently would have been seated next to Trump.

One Republican source speculated, “It’s obvious that this was her way of protesting Trump. She hates him.”

Michelle attended Trump’s inaugural in 2017, and said of the experience on “The Light Podcast,” “To sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display — there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage. There was no reflection of the broader sense of America.”

She also took jabs at Trump during the Democratic National Convention, saying, “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be black.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/01/16/gossip/trump-team-having-a-good-laugh-over-michelle-obamas-decision-to-skip-inauguration/

After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a “once-in-a-century” find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.

Archaeologists have discovered a sumptuous private bathhouse – potentially the largest ever found there – complete with hot, warm and cold rooms, exquisite artwork, and a huge plunge pool.

The spa-like complex sits at the heart of a grand residence uncovered over the last two years during a major excavation.

“It’s these spaces that really are part of the ‘Pompeii effect’ – it’s almost as if the people had only left a minute ago,” says Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who has revealed the new find exclusively to BBC News.

Analysis of two skeletons discovered in the house also shows the horror faced by Pompeii’s inhabitants when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

The bodies belonged to a woman, aged between 35 and 50, who was clutching jewellery and coins, and a younger man in his teens or early 20s.

They had barricaded themselves into a small room, but were killed as a tsunami of superheated volcanic gas and ash – known as a pyroclastic flow – ripped through the town.

“This is a dramatic place, and everything you find here tells you about the drama,” says Pompeii conservator, Dr Ludovica Alesse.

A third of the ancient city still lies hidden beneath volcanic debris from the disaster, but the new excavation – the most extensive in a generation – provides new insights into ancient Roman life.

The archaeologists have been followed by a documentary team from the BBC and Lion TV, for a series called Pompeii: The New Dig.

An entire block of Pompeii has now been uncovered, revealing a laundry and bakery, as well as the large private house. It’s thought these were all owned by one wealthy individual, possibly Aulus Rustius Verus, an influential Pompeii politician.

The discovery of the bathhouse is further confirmation of his elite status, says Dr Zuchtriegel.

“There are just a few houses that have a private bath complex, so it was something really for the wealthiest of the wealthy,” he says. “And this is so huge – it’s probably the biggest bath complex in a Pompeiian private home.”

Those lucky enough to use the suite of bathing rooms would have undressed in a changing room with vibrant red walls and a mosaic floor dotted with geometric patterns inlaid with marble from across the Roman Empire.

They would then head to the hot room, taking a dip in a bath and enjoying the sauna-like warmth, provided by a suspended floor that allowed hot air to flow underneath and walls with a cavity where the heat could circulate.

Next they would move to the brightly-painted warm room, where oil would be rubbed into the skin, before being scraped off with a curved instrument called a strigil.

Finally, they would enter the largest and most spectacular room of all – the frigidarium, or cold room. Surrounded by red columns and frescoes of athletes, a visitor could cool off in the plunge pool, which is so large 20-30 people could fit in it.

“In the hot summers, you could sit with your feet in the water, chatting with your friends, maybe enjoying a cup of wine,” says Dr Zuchtriegel.

The bathhouse is the latest find to emerge from this extraordinary house.

A huge banqueting room with jet black walls and breathtaking artwork of classical scenes was found last year. A smaller, more intimate room – painted in pale blue – where residents of the house would go and pray to the gods was also unearthed.

The residence was mid-renovation – tools and building materials have been found throughout. In the blue room a pile of oyster shells lie on the floor, ready to be ground up and applied to the walls to give them an iridescent shimmer.

Next door to this beautiful space, in a cramped room with barely any decoration, a stark discovery was made – the remains of two Pompeiians who failed to escape from the eruption.

The skeleton of a woman was found lying on top of a bed, curled up in a foetal position. The body of a man was in the corner of this small room.

“The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came along the street just outside this room, and caused a wall to collapse, and that had basically crushed him to death,” explains Dr Sophie Hay, an archaeologist at Pompeii.

“The woman was still alive while he was dying – imagine the trauma – and then this room filled with the rest of the pyroclastic flow, and that’s how she died.”

Analysis of the male skeleton showed that despite his young age, his bones had signs of wear and tear, suggesting he was of lower status, possibly even a slave.

The woman was older, but her bones and teeth were in good condition.

“She was probably someone higher up in society,” says Dr Hay. “She could have been the wife of the owner of the house – or maybe an assistant looking after the wife, we just don’t know.”

An assortment of items were found on a marble table top in the room – glassware, bronze jugs and pottery – perhaps brought into the room where the pair had tucked themselves away hoping to wait out the eruption.

But it’s the items clutched by the victims that are of particular interest. The younger man held some keys, while the older woman was found with gold and silver coins and jewellery.

These are kept in Pompeii’s vault, along with the city’s other priceless finds, and we were given a chance to see them with archaeologist, Dr Alessandro Russo.

The gold coins still gleam as if they were new, and he shows us delicate gold and natural pearl earrings, necklace pendants and intricately etched semi-precious stones.

“When we find this kind of object, the distance from ancient times and modern times disappears,” Dr Russo says, “and we can touch a small piece of the life of these people who died in the eruption.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15zgvnvk4do

The Israeli and Hamas negotiators never came face to face – but by the end, just one floor separated them.

Ceasefire talks via middlemen from Qatar, Egypt and the US had been dragging on for several months, at times without hope. Now the key players were all inside one building in Doha and the pace was frantic.

A deal was close but things had gone wrong before: one source described a last-minute push to stop the agreement breaking down while a podium was being set up so the Qatari prime minister could announce it.

“Literally, negotiations were up until 10 minutes before the press conference. So that’s how things were stitched up at the last minute,” the source familiar with the talks said.

The BBC has spoken to a number of officials on all sides of the negotiations to piece together how the final fraught days of the secretive process unfolded.

Shortly after a Florida jury found that CNN had defamed Navy veteran Zachary Young and awarded Young $5 million in damages on Friday, the network was dealt a second blow as its revenue losses were publicly revealed on the witness stand.

The Florida jury reached its initial decision in Young’s favor early on Friday afternoon. The case concerns a November 2021 report from Alex Marquardt packaged into segments on Jake Tapper and Jim Acosta’s shows that the jury determined had defamed Young.

After the verdict was reached, the trial moved into its second phase, during which the jury will decide how much more money, in punitive damages, CNN owes Young.

In that second phase, Young’s team called forensic economist Robert W. Johnson to the stand to act as an expert witness in determining what the punitive damages should be. Under direct examination from Young’s lawyers, Johnson dissected tax documents given to the plaintiff and explained that CNN had brought in approximately $2.2 billion in revenue in 2021, $2.0 billion in revenue in 2022, and 1.8% billion in 2023.

That represents a $400 million or 18% drop over three years.

Despite its falling revenue, CNN still boasted net incomes of $600 million in 2021, $300 million in profit in 2022, and $400 million in 2023. Its cash flow profit from 2023 came in at $424.9 million

Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsuhn provided a handy set of screenshots from the slides Young’s lawyers showed jurors on Friday during Johnson’s testimony.

The numbers provided a rare look at the financial health of a cable news behemoth. It also showed that in spite of its struggles, CNN remains extremely profitable.

Source : https://www.mediaite.com/news/defamation-trial-yields-revelation-cnns-revenue-has-dropped-some-400-million-in-three-years/