Category: World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheptegei had tried to protect herself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A STRAIGHTFORWARD PERSON”

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

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

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

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

“Any case that is reported to us, we are very swift,” she told Reuters.

Esther Chemtai, a 24-year-old fellow athlete of Cheptegei’s, said that when she was 18, she had also been in an abusive relationship with a man who wanted her to hand over all her earnings to him. When she refused, he beat her.

Chemtai left him in January 2023, with the help of Tirop’s Angels, who offered her support and counselling, she said.

Chemtai called Cheptegei a “straightforward person” who did not hesitate to walk away from controlling men.

“If she said no, it meant no,” Chemtai said.

Cheptegei was also devoted to her family, buying land for her father worth $1,200 in 2016 — the equivalent of around 11 months of Kenya’s minimum wage at the time.

She met Marangach, a struggling motorcycle taxi driver and aspiring athlete, in 2020 or 2021 when she was living in Uganda, her family said. Marangach urged her to move to Kenya and train in Iten, a hub for top distance runners and a high-altitude training attraction for tourists.

She built a house just over two hours’ drive from Iten in Kinyoro and moved there in 2021, according to the retired runner Chepkongin. A former world U20 champion, he said he met her around that time.

The home is a two-bedroom house on a small plot of land in a quiet community with little infrastructure. Roads are unpaved and potholed, access to electricity is limited — on a clear night, the Milky Way is visible — but the proximity to Iten was good for training.

The police official said Marangach was in possession of a deed to that land. Cheptegei’s father rejects this claim. He showed Reuters a photo of a land deed signed and stamped in March 2021, which listed Rebecca as the purchaser of the plot in Kinyoro, and Marangach as a witness.

Her family and Chepkongin say Cheptegei supported Marangach financially. The retired runner said he had been friends with Marangach since 2018 and had also helped cover his rent, training kit and other expenses.

“Dickson had no money before Rebecca came into his life,” he said.

Two of Marangach’s sisters told Reuters his family was indeed poor. But his elder sister, Naomi Chebet Kiprop, said the couple had pooled funds to buy the land where Cheptegei lived with her daughters.

“God would have helped Dickson get a place we can call home,” she told Reuters.

“Now that Dickson has died, we have no means.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/olympic-runner-cheptegei-defied-her-violent-ex-she-lost-her-life-anyway-2024-09-14/

A Labour peer paid for a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer, both before and after the Labour leader became prime minister in July, according to The Sunday Times. But Labour said they have contacted authorities over the matter.

Sir Keir Starmer is facing an investigation over a possible breach of parliamentary rules after failing to declare that some of his wife’s high-end clothes were bought for her by his biggest personal donor, Lord Alli.

The Labour peer paid for a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Victoria Starmer, reportedly both before and after the Labour leader became prime minister in July, according to The Sunday Times.

This year, Sir Keir has received – and disclosed – nearly £19,000 worth of work clothes and several pairs of glasses from Lord Alli, the former chairman of online fashion retailer Asos, The Times reports.

In addition, the peer, whose personal wealth is estimated at £200m, spent £20,000 on accommodation for the now prime minister during the election and a similar sum on “private office” costs, which was also disclosed, the paper says.

A Number 10 spokesperson told Sky News it was an oversight that had been corrected after it “sought advice from the authorities on coming to office”.

They added: “We believed we’d been compliant, however, following further interrogation this month, we’ve declared further items.”

The Tories called for a “full investigation” following The Sunday Times report.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “It’s taken just 10 weeks for Keir Starmer to face an investigation for his conduct.

“After facing allegations of cronyism and now apparent serious breaches of parliamentary rules there must be a full investigation into the passes for glasses scandal.

“No doubt the millions of vulnerable pensioners across the country who face choosing between heating and eating would jump at the chance for free clothes just to keep warm in the face of Labour’s cruel cut.”

Lord Alli’s involvement with the Labour leader has already proved controversial after it emerged he had been given a Downing Street security pass without apparently having a government role.

The revelations are awkward for the prime minister, who has promised to clean up politics.

Sir Keir, like all MPs, must declare any of his relevant interests under rules set up to protect politics from improper influence and uphold transparency.

The Times said the prime minister’s office approached the parliamentary authorities to make the late declarations last Tuesday.

His advisers were already in touch with them by then after several designers had approached Lady Starmer asking if she was interested in free products such as clothes, jewellery and make-up.

Staff had asked if the prime minister would need to declare his wife being given those items if she accepted and were told he would.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/starmer-faces-investigation-over-possible-breach-of-parliamentary-rules-after-labour-donor-pays-for-wifes-clothes-13215216

 In a world where the line between adolescence and adulthood seems increasingly blurred, a recent survey claims that the age at which life, money, and the future start to feel “real” for most Americans isn’t until age 27!

This revelation comes from a comprehensive study of 2,000 Americans, evenly distributed across generations, challenging the traditional notion that adulthood begins at 18. The survey, conducted by Talker Research on behalf of Life Happens, also delved into the milestones and mindsets that define modern adulthood.

It reveals that for 56% of respondents, the true mark of “adulting” is simply paying your own bills. Financial independence (45%) and prioritizing responsibilities over personal life or fun (38%) also rank high as key signs of entering adulthood.

Interestingly, the study found that moving out of parents’ or guardians’ homes (46%) and landing a first job or a position in one’s chosen field (28%) are among the top events that made Americans feel like adults. However, the transition isn’t smooth for everyone, with 11% of Gen Zers saying they still don’t feel like adults.

The financial landscape for young adults appears particularly challenging. While Americans generally start taking their finances seriously around age 28, a staggering 81% of Gen Z feel pressure to be more financially “ahead” than they currently are. This sentiment is echoed across generations, with 76% of older respondents wishing they had taken their finances more seriously in their 20s.

“While it’s concerning to see that so many young people are not contributing to their retirement or purchasing life insurance, it’s never too late to start making those moves,” says Kevin Mayeux, CEO of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, in a statement.

Mayeux emphasizes the importance of professional financial guidance, noting that 56% of Americans surveyed have never worked with a financial professional.

The survey also sheds light on the financial priorities of different generations. Millennials, for instance, were ahead of the curve in getting credit cards, budgeting, and opening savings accounts before age 28. Gen Z, while well ahead in paying bills and managing basic finances by age 22, lags in areas like retirement planning and life insurance, with 53% having never contributed to a 401(k) and 49% yet to purchase life insurance.

Perhaps most tellingly, 42% of all respondents found that being an adult is harder than they expected. This sentiment is particularly stark when it comes to financial stability. Nearly two in five Americans (39%) feel they are not currently financially stable, with 41% of those doubting they’ll ever achieve financial stability. This pessimism increases with age, from only 7% of Gen Z to a whopping 66% of baby boomers.

“Gen Z’s struggles and anxieties, paired with the fact that 71% of Americans surveyed believe that being an adult is harder today than it was 10 years ago, really underscores the importance of being financially prepared for whatever the future might hold,” says Brian Steiner, Executive Director at Life Happens.

Steiner points to rising costs, stagnant salaries, and decreasing hope as factors contributing to this challenging landscape.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/adulthood-begins-age-27/?nab=0

Fans posted dramatic video of the escalating confrontation and the enraged singer’s removal from the stage.

Been caught sparring: A concert by the reunited Jane’s Addiction in Boston came to a sudden end Friday night when a clearly enraged Perry Farrell threw a punch at guitarist Dave Navarro — and was restrained by crew members, still appearing physically agitated as he was hustled offstage.

Multiple audience members shared their dramatic video of the altercation after the gig ended in calamity. This emotional explosion — coming on the heels of some “off” moments in other cities that have already been a subject of discussion in reviews and on social media — has some fans waiting to see whether the remaining gigs on the band’s long-awaited reunion tour, their first in 14 years, will proceed as scheduled.

Footage shared on the web shows the band deep into playing “Ocean Size,” the 11th number in a set that usually stretches out to 14 or 15 songs, when trouble erupts between the two most famous members of the veteran band. Some fans reported on social media that tension looked to have been brewing for several songs before it got to the point of fisticuffs.

For months, an unusual monument sat in an oak-lined square at the heart of Tasmania’s capital: a pair of severed bronze feet.
A statue of renowned surgeon-turned-premier William Crowther had loomed over the park in Hobart for more than a century. But one evening in May, it was chopped down at the ankles and the words “what goes around” graffitied on its sandstone base.
It was a throwback to another night more than 150 years ago, when Crowther allegedly broke into a morgue, sliced open an Aboriginal leader’s head and stole his skull – triggering a grim tussle over the remaining body parts.
Tasmania had become the centre of coloniser efforts to eradicate Aboriginal people in Australia. And the sailor on the slab – William Lanne – was touted as the last man on the island, making his remains a twisted trophy for white physicians.
Some see Crowther as an unfairly maligned man of his time, and his effigy as an important part of the state’s history, warts and all.
But for Lanne’s descendants, it represents colonial brutality, the dehumanising myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people are extinct, and the whitewashing of the island’s past.
“You walk around the city anywhere and you’d never know Aborigines were here,” Aboriginal activist Nala Mansell says.
Now the dismembered statue has become a symbol of a city – and a nation – struggling to reckon with its darkest chapters.

Over 38 lakh cases have been delayed because accused are absconding. This is followed by delays due to “witness”, which account for 2,920,033 cases, and cases “stayed for various reasons”, totaling 2,462,051.

The NJDG identifies causes for delays in cases before the district courts cases, and the top reason for the backlog is the unavailability of counsel to represent parties.

A majority of these – over 5.1 lakh – are criminal cases.

Over 38 lakh cases have been delayed because accused are absconding. This is followed by delays due to “witness”, which account for 2,920,033 cases, and cases “stayed for various reasons”, totaling 2,462,051.

More than 8 lakh cases have been delayed because parties were not interested.

Other reasons for delays include the execution of decrees, frequent appeals, legal representatives not being on record, unavailability of case records and cases being stayed by the High Court or Supreme Court, among others.

These figures put the spotlight on lawyers in terms of what role they play in increasing the backlog before our courts.

Last year, the Supreme Court while flagging the massive pendency of cases in Maharashtra courts said that the issue cannot be resolved unless lawyers also cooperate with the process and act in a fair manner.

“If the members of the Bar do not cooperate with the Trial Courts, it will be very difficult for our Courts to deal with the huge arrears. While a trial is being conducted, the members of the Bar are expected to act as officers of the Court. They are expected to conduct themselves in a reasonable and fair manner,” the Bench observed.

A couple of years back, Justice MR Shah revealed that the unavailability of lawyers to argue cases was an issue before the Supreme Court as well. He observed during a hearing,

“One of the reasons for pendency is letter for adjournments. Everyday 5 to 6 matters in criminal matters adjournments letters are given, where personal difficulty is cited.”

Former Chief Justice of India NV Ramana also urged lawyers to play their part in reducing pendency figures by advising their clients to settle disputes at the pre-litigation stage itself.

The NJDG reveals more interesting figures on pendency. Another section highlights the age of cases pending before district courts. Approximately 99,000 have been pending for over 30 years.

Over 2 crore cases have been filed within the past 0 to 3 years and are still pending for disposal.

Source: https://www.barandbench.com/news/66-lakh-cases-district-courts-delayed-unavailability-lawyers

It might not be such a “Love Story” after all.

Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, may turn more voters away than it attracts.

A new post-debate poll from YouGov released Saturday found that 8% of voters said the pop superstar’s nod is either “somewhat” or “much more likely” to convince them to cast their ballot for the Democrat.

But a whopping 20% said they are “somewhat” or “much less likely” to vote for former President Donald Trump’s opponent now that Swift has spoken.

The presence of hard-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer alongside Donald Trump on the campaign trail in recent days has raised questions, including from some Republicans, about the influence the controversial former congressional candidate may have on him.
Ms Loomer is well-known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and for spreading conspiracy theories, including that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” carried out by the US government.
She joined Trump at an event on Wednesday commemorating the attacks, raising eyebrows and prompting outrage in some US media outlets.
And on Tuesday, the 31-year-old travelled to Philadelphia on board Trump’s plane for the presidential debate in the city.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of that debate came when Trump repeated a baseless claim that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating domestic pets in a small Ohio city. “They are eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.
City officials later told BBC Verify that there have been “no credible reports” this has actually happened.
Trump said he was repeating claims he had heard on television, but the theory was aired by Ms Loomer just a day before the debate. On Monday, the fringe pundit and social media influencer repeated the claims to her 1.2m followers on X.
While the level of access Ms Loomer has to Trump is unclear, and his running mate JD Vance has also spread the baseless theory, Ms Loomer’s post and her presence in Philadelphia has led some Republicans to blame her for the former president making the unfounded claim on stage.
An anonymous source close to the Trump campaign told US news outlet Semafor that they were “100%” concerned about Ms Loomer’s proximity to Trump.
“Regardless of any guardrails the Trump campaign has put on her, I don’t think it’s working,” the source was quoted as saying.

Now, she is known for her vocal support of Trump and for promoting a long string of conspiracy theories including claims that Kamala Harris is not black, and that the son of billionaire George Soros was sending cryptic messages calling for Trump’s assassination.

These posts led her to be banned from a number of platforms including Facebook, Instagram and even, according to her, Uber and Lyft for making offensive comments about Muslim drivers. She once described herself as a “proud Islamophobe”.

• Eating pets, inflation, abortion – key debate claims fact-checked
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• US voters weigh in on debate performance

Ms Loomer frequently attends events in support of Trump and has been seen previously at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago.

Earlier this year, she travelled on his plane to Iowa where she was given a shout-out by him on stage at an event. “You want her on your side,” Trump said. The former president has also shared several of her videos on Truth Social.

And last year, the New York Times reported that Trump had expressed an interest in hiring her for his campaign, relenting only after top aides expressed concern that she could damage his electoral efforts.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8y27dwgpo

Whoopi Goldberg told Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance to “stop talking” after the candidate for vice president spoke out against Taylor Swift. The music superstar formally endorsed Kamala Harris for president soon after the Sept. 10 debate between Harris and Trump ended. Vance reacted by telling Fox News that Swift is “disconnected” from most of America.

“We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans,” Vance claimed.

“Look, when grocery prices go by 20%, it hurts most Americans. It doesn’t hurt Taylor Swift,” he added. “When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn’t affect Taylor Swift or any other billionaire. It does affect middle class Americans all over our country.”

Goldberg responded on “The View” to Vance’s trolling by saying: “You don’t know what affects her! You don’t about know her money! How you talking about her? Shut up, JD. I’m sorry that was very rude. Stop talking, JD.”

“The reason I apologized is because I hate when pundits tell me to shut up,” Goldberg later clarified. “It’s not a nice thing to say but I do take it back. But the implication is… hush! We were just talking about how Taylor Swift endorsing Harris-Walz is triggering Republicans. It’s a big deal. It’s really freaking them out.”

Goldberg’s “The View” co-hosts went on to praise Swift for encouraging her fans to vote, which the singer did in both her endorsement statement and during an acceptance speech at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. It was reported that 337,826 of Swift’s followers clicked the link to vote.gov that she included in her endorsement.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/whoopi-goldberg-jd-vance-shut-up-taylor-swift-criticism-1236142332/

At least four people died and thousands of homes were damaged by flooding in eastern Romania on Saturday, officials said, as surging river levels put authorities on alert in much of central and eastern Europe following days of torrential rain.
Tens of thousands of households were left without power in Romania and the Czech Republic, where more rainfall is forecast in the coming days. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, southern Germany and parts of Austria are also expected to see more heavy rain.

Residents of some towns along the Czech-Polish border were evacuated as rivers rose past alert levels while the Czech capital, Prague, which suffered catastrophic floods in 2002, put preventative anti-flood measures in place.
In Romania, flooding affected eight counties, the country’s emergency unit said, and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu visited hard-hit Galati county, where the four people were found dead, about 5,000 homes were damaged and 25,000 were without power.

EVACUATIONS, BLACKOUTS

Forecasters warned that some parts of the country could see more than a third of average annual rainfall by Sunday, with Environment Minister Petr Hladik urging people in the worst-hit areas to prepare to leave their homes.
In the village of Visnova, 140 km (87 miles) north of Prague, local resident Roman Christof said his cottage had escaped damage because it was built on higher land. Others were less fortunate, he added.
“I feel sorry for the neighbours,” he said as he surveyed the floodwaters.

In Prague, a city of more than 1.3 million people that sits on the banks of the Vltava river spanned by the picturesque 14th century Charles Bridge, flood barriers were put in place.

The city heavily invested into preventive measures after the 2002 floods, which swept into the subway system and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Prague Zoo, which is located along the Vltava, was closed to visitors and Czech Railways said services on dozens of routes were disrupted. In the country’s second-biggest city, Brno, a hospital evacuated patients as a precaution.

‘CRITICAL NIGHT’ AHEAD

In Glucholazy, a historic town in southwestern Poland near the Czech border, firefighters piled hundreds of sandbags alongside a swollen river and some residents were evacuated.

Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said weather forecasts looked unfavourable, with very heavy rainfall to fall around the Czech border area over the next 24 hours, feeding rivers into Poland.

“We are facing a critical night, full mobilisation is required,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on the X platform.

Officials in neighbouring Slovakia warned of the threat of flooding in the capital, Bratislava, from the swollen Danube, while Hungary expects the river to near record-high levels in the coming days.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/least-four-die-romania-floods-rain-batters-central-europe-2024-09-14/

After acquiring United Spirits in 2014 and cleaning up its balance sheet, UK-based alcobev giant Diageo is busy consolidating its position in India through a focus on premiumisation, strategic buyouts, and innovation

On the busy Vittal Mallya Road in central Bengaluru stands the UB Tower. The 20-storey tower, part of a commercial complex, is home to many high-profile names, including Diageo India, a subsidiary of the UK’s Diageo plc, which acquired United Spirits, India’s largest liquor company by revenue.

When United Spirits got under the Diageo umbrella, it was not just a new name for an old business. Diageo is a more aggressive organisation with a distinct multinational culture. The alcoholic beverages major, headquartered in London, has over 200 brands and a presence in 180 countries. For the financial year ended June 30, 2024, Diageo reported revenues of $27 billion, of which 40% came from North America and 24% from Europe. Asia-Pacific contributed 19%, with India’s share in the modest single digits.

Diageo has been trying to change this ever since it took over United Spirits a decade ago: it knows that very few markets offer the headroom for growth that India does. But the changes have come in fits and starts.

Hina Nagarajan, named Diageo India’s boss in 2021 after a similar role at its African business, is hastening the pace. Nagarajan, who prefers a low profile despite being the MD & CEO of a liquor giant, talks in terms of months, not years.

Sitting in her austere office, the MD & CEO pauses briefly to adjust her green blazer before recalling one of the early strategy meetings right after she took over in July 2021. Nagarajan’s table is clean, and her room is sparse (We are drinking tea, and there is no display of Diageo’s 63 alcohol brands in the room). Most importantly, she is relaxed, which is admirable given the complex regulations, tax rates and even bottle sizes across states. Some states depend heavily on taxes from liquor revenues.

“The first thing we asked ourselves was what we stood for. It was clear that we had to set ourselves a mission to be among India’s top-performing consumer packaged goods companies,” she says. Although a Diageo-owned company, it was yet to get out of the woods; Nagarajan had a tough job on her hands. Diageo acquired United Spirits from the flamboyant Vijay Mallya, a liquor baron who crash-landed in debt after his aviation venture ran into trouble. Mallya is out of the picture and left the country in 2016.

The pair are both naturists – meaning they like to spend time in the nude.

Two pals are causing a stir while completing a six-day tandem bike ride – both completely naked.

Neil Cox, 36, and his friend, J Antic, 25, set off on Saturday (7) on a naked 260-mile journey from Gloucester to Land’s End, Cornwall.

The pair are both naturists – meaning they like to spend time in the nude – and wanted to see some natural beauty across the southwest of England.

Neil and J have cycled naked through Gloucester to Bristol, taken a trip to the Mendips and stopped off in Glastonbury.

The pair have spent some nights camping and others in hotels or B&Bs, and even took some nude trips out shopping or drinking in bars while on their journey.

Now in Cornwall, they’re on the last leg of their cycle – and say the response to them so far has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

Neil, a finance worker, from Stoke, Cheshire East, said: “We did a bike ride down to Land’s End in 2022, and raised about £5k. This time it’s been more for enjoyment.

“We’re not far from the end now and we’ve had varied responses.

“People on social media always have opinions – but we haven’t had many negative reactions.

“People in Glastonbury were overwhelmingly positive, it was a bit overwhelming.

“In Bristol people had a casual indifference, but that’s what we want to be the case really.

“There were times I was worried about a negative reaction, but it was all in my head.

“After we went through Glastonbury we did get dressed – but only because it was windy and chucking it down with rain!”

Neil set off with J, who is from Peckham, southeast London, on Saturday and they cycled down to Bristol – before having an evening drinking.

They went for drinks naked in a few central bars in Bristol and said the response was largely “indifferent” – they were just left alone to get on with their evening.

They spent the Sunday working out the logistics of the rest of the route before setting off for the Mendip Hills, Somerset, on Monday.

They have spent some nights camping, and others in hotels or B&Bs, depending on the weather and their location.

On their way to Cullompton, Devon, the following day, they stopped off at Glastonbury where they had some food and drink and a wander around some shops in the town.

Neil said: “In Glastonbury it was almost too positive. One lady even thanked us.

“Wherever we go, people do look over – I think some are just bemused about seeing two people on a tandem.

“So they find it even funnier to see two naked people on a tandem.”

Now nearing the end of their route, the pair have been pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction in person.

Neil said people on social media were less fond of their nakedness when he shared their journey on a local Facebook group.

One commented: “You may love seeing each other naked, doesn’t mean we want to. Have more respect for other people!”

Another added: “I have never understood the need of people to draw attention to themselves, without offering anything to the rest of society.”

But others jumped to their defense – with one saying “Good on them!” and another saying it’s “good to counteract the media portrayal of bodies these days”.

Source: https://talker.news/2024/09/13/friends-causing-stir-with-six-day-naked-tandem-bike-trip/

Japanese retail giant Seven & i Holdings (3382.T), opens new tab has been classified as “core” to national security, according to an updated finance ministry list released on Friday.
The classification has raised questions as to whether it is a defensive manoeuvre by the owner of 7-Eleven convenience stores which last week rejected a $38.5 billion buyout offer from Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO), opens new tab. Couche-Tard is discussing whether to raise its offer price, according to a Bloomberg report.

Spain, hosting a high-level meeting on Friday of several Muslim and European countries on ways to end the Gaza war, called for a clear schedule for the international community to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We meet to make another push for the end of the war in Gaza, for a way out of the unending spiral of violence between the Palestinians, the Israelis… That way is clear. The implementation of the two-state solution is the only way,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters.

The United States made a return to the Davis Cup Final 8 after beating Slovakia 3-0 in Group C in Zuhai on Friday, while Spain also sealed their spot in the knockout stage.
Mackenzie McDonald beat Lukas Klein 6-4 6-3 in the day’s opening singles before Brandon Nakashima beat Jozef Kovalik also in straight sets to give the Americans an unassailable 2-0 lead.
Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram then fought back to a 6-7(4) 7-6(4) 10-1 win over Norbert Gombos and Klein in the doubles for an overall 3-0 triumph after the U.S. failed to progress last year following defeats to the Netherlands and Finland.

Three US citizens, a Belgian and a Canadian were also sentenced to death after the botched attempt to overthrow the government in May.

A British citizen is among 37 people who have been sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after being found guilty of an attempted coup in the central African country.

A foreign office spokesperson told Sky News they are giving consular assistance to “a British man detained in DRC” and are in contact with the local authorities.

“We have made representations about the use of the death penalty to the DRC at the highest levels, and we will continue to do so.”

Three US citizens, a Belgian and a Canadian were also among those sentenced, along with several Congolese.

Judge Major Freddy Ehuma, speaking at an open-air military court in Kinshasa that was broadcast live on television, said they had been given “the harshest penalty, that of death”.

The defendants have five days to appeal their verdicts after being convicted on charges that included terrorism, murder and criminal association.

Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial, which opened in June.

Six people were killed during the attempted coup in May, which was led by Christian Malanga, a little-known opposition figure.

The rebels occupied DRC President Felix Tshisekedi’s office in the presidential palace for almost an hour before they were arrested, mediacongo.net said.

Mr Malanga was fatally shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

Mr Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel, who is a US citizen, was convicted, along with fellow Americans, Tyler Thompson Jr and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun.

Marcel Malanga’s mother Brittney Sawyer has said her son is innocent and was simply following his father, who believed himself to be president of a shadow government in exile.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/british-citizen-among-37-people-sentenced-to-death-in-dr-congo-over-failed-coup-13214172

A look back at Prince Harry’s life in pictures – as the Duke of Sussex turns 40.

Prince Harry has turned 40 – spending his birthday in his new California home, where he lives with his wife Meghan and his children Archie and Lilibet.

This is a look at his life – from newborn baby to cheeky toddler, from teenager to man.

Harry was born on 15 September 1984 at St Mary’s Hospital, London.

As a young boy he was close to his mother Lady Diana and older brother William.

His parents divorced in 1996 – and Harry’s life changed forever when Lady Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Harry, then aged 12, and William walked behind her coffin as it proceeded through the streets from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey.

Harry later said no child “should be asked to do” what they did.

After the death of Diana, Harry became even closer to William.

Harry said of William when he turned 21: “Ever since our mother died, obviously we were close, but he is the one person on this earth who I can actually really… we can talk about anything.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/prince-harry-at-40-duke-of-sussexs-life-in-40-pictures-13213945

China’s legislature passed a policy which will see retirement age raised for both men and women for the first time since the 1950s as it tries to tackle a shrinking and ageing population.

China will begin raising the retirement age for the first time in more than 70 years as the 1.4bn-strong country faces a shrinking and ageing population.

China’s legislature, known as the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, has signed off a new policy which will see retirement age rise for both men and women as of January 2025, state broadcaster CCTV announced.

Over 15 years, the retirement age for men will be raised from 60 to 63 and for women, who can currently retire at 50 if they are in blue-collar employment or 55 if they have white-collar jobs, will retire either at 55 or 58 years, depending on the work they do.

The policy will be rolled out progressively based on people’s birthdates.

Having people work for longer would ease pressure on pension budgets with many Chinese provinces already reeling from large deficits.

Eleven of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions are running pension budget deficits, finance ministry data show. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences said the pension system would run out of money by 2035 without further reform.

“We have more people coming into the retirement age, and so the pension fund is [facing] high pressure. That’s why I think it’s now time to act seriously,” said Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Victoria University in Australia who studies China’s population and its ties to the economy.

The previous retirement ages were set in the 1950s, when life expectancy was only around 40 years, Mr Peng said.

The policy was passed as China faces a looming demographic disaster amid a shrinking and ageing population.

Analysts predict there will be 500 million people over the age of 60 in China by 2050.

That is on top of fewer births, as younger people opt out of having children, citing high costs.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/china-passes-law-raising-retirement-age-for-first-time-in-70-years-amid-shrinking-population-13213994

Tom Cruise pulled off his epic Hollywood stunt at the 2024 Paris Olympics for free.

The president and chairman of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Casey Wasserman, raved about the “Top Gun” star’s participation during the CNBC x Boardroom: Game Plan panel at the Fairmont Miramar hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., on Tuesday.

“He finished filming ‘Mission: Impossible’ at 6 p.m. in London, got right on a plane. He landed in LA at 4 a.m. and filmed the scene where he pulls onto a military plane,” the entertainment executive said, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Wasserman raved that “every step of the way, [Cruise] got more involved and more engaged” and ultimately did the pretaped stunt for free.

“We’re like, ‘Well, there’s no way we’re getting this. We’re going to get four hours of filming time. We’ll do the thing … with the Hollywood sign, he’ll hand the thing off and he’s done. Maybe we’ll get the other stuff, and the rest will be just a stunt double.’ About five minutes into the presentation, [Cruise] goes, ‘I’m in. But I’m only doing it if I get to do everything,’” he recalled.

The actor, 62, stunned viewers on Aug. 11 when he closed out the Paris Olympics and handed the torch to LA, where the next Summer Games will be held.

Cruise launched himself from the top of Stade de France and landed on the field, where he grabbed the Olympic flag.

He then took the flag from LA Mayor Karen Bass and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and rode off into the streets of Paris before getting on a plane near the Eiffel Tower.

The video later showed the movie star flying the symbolic flag to California and skydiving to the iconic Hollywood sign before adding the famous five colored Olympic rings to it.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/09/13/entertainment/tom-cruise-not-paid-for-paris-olympics-2024-stunt/

Of all the remaining multimillion-dollar music-catalog deals on the table, the rights to Pink Floyd’s recordings and name/likeness has been the most contentious. The catalog has been in play for several years with a reported asking price of $500 million, and the group was close to a deal in 2022, but the bitter infighting between the band’s members — primarily over main songwriter Roger Waters’ controversial political statements against Israel and Ukraine, and in favor of Russia — have complicated the deal enormously and scared off a number of suitors.

However, reports and Variety sources say that Sony Music, which has spent more than a billion dollars on catalogs from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Queen’s non-North American rights in the past few years (with backing from investment firms like Eldridge Industries), is in “advanced” talks to acquire the group’s recorded-music rights for a price between $400 million and $500 million.

While specifics on the deal are unclear — and reps for the group and Sony declined or did not respond to Variety’s requests for comment — if the price is on the high end, as reported by Financial Times, that means Waters’ comments have had little impact on the price tag; if the low end, as reported by Music Business Worldwide, it means he has devalued the catalog by as much as 20%.

Other potential suitors were said to be underwhelmed with the catalog’s annual earnings.

Key bandmembers Waters and David Gilmour (pictured above right and left, respectively, in the early 1970s), have been feuding for decades, taking public potshots at each other while recently trying to find enough common ground to close a deal.

Sony has never officially confirmed its catalog deals, although the ones listed above have been either widely reported by informed sources or been listed later on earnings reports. However, if news emerges that the deal has closed, the company is likely to face a firestorm of criticism for paying such a hefty sum to Waters, who has vehemently denied that he is antisemitic but has been quite unambiguous about his fierce criticism of the governments of Israel, Ukraine and the United States, and his strong statements in support of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Among many other incendiary statements, Waters has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked.” (Waters’ 2022 concerts in Poland were canceled over his comments about neighboring Ukraine.) “You are anti-Semitic to your rotten core,” Gilmour’s wife, novelist Polly Samson, told Waters on Twitter, amid other colorful comments; “Every word demonstrably true,” Gilmour added. Waters refuted their comments as “incendiary and wildly inaccurate.”

Gilmour recently told Rolling Stone that he is interested in a sale less for financial reasons than “to be rid of the decision making and the arguments that are involved with keeping it going,” which he described as “my dream.”

The companies that were close to a deal with the group in 2022 — said to be Hipgnosis, Warner Music and BMG — have all had leadership changes since then (and earlier this year, BMG dropped Waters from its roster as a solo artist). Waters’ comments were a major factor in the deals falling apart, although a variety of other factors — including rising interest rates, tax issues and the sinking value of the British pound — also played a role.

Sources told Variety early last year that the deal was “basically dead” because the surviving band members “just can’t get along,” although sources close to the band insisted that it wasn’t.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/music/news/pink-floyd-sell-catalog-to-sony-music-half-a-billion-dollars-1236143692/

There are fifty more Indian nationals still in battlefields in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, and efforts are under way to rescue them and get them released too, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs added.

Forty five Indians who were illegally made to join the Russian army and fight for them on the battle fronts against Ukraine have been rescued from the war zone and discharged from the Russian military, the Ministry of External Affairs said today.

There are fifty more Indian nationals still on battlefields in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, and efforts are underway to rescue them and get them released too, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs added.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir had assured Mr Modi that Russia will discharge any and all Indians who had been misled and falsely inducted in the Russian Army and subsequently forced to go the battlefields in Ukraine.

HOW INDIANS WERE MISLED INTO JOINING RUSSIAN ARMY

A human trafficking network extending from New Delhi to Tamil Nadu used social media platforms and local agents to lure people to Russia by offering them lucrative jobs or admission to what Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) called “dubious private universities”.

Once they reached Russia, however, the victims’ passports were taken and they were trained in combat roles before being deployed at the front.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has been urging its allies to green-light its use of long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory – but Sir Keir Starmer has given no indication if the UK and US will or won’t following a meeting with President Biden.

Sir Keir Starmer has talked up the US-UK relationship after a White House meeting with Joe Biden, but questions remain over Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles.

The prime minister travelled to Washington this week to meet with President Biden to discuss the wars in Ukraine and Gaza – among other issues.

Speaking before the “long and productive” meeting held in the White House on Friday, Sir Keir said the two countries were “strategically aligned” in their attempts to resolve the war.

Afterwards, he skirted around questions regarding Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles, saying: “We’ve had a long and productive discussion on a number of problems, including Ukraine, as you’d expect, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions.

“This isn’t about a particular decision but we’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA (UN General Assembly) in just a few days’ time with a wider group of individuals, but this was a really important invitation from the president to have this level of discussion about those critical issues.”

Ukraine war latest: Putin threatens NATO with ‘war’

Decisions loom for Ukraine’s key Western allies as Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently increased pressure on them to permit his forces to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory.

However, despite repeated calls for a decision, the West has so far resisted green-lighting the use of the missiles.

Two US officials familiar with the discussions said they believed that Sir Keir was seeking US approval to let Ukraine use British Storm Shadow missiles for expanded strikes into Russia, according to Reuters news agency.

They added that they believed Mr Biden would be amenable.

The president’s approval would be needed because Storm Shadow components are made in the US.

But when speaking to journalists after the meeting, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on the long-range missile question but evaded giving a firm decision.

“This wasn’t a meeting about a particular capability. That wasn’t why we got our heads down today,” he said.

The US has been concerned that any step could lead to an escalation in the conflict and has moved cautiously so far, however, there have been reports in recent days that Mr Biden might shift his administration’s policy.

Vladimir Putin previously threatened the West, warning that allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory would put Moscow “at war” with NATO.

Speaking to Russian state television, he insisted the decision would “significantly change” the nature of the war.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/keir-starmer-talks-up-us-uk-relationship-but-questions-remain-over-ukraines-use-of-long-range-missiles-13214338

Louis Vuitton has been hit with a lawsuit from a mother and daughter who claim they were treated unfairly at the fashion brand’s stores compared to white shoppers in the same stores.

According to court docs, Tracy Renee Williams says she preordered and paid about $50,000 for items at a Costa Mesa LV store, but never received the delivery. When she went to a Beverly Hills location, she claims a white manager told her she was no longer welcome and that she would be arrested if she stayed or came back.

Tracy claims a few days later, she sent her white assistant to the store, and he was treated respectfully and allowed to make a purchase with several thousand dollars in cash.

Williams says she has a lucrative social media presence where she reviews and showcases LV goods, and claims she’s lost about $40,000 a month in revenue since being banned from the stores.

Her daughter Brandi also alleges discrimination … saying an LV manager at a Beverly Hills store refused to let her shop, falsely accusing her of spending “drug money” and threatening to have her arrested if she didn’t leave. She claims the same thing happened at an LV store in New Orleans.

Russia started producing a new long-range attack drone called the Garpiya-A1 last year using Chinese engines and parts, which it has deployed in the war in Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents seen by Reuters.
The intelligence – which included a production contract for the new drone, company correspondence on the manufacturing process and financial documents – indicated that IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned weapons maker Almaz-Antey, produced more than 2,500 Garpiyas from July 2023 to July 2024.

The Kamala Harris campaign had no advance notice that Taylor Swift would be endorsing her on Tuesday night.

But now that she’s on board, the campaign is moving quickly to capitalize. The Harris merchandise page offered Harris-Walz friendship bracelets — a Swift reference — for $20. They quickly sold out.

Now they are more overtly integrating Swift’s backing into their paid media. The Democratic National Committee is paying for outdoor advertising with a message alluding to Swift’s tour: “We’re in our Kamala era!”

The ad is slated to run on a digital display in Times Square in New York, and on billboards in Las Vegas. Nevada is a swing state where the Democratic Party thinks the connection to live entertainment — a major local industry — is especially powerful.

Another ad in the same locations will say “A New Way Forward… Ready for It?”

Swift endorsed Harris on Instagram shortly after Tuesday’s debate, saying the vice president “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

She also applauded the selection of Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, noting his long-standing support for “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body.”

She later shared a link to Vote.gov, the official government voter registration site, in her Instagram story, which drove more than 400,000 visits to the page in 24 hours, according to the General Services Administration.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/music/news/kamala-harris-ads-taylor-swift-era-1236142694

A Nevada judge has ruled that billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family can hold a secret court battle over the future of his vast media empire behind closed doors.

The judge rejected a petition by a coalition of media organizations, including CNN, The New York Times, NPR, the Washington Post, Reuters and ABC, to unseal the case and allow access.

Though the Murdoch family is fighting over the trust and who will ultimately have control of the family businesses after the 93-year-old’s death, all of those involved agreed to sealing the case.

Nevada offers one of the most private court settings for issues like family trust decisions, allowing parties and judges to lock the cases behind closed doors to such an extreme degree that their very existence is not even publicized on court dockets. The existence of the case remained under wraps until The New York Times first reported on it in July. In a now-public docket, the case is only identified as “The Matter of the Doe 1 Trust, PR23-00813“.

Attorneys for the family members said in court filings that the case should remain sealed because it would otherwise reveal confidential information related to Murdoch’s business, which includes companies like the right-wing cable outlet Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, and could jeopardize Murdoch’s physical safety.

The judge agreed, writing, “A family trust like the one at issue in this case, even when it is a stockholder in publicly traded companies, is essentially a private legal arrangement, as the applicable sealing statues recognize.”

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/13/media/secret-murdoch-succession-fight-seal-media-nevada/index.html

California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.

Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.

The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.

The agency also found that the truck was not operating on one of Tesla’s partially automated driving systems at the time of the crash, the report said. The systems weren’t operational and “could not be engaged,” according to the agency.

The crash happened about 3:13 a.m. as the tractor-trailer was being driven by a Tesla employee from Livermore, California, to a Tesla facility in Sparks, Nevada. The Semi left the road while going around a curve to the right and hit a tree, the report said. It went down a slope and came to rest against several trees. The driver was not hurt.

After the crash, the Semi’s lithium-ion battery ignited. Firefighters used water to put out flames and keep the batteries cool. The freeway was closed for about 15 hours as firefighters made sure the batteries were cool enough to recover the truck.

Authorities took the truck to an open-air facility and monitored it for 24 hours. The battery did not reignite.

The NTSB said all aspects of the crash are under investigation as it determines the cause. The agency said it intends to issue safety recommendations to prevent similar incidents.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/tesla-semi-fire-battery-crash-water-firefighters-7ff04a61e562b80b73e057cfd82b6165#

Pope Francis said that American voters face the choice between “the lesser evil” in the U.S. presidential election during an in-flight press conference Friday on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia.

Speaking aboard the papal plane, a chartered Singapore Airlines flight, on Sept. 13, the pope encouraged Catholics to vote with their conscience.

“In political morality, in general they say that if you don’t vote, it’s not good, it’s bad. You have to vote, and you have to choose the lesser evil,” he said.

“What is the lesser evil? That woman, or that man?” he continued, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump. “I don’t know. Each one, in his or her conscience, must think and do this.”

In the first press conference that Pope Francis has had to face in nearly a year, the pope expressed his satisfaction with the Vatican’s controversial diplomatic accord with communist China, and he firmly ruled out the possibility of attending the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The pope was asked no questions about the alleged abuses and artwork of Father Marko Rupnik and he again underlined that abortion is “murder.”

CBS News reporter Anna Matranga asked Francis what advice he would give to an American voter who has to decide between a candidate “who is in favor of abortion and another who wants to deport millions of migrants.”

Pope Francis replied: “Both are anti-life — both the one who throws out migrants and the one who kills babies — both of them are against life.”

Harris, a Democrat who has made abortion without legal restrictions the centerpiece of her presidential campaign, and Trump, who has called for the deportations of perhaps millions of immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally in recent years, are locked in a tight contest with just 52 days to go before the Nov. 5 election.

The Holy Father’s remarks about “the lesser evil” refers to the Church’s long-standing teaching that when faced with a choice between candidates who aren’t wholly aligned with the Church’s position on fundamental “nonnegotiable” issues — such as the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom — it is permissible to cast a vote against the candidate who would do the most harm.

Abortion is ‘murder’
The pope went on to say that the science supports that life begins at conception, adding that although people may not like to use the word “kill” when discussing the topic, abortion is “murder.”

“To have an abortion is to kill a human being,” Francis said.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/259283/pope-francis-in-flight-press-conference-us-presidential-elections-harris-trump-catholic-vote

Loomer, who has pushed a number of conspiracy theories, was on Trump’s plane to the debate and accompanied him to memorial services on Sept. 11.

No one can keep former President Donald Trump away from Laura Loomer.

Throughout his third presidential campaign, aides and advisers have done their best to shield him from Loomer, a far-right social media influencer, and similar figures who stroke his ego and stoke his basest political instincts.

They lost that battle this week, as Loomer traveled on Trump’s jet to his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday and to Sept. 11 memorial services Wednesday. Her presence at the latter infuriated some Democrats and Republicans because one of the many conspiracy theories she has promoted is the false notion that the terrorist assault on the U.S. was an “inside job.” It wasn’t.

Loomer’s return to Trump’s side is pitting key figures in his coalition against one another, testing the strength of a campaign already reeling from his subpar debate performance Tuesday and Democrats’ resurgence in the wake of their July candidate switch. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., major Trump allies in Congress who represent opposite ends of the Republican ideological spectrum, are publicly pressing him to ditch her. Loomer fired back Thursday with a string of invective about Graham.

Moreover, her presence reflects Trump’s loss of faith in his campaign aides and their concomitant fear of upsetting him in a time of crisis, according to people familiar with the situation. Last month, he tapped his 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be an adviser to his top advisers — a move widely viewed as a rebuke of the existing leadership crew.

A senior official from Trump’s 2020 campaign team said that helps explain why Loomer is no longer being kept at arm’s length.

“The people that have the authority to stop it are hanging on to their jobs,” the former official said. “So are you going to pick that fight with him?”

Loomer didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday, but fighting is a big part of her allure for Trump. She advocates as fiercely for him as she does for theories on the political fringe, like the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Trump promoted that during Tuesday’s debate, creating an unwelcome distraction from his substantive differences with Harris, according to many Republicans. Graham and Greene portray her as a counterproductive influence on Trump when he is locked in a tight battle with Harris for the presidency.

Graham said Thursday that Loomer is “really toxic” and shouldn’t be in Trump’s circle. Loomer clapped back on X with a schoolyard taunt.

“Senator Graham is working tirelessly day and night to help re-elect President Trump,” Graham communications director Taylor Reidy responded in a statement to NBC News. “This race is very much ours to lose. Ms. Loomer is a stain on society. There should be no place of prominence in this country for her vile, mean-spirited, destructive, racist rhetoric and views.”

A Republican senator who is also a Trump ally said Trump is “often drawn to people who like and promote him.”

“It’s really dumb,” the senator added.

Loomer’s willingness to hit below the belt and her influence within the Make America Great Again movement’s most aggressive elements are reasons enough for many of her critics to keep their mouths shut publicly. Few elected Republicans want to stick their necks out. But many lawmakers and donors back Greene’s posture toward Loomer, according to a source familiar with the situation, and some of them are reminding people in Trump’s orbit that Loomer lost two campaigns for Congress.

Greene’s beef with Loomer, which dates back a long time, was rekindled this week when Loomer wrote on X that a win by Harris, who is Indian American and Black, would mean “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

The remark yielded rare agreement from Greene and President Joe Biden’s White House about what constitutes racism: Loomer’s words.

Trump advisers are trying to distance themselves from her without drawing his ire, making it clear that she doesn’t speak for his operation. Loomer is “not a member of our staff,” said a Trump campaign aide, who asked to remain anonymous.

When NBC News asked for comment this week, Loomer similarly said by text: “Why do you want to speak to me? I don’t work for President Trump.”

Last year, she said she would “gladly” serve as press secretary in a Trump White House.

Democrats hammered Trump on Thursday for inviting Loomer to join him at the 9/11 memorial service.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/far-right-activist-laura-loomer-access-trump-crisis-campaign-rcna170915

The Ig Nobel gongs celebrate unusual areas of research that “make people laugh, then think” – such as mammals that can breathe out of their bottoms.

A Second World War project which involved training pigeons to pilot bombs has won this year’s spoof Nobel peace prize.

The Ig Nobel gongs – awarded annually by the science humour magazine the Annals of Improbable Research – celebrate unusual areas of research that “make people laugh, then think”.

Professor Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota in the US, received the posthumous gong for his work on Project Pigeon, where he was able to teach pigeons to guide missiles with some success.

But the project never took flight because of scepticism from the US military and government officials.

However, Prof Skinner stood by the research, writing in a summary of the project published in 1960: “Call it a crackpot idea if you will. It is one in which I have never lost faith.”

The anatomy prize went to a team of scientists in France who wanted to investigate whether hair on the heads of most people in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction – clockwise or anticlockwise – as those from the Southern Hemisphere.

The chemistry award was won by a research team who used a lab technique to separate drunk and sober worms.

And US-based scientists Fordyce Ely and William E Petersen were awarded the biology prize for exploding a paper bag next to a cat standing on the back of a cow with aim to understand more about how and when cows spew their milk.

The two found that cows temporarily stopped ejecting milk when frightened.

Other awards presented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, US, on Thursday, included the physiology prize for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus and the physics prize for demonstrating the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

Meanwhile, the demography gong went to Dr Saul Justin Newman, senior research fellow at University College London, who discovered some people with the longest lives hailed from places that had poor recordkeeping.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ig-nobels-pigeon-guided-bombs-and-drunk-worms-spoof-nobel-prizes-announced-13213752

The collapse of a 1.2km-high (0.7 miles) mountain peak in east Greenland last September caused water in the fjord below to splash back and forth, causing vibrations right through to the Earth’s crust.

A mega-tsunami caused by a landslide in Greenland caused the Earth to vibrate for nine days, a new study has shown.

The collapse of a 1.2km-high (0.7 miles) mountain peak last September caused water in the fjord below to splash back and forth, causing vibrations right through to the Earth’s crust, researchers found.

The men were charged following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police flying squad after the artwork was stolen from a gallery in New Cavendish Street, central London, on Sunday.

Two men have been charged with burglary after Banksy’s famous Girl With Balloon painting was stolen from a London gallery, police have said.

Larry Fraser, 47, of Beckton, east London, and James Love, 53, of North Stifford, Essex, were charged with non-residential burglary on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police said.

They appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates Court the next day and were bailed to appear at Kingston Crown Court on 9 October.

The painting, one of the street artist’s most famous, was stolen from a gallery in New Cavendish Street in London at around 11pm on Sunday 8 September.

According to court papers, the print stolen from the Grove Gallery was valued at £270,000.

Following an investigation by the Met’s flying squad, it has now been recovered and will be returned to the gallery, police added.

Banksy claimed an unprecedented nine paintings in nine days this summer after they appeared at various locations around London.

The street artist usually leaves months between pieces, but the animal-themed works continued to pop up one day after the other.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/two-men-charged-with-stealing-banksy-painting-from-london-gallery-13213791

North Korea for the first time showed images of the centrifuges that produce fuel for its nuclear bombs on Friday, as leader Kim Jong Un visited a uranium enrichment facility and called for more weapons-grade material to boost the arsenal.
The state media report on Kim’s visit to the Nuclear Weapons Institute and a production base for weapon-grade nuclear materials was accompanied by the first photos of the centrifuges, providing a rare look inside North Korea’s nuclear programme, which is banned under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The photos showed Kim walking between long rows of metal centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium. The report did not make clear when the visit occurred nor the facility’s location.
Kim urged workers to produce more materials for tactical nuclear weapons, saying the country’s nuclear arsenal is vital for confronting threats from the United States and its allies.
The weapons are needed for “self-defence and the capability for a preemptive attack,” he said.

Uranium is a radioactive element that exists naturally. To make nuclear fuel, raw uranium undergoes processes that result in a material with an increased concentration of the isotope uranium-235.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog had observed activity consistent with the operation of a reactor and the reported centrifuge enrichment facility at Yongbyon.
NEW CENTRIFUGES
Kim stressed the need to boost the number of centrifuges so as to “exponentially increase” North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and expand the use of a new type of centrifuge to strengthen the production of weapon-grade nuclear materials.
The centrifuges seen in the photos appear smaller and shorter than the types previously believed to be used by North Korea, suggesting it had developed its own centrifuges to enhance separation capabilities, said Lee Sang-kyu, a nuclear engineering expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Defense Analysis.

The photos also confirmed that the North is using a cascade system where large numbers of centrifuges are interconnected to achieve highly enriched uranium, he added.
The new type of centrifuge shows North Korea is advancing its fuel cycle capabilities, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Kim also appears to suggest that North Korean tactical nuclear weapons designs may primarily rely on uranium for their cores,” he said.
This is notable because North Korea is more able to scale up its highly enriched uranium stockpiles, Panda said, compared to the more complicated process for plutonium.
‘INCREASING ARSENALS’
North Korea invited some foreign scientists to view a centrifuge facility at Yongbyon in 2010, but Jenny Town of the U.S.-based Stimson Center said Friday’s report is the first and only photographs of the equipment.
“It shows how advanced their enrichment capability has become, which gives greater credibility to both their ability and commitment to increasing their nuclear weapons arsenals,” she said.
It could also be meant to influence the U.S. election and send a message to the next administration that denuclearisation is no longer possible and it should recognise North Korea as a nuclear state, said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
On Friday, top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu met Kim in North Korea and discussed bilateral and international issues, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
The meeting is the latest high-level exchange between the two states amid deepening military cooperation. Pyongyang continues to supply weapons to Russia, according to analysts, including brand new ballistic missiles produced this year.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-visits-uranium-enrichment-facility-state-media-says-2024-09-12/

The daughter of the ruler of Dubai – who announced her ‘divorce’ in a brutal social media post – has announced she’s releasing a perfume line titled ‘Divorce’.

Sheikha Mahra bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum posted an announcement on her Instagram page reading: ‘I hereby declare our divorce,’ baffling her followers.

She married Sheikh Mana bin Mohammed bin Rashid bin Mana Al Maktoum in April 2023, and welcomed a baby two months ago.

The post read: ‘Dear Husband, as you are occupied with other companions, I hereby declare our divorce. I divorce you, I divorce you and I divorce you.

‘Take care. Your ex-wife.’

It seems she’s capitalising on her heartbreak and newfound fame after her split with a matte black bottle of perfume with ‘Divorce’ scribbled on the front.

The luxe perfume has been advertised with Sheikha Mahra posing in glam shots with the black bottle.

Mahra has been praised for her eloquence after her split, with one user commenting: ‘So he cheats, she publicly humiliates him and divorce him then creates a business out of it! She is not a princess, she is a queen.’

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2024/09/11/dubai-princess-left-husband-scathing-post-launches-divorce-perfume-line-21587215/

A lack of accountability for the killing of United Nations staff and humanitarian aid workers in the Gaza Strip is “totally unacceptable,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday.

Guterres also said that establishing a U.N. peacekeeping force would not be the “best solution” for Haiti, where armed gangs have taken over much of the capital and expanded to surrounding areas, fueling a humanitarian crisis with mass displacements, sexual violence and widespread hunger.

Ahead of the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly later this month, Guterres summed up the past year as “very tough, very difficult.”
It has been dominated by the war in Gaza, which began just two weeks after leaders left New York following last year’s assembly when Palestinian Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in a cross-border rampage into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

Describing Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza – where local health officials say some 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began – Guterres said there have been “very dramatic violations of the international humanitarian law and the total absence of an effective protection of civilians.”
“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” he said.
The Israeli military says it takes steps to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and that at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities in Gaza are militants. It accuses Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, which Hamas denies.

Nearly 300 humanitarian aid workers, more than two-thirds of them U.N. staff, have also been killed during the conflict, according to the U.N. Guterres said there should be an effective investigation and accountability for their deaths.
“We have courts, but we see that the decisions of courts are not respected, and it is this kind of limbo of accountability that is totally unacceptable and that requires also a serious a serious reflection,” Guterres said.
The top U.N. court – the International Court of Justice – said in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is likely to vote next week on a draft resolution that would give Israel a six-month deadline to do so.
Guterres said he has not spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has long accused the U.N. of being anti-Israel – since the deadly Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7 last year. The pair met in person at the U.N. a year ago and Guterres said he would do so again – if Netanyahu asked.
“I have not talked to him because he didn’t pick up my phone calls, but I have no reason not to speak with him,” Guterres said. “So if he comes to New York and he asks to see me, I will be very glad to see him.”
When asked if Netanyahu planned to meet with Guterres on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said that Netanyahu’s schedule hasn’t been finalized yet.

HAITI ‘SCANDAL’
Guterres’ described the current state of the world as “chaotic.” He said the conflict in Gaza and Russia’s war in Ukraine were “stuck with no peaceful solutions in sight.”
When asked about Western accusations that North Korea and Iran are now providing Russia with weapons, Guterres said: “Any expansion of war in Ukraine is an absolutely dramatic development.”
Iran has rejected the Western accusations, while North Korea has denied the allegations against it. U.N. sanctions monitors said in April that debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile.
In Haiti, a U.N.-backed international force has been slow to deploy – after Haiti asked for help in 2022 – and lacks funds. The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to ask the U.N. for a plan to transition the force into a U.N. peacekeeping operation.
“I don’t think peacekeeping is the best solution in a situation like this … peacekeeping means to keep the peace, and that’s not exactly the situation we have Haiti,” Guterres said. “I find it a scandal that it has been so difficult to mobilize funds for such a dramatic situation.”
TRUMP LOOMS
Guterres’ first five-year term as secretary-general coincided with the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, who cut funding to the international body, calling it weak and incompetent. Trump is again the Republican president nominee and will face off against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in theNov. 5 election.
“We are ready to work in all circumstances in defense of the values of the (founding U.N.) charter and of the values of the U.N.,” Guterres said when asked if the world body had a contingency plan for a possible second Trump administration.
During his first term in office Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, an international pact to fight climate change, and Trump’s campaign said he would do it again if he wins in November. The U.S. is currently a full participant in the accord after President Joe Biden swiftly rejoined in 2021.
“It will survive. But, of course, it will probably survive severely undermined,” Guterres said of a second withdrawal from the pact by a potential Trump administration. Guterres has long pushed for stronger action to fight climate change.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-chief-says-lack-accountability-un-staff-killings-gaza-unacceptable-2024-09-11/

Pope Francis on Thursday urged political leaders in Singapore, a leading global financial hub, to seek fair wages for the country’s million-plus lower-paid foreign workers.
In likely the last major speech of an ambitious 12-day tour across Southeast Asia and Oceania, the 87-year-old pontiff singled out concern for Singapore’s rapidly ageing population and its migrant workforce, primarily centred in the construction and domestic services industries.

Three major wildfires in Southern California’s mountains east of Los Angeles torched dozens of homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate, officials said Wednesday.

At least a dozen people, mainly firefighters, were treated for injuries that were mostly heat-related, authorities said. One person from Orange County was burned. No deaths have been reported.

The wildfires have been endangering tens of thousands of homes and other structures across the region after they sprung to life during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend. Other major fires were burning in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, where about 20,000 people had to flee a blaze outside Reno.

In the tight-knit community of Wrightwood that sits on the Pacific Crest Trail, authorities implored residents to evacuate the exploding Bridge Fire, which burned more than a dozen homes in the area.

Resident Erin Arias said she was racing up the mountain when she got the sudden order to leave and did, grabbing her passport and dog. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused water on the roof of their still-standing home. Their cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely scary,” Arias said, looking at the burned embers of her neighbor’s home. “We’re really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire moved extraordinarily fast across complex terrain, likely giving Wrightwood residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even seasoned fire officials.

The Bridge Fire “had to go up mountain sides, burn down slope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then make it down slope again at least two other times in effectively one burning period,” he said.

California is only now heading into the teeth of the wildfire season but already has seen nearly three times as much acreage burn than during all of 2023. The White House said President Joe Biden was monitoring the wildfires in the West and urged residents to heed state and local evacuation orders.

Cooler temperatures were expected to potentially start tempering fire activity as the week progresses.

The full extent of the damage was not immediately known as firefighters battled multiple fires simultaneously. The three blazes include:

— The Airport Fire in Orange County that burned over 35 square miles (91 square kilometers). The fire was 5% contained Wednesday night and was reportedly sparked by heavy equipment operating in the area. Orange County Fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said eight firefighters were injured, mostly heat-related. One resident suffered smoke inhalation and another burns, he said. Several homes burned in El Cariso Village.

— The Line Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest that was 18% contained Wednesday and charred 57 square miles (148 square kilometers). The blaze injured three firefighters. Authorities said it was caused by arson in Highland. A suspect was arrested Tuesday.

— The Bridge Fire east of Los Angeles that grew tenfold in a day, burning 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) and torching at least 33 homes and six cabins and forcing the evacuation of 10,000 people. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. It was zero percent contained Wednesday night.

With so many fires raging at once, crews were at their limits, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

“As a region, we’re currently at drawdown for fire personnel and resources,” he said, adding that authorities have requested assistance from Northern California and nearby states.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent National Guard troops in to help with evacuations.

In El Cariso Village, a community of 250 along Highway 74 in Riverside County, an Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 homes and several cars engulfed in flames.

Kevin Fetterman, Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander, said the blaze has been difficult to tame because of the terrain and dry conditions and because some areas hadn’t burned in decades.

More than 5,500 homes in Riverside County were under evacuation orders, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and structures in the Cleveland National Forest were damaged.

In San Bernardino County, some 65,600 homes and buildings were under threat by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern edge of Big Bear Lake were told to leave Tuesday.

The Line Fire blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke, which provided shade for firefighters trying to get ahead of winds expected later Wednesday, said Fabian Herrera, a spokesperson for the Line Fire.

A man from the town of Norco suspected of starting the Line Fire on Sept. 5 was arrested and charged with arson, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. Officials did not specify what was used to start the fire.

Investigators collected evidence from the delivery driver’s vehicle and home that suggests he could have been involved in starting other fires, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday.

On the Nevada border with California near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen structures and charred nearly 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) of timber and brush along the Sierra Nevada’s eastern front.

Rich Meyr and Evelyn Kelley were the first arrivals at an evacuation center set up Wednesday at a recreation center in south Reno. Both said they refused to evacuate previous fires but decided to play it safe this time.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-california-wrightwood-heat-wave-64803e9fc481128f1839e729ad36544f

Taylor Swift posted her support after the vice president finished her debate on ABC News, but Donald Trump told Fox News the singer was a “very liberal person” who “seems to always endorse a Democrat”.

Taylor Swift has said she will vote for Kamala Harris in the US election, prompting a strong response from Donald Trump who claims she’ll “probably pay a price for it”.

The singer’s Instagram post showed her holding her cat Benjamin Button – a reference to Mr Trump’s running mate JD Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments.

Swift urged her 283 million followers to “do your research” – but said AI-generated images of her supporting Mr Trump made her realise “I need to be very transparent about my actual plans”.

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she said. “I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.

“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.

“I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate Tim Walz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”

Mr Walz, who was on air on MSNBC when the endorsement was announced, said he was “incredibly grateful” and urged the singer’s large fan base of “Swifties” to “get things going”.

Trump: Swift will ‘pay a price’

Mr Trump dismissed the singer’s endorsement of the Harris campaign, saying he “was not a Taylor fan” and “she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace”.

During a phone call with Fox News he said: “It was just a question of time, she couldn’t possibly endorse Biden. She’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat.”

Soon after the debate, the Harris campaign celebrated the endorsement on X by showcasing Harris-Walz friendship bracelets.

Friendship bracelets have become synonymous with Swift and her sold-out Eras tour with fans exchanging them with one another.

Referencing the lyrics of Swift’s hit …Ready For It? – Ms Harris’s team posted an image of the bracelets, which can be purchased on the campaign’s official website, saying: “Are you ready for it? Harris-Walz friendship bracelets have hit the store!”

‘Massive star’ endorsement could be ‘huge’

Sky News US correspondent James Matthews said after her post that Swift’s endorsement was “huge” for the Harris-Walz campaign.

“She is a massive star, huge,” he said. “She speaks to people in a way that politicians do not, and the message from Taylor Swift will resonate with a huge audience far beyond the kind of people watching what has gone on here.

“The timing will not have been an accident. Tonight, the headline is Taylor Swift. Tomorrow, all the talk is going to be about Kamala Harris and Taylor Swift and the momentum that will be behind her.”

Trump is not a Swiftie

Mr Trump also made a comparison between Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes – the wife of NFL star Patrick Mahomes – who made headlines last week after liking one of the former president’s social media posts, sparking online criticism.

“I actually like [Brittany] Mahomes better, if you want to know the truth – she’s a big Trump fan,” he said.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/taylor-swift-endorses-gifted-leader-kamala-harris-minutes-after-donald-trump-debate-13212693

Dovid Efune, who has owned the conservative-leaning US newspaper since 2021, is assembling a group of investors to bid for the British broadsheets, Sky News can reveal.

The owner of The New York Sun, a right-leaning American newspaper, is weighing a surprise bid to become the new owner of The Daily Telegraph.

Sky News has learnt that Dovid Efune, who acquired the former daily broadsheet in 2021, has expressed an interest in acquiring one of Britain’s most influential daily newspapers and its Sunday sister title.

Mr Efune is also chairman of The Algemeiner, a Jewish newspaper originally published in Yiddish but which now appears in English.

Mr Efune is being advised by the boutique investment bank Liontree while on Wednesday evening, Semafor, a US news outlet, reported that he had financial backing from Oaktree and Hudson Bay Capital, as well as the family office of hedge fund manager Michael Lefell.

The Daily and Sunday Telegraph are expected to change hands for between £400m and £500m.

A deadline for formal bids has been set for September 27, with National World, the London-listed vehicle headed by David Montgomery, and Sir Paul Marshall – who this week paid £100m for The Spectator – also among the likely bidders.

Mr Efune has not been publicly linked to the process until now, although industry sources said he first began exploring an offer when the original auction of the Telegraph titles kicked off last year.

One source said a management presentation had been scheduled for him with Telegraph executives.

In an opinion article published earlier this year, Mr Efune wrote: “At the Sun, we hold the view that the opportunity remains greater than ever for any newspaper that is compiled with a view to serve the reader above all.

“In the words of Charles Dana, a newspaper “must correspond to the wants of the people. It must furnish that sort of information which the people demand, or else it can never be successful.”

The Telegraph auction is being orchestrated by advisers to RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-backed entity which was thwarted in its efforts to buy the media titles by a change in ownership law.

A separate bid orchestrated by Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor, is the subject of bilateral discussions with IMI, the Abu Dhabi-based venture which wanted to take a controlling stake in the British media assets before being blocked by the government.

Sky News revealed exclusively last month that Sir Paul was the frontrunner to buy The Spectator, which along with the Telegraph titles was owned by the Barclay family until their respective holding companies were forced into liquidation last year.

RedBird IMI, a joint venture between IMI and the American investor RedBird, paid £600m last year to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into equity ownership.

A sale of The Spectator for £100m would leave it needing to sell the Telegraph titles for £500m to recoup that outlay in full – or more than that once RedBird IMI’s fees and costs associated with the process are taken into account.

Of the unsuccessful bidders for the Telegraph, Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, offered £350m, while Mediahuis, the Belgian publisher, also failed to make it through to the next round of the auction.

Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding earlier in the summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.

Sky News recently revealed that Mr Zahawi had sounded out Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, about an executive role with The Daily Telegraph if he succeeded in buying the newspapers.

IMI is controlled by the UAE’s deputy prime minister and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/new-york-sun-owner-weighs-takeover-bid-for-the-daily-telegraph-13213119

The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards went off without a hitch on Wednesday night, with artists including Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter descending on UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. The show, hosted by Megan Thee Stallion, featured standout performances from LL Cool J, Eminem, Shawn Mendes, Katy Perry, Benson Boone, Anitta, Karol G, LL Cool J, Camila Cabello, Halsey and more.

Swift led the winners with a total of seven moonmen of her 12 nominations, including artist of the year and song of the summer. The night was notable as she bested Beyoncé’s record for most solo VMA wins, tapping out at 30 wins over Bey’s 26. (Beyoncé has an additional two with Destiny’s Child, as well as two with her husband Jay-Z as the Carters.) Swift also became the first artist to ever win video of the year five times.

Eminem, Tyla and Megan Thee Stallion tied for second-most wins with two moonmen apiece. Em took home best hip-hop and best visual effects for “Houdini,” while Meg won best art direction for “BOA” and best trending video for “Mamushi.” Tyla secured best new artist and best Afrobeats for “Water.”

The rest of the winners picked up one apiece, with victors including Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande, Benson Boone, SZA, Billie Eilish, Carpenter, Lisa and Seventeen, among others. Notably missing from the winner’s circle was Beyoncé, whose “Cowboy Carter” was recently shut out of the CMA Awards nominations.

Eminem opened the show with a self-referential rendition of “Houdini” and “Somebody Save Me,” nodding to his 2000 VMAs performance by bringing out an army of lookalikes to join him on stage. Katy Perry gave an eye-popping performance of some of her biggest hits and newer songs as part of her Video Vanguard Award medley, while Camila Cabello ran through “Godspeed” in a selfie-style setup.

Sabrina Carpenter took it to outer space for her performance, a medley of songs from her latest album “Short n’ Sweet.” The singer descended from the rafters on a swing for “Please, Please, Please” before transitioning into “Taste,” dancing with an alien and astronaut behind her. A whole crew of astronauts took the stage as she segued into “Espresso,” dancing in unison as Carpenter sang her summer smash.

Chappell Roan invoked medieval times with her performance of “Good Luck Babe.” Dressed in armor and armed with a crossbow and pigtails, the singer led a coterie of male dancers set to the backdrop of a giant castle, full moon and tall gates that ignited with real fire at the beginning of the performance.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/awards/news/2024-vmas-winners-list-mtv-1236141425/

Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in autocratic excess that later sent him to prison, has died. He was 86.

His death Wednesday in the capital, Lima, was announced by his daughter Keiko Fujimori in a post on X.

Fujimori, who governed with an increasingly authoritarian hand in 1990-2000, was pardoned in December from his convictions for corruption and responsibility for the murder of 25 people. His daughter said in July that he was planning to run for Peru’s presidency for the fourth time in 2026.

The former university president and mathematics professor was the consummate political outsider when he emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 election over writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Over a tumultuous political career, he repeatedly made risky, go-for-broke decisions that alternately earned him adoration and reproach.

He took over a country ravaged by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence, mending the economy with bold actions including mass privatizations of state industries. Defeating fanatical Shining Path rebels took a little longer but also won him broad-based support.

His presidency, however, collapsed just as dramatically.

After briefly shutting down Congress and elbowing himself into a controversial third term, he fled the country in disgrace in 2000 when leaked videotapes showed his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, bribing lawmakers. The president went to Japan, the land of his parents, and famously faxed in his resignation.

He stunned supporters and foes alike five years later when he landed in neighboring Chile, where he was arrested and then extradited to Peru. He had hoped to run for Peru’s presidency in 2006, but instead wound up in court facing charges of abuse of power.

The high-stakes political gambler would lose miserably. He became the first former president in the world to be tried and convicted in his own country for human rights violations. He was not found to have personally ordered the 25 death-squad killings for which he was convicted, but he was deemed responsible because the crimes were committed in his government’s name.

His 25-year sentence did not stop Fujimori from seeking political revindication, which he planned from a prison built in a police academy on the outskirts of Lima, the capital.

His congresswoman daughter Keiko tried in 2011 to restore the family dynasty by running for the presidency but was narrowly defeated in a runoff. She ran again in 2016 and 2021, when she lost by just 44,000 votes after a campaign in which she promised to free her father.

“After a long battle with cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just departed to meet the Lord,” she said on X Wednesday. “We ask those who loved him to accompany us with a prayer for the eternal rest of his soul.”

Fujimori’s presidency was, in fact, a brash display of outright authoritarianism, known locally as “caudillismo,” in a region shakily stepping away from dictatorships toward democracy.

He is survived by his four children. The oldest, Keiko, became first lady in 1996 when his father divorced his mother, Susana Higuchi, in a bitter battle in which she accused Fujimori of having her tortured. The youngest child, Kenji, was elected a congressman.

Fujimori was born July 28, 1938, Peruvian Independence Day, and his immigrant parents picked cotton until they could open a tailor’s shop in downtown Lima.

He earned a degree in agricultural engineering in 1956, and then studied in France and the United States, where he received a graduate degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1972.

In 1984 he became rector of the Agricultural University in Lima, and six years later, he ran for president without ever having held political office, billing himself as a clean alternative to Peru’s corrupt, discredited political class.

He soared from 6% in the polls a month before the 1990 election to finish second out of nine in the balloting. He went on to beat Vargas Llosa in a runoff.

The victory, he later said, came from the same frustration that fueled the Shining Path.

“My government is the product of rejection, of being fed up with Peru because of the frivolity, corruption and nonfunctioning of the traditional political class and the bureaucracy,” he said.

Once in office, Fujimori’s tough talk and hands-on style at first won him only plaudits, as car bombings still ripped through the capital and annual inflation approached 8,000 percent.

He applied the same economic shock therapy that Vargas Llosa had advocated but he had argued against in the campaign.

Privatizing state-owned industries, Fujimori slashed public spending and attracted record foreign investment.

Known affectionately as “El chino,” due to his Asian ancestry, Fujimori often donned peasant garb to visit jungle Indigenous communities and highland farmers, while delivering electricity and drinking water to dirt-poor villages. That distinguished him from the patrician, white politicians who typically lacked his commoner’s touch.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/fujimori-peru-lima-died-777fdfcb09eafd731a7412c8bf1a2f64#

Russia said on Wednesday that its partnership with China was not aimed against third countries but the two powers could “combine potential” if faced with a threat from the United States.

“I would like to remind you that Moscow and Beijing will respond to ‘double containment’ by the United States with ‘double counteraction’,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said when asked about a possible deployment of U.S. missiles in Japan.

The Japan Times reported on Sept. 7 that the United States had expressed an interest in deploying a Typhon mid-range missile system to Japan for joint military exercises.

“It is clear that both Russia and China will react to the emergence of additional and very significant missile threats, and their reaction will be far from being political, which has also been repeatedly confirmed by the two countries,” Zakharova told reporters at her weekly briefing.

She said Russia and China had a strategic partnership that was not aggressive in its intent.

“But if an aggressive policy of attack is being implemented against us from one centre, why don’t we combine our potential and give an appropriate rebuff?”

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping signed a “no limits” partnership deal in 2022, less than three weeks before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine. In May this year they agreed to deepen what they called their “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” for a new era.

The two countries have not declared a formal military alliance, although Putin last week described them as “allies in every sense of the word”.

Source: https://www.aol.com/news/russia-says-could-combine-china-142351524.html

The NFL averaged 21.0 million viewers per game during the league’s opening week, making it the most-watched Week 1 on record.

The league and Nielsen said Wednesday morning that the per-game average on TV and digital platforms was a 12% increase over last year. Nielsen began electronic measurement of viewing in 1988.

All told, 123 million people saw at least part of one game, its highest total for an opening week since 2019.

“A great start with the viewership. It was great to be back and a lot to be excited about,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.

NBC had the most-watched game, with defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City’s 27-20 victory over Baltimore in last Thursday’s opener averaging 29.2 million on TV and digital. It was NBC’s second-largest regular season game since 2006, when it acquired the “Sunday Night Football” package. The Sunday night game between Detroit and the Los Angeles Rams, which the Lions won 26-20 in overtime, averaged 22.7 million, a 3% jump from last year.

Tom Brady’s first game as Fox’s top analyst — Dallas’ 33-17 win over Cleveland — averaged 23.93 million. The six games that were part of Fox’s doubleheader (four early, two late) averaged 18.64 million, making it the network’s best start since 2020.

This was the first time since 2020 that Fox solely had the Sunday afternoon doubleheader in Week 1. Both CBS and Fox carried two games apiece on the opening Sunday the past three seasons.

CBS averaged 17.79 million for its six games, its most watched Week 1 singleheader since it reacquired NFL rights in 1998. Most of CBS’ affiliates had games in the 1 p.m. EDT window, but New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Pittsburgh got Jim Harbaugh’s first game as coach of the Los Angeles Chargers against the Las Vegas Raiders at 4:05 p.m. EDT.

New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Pittsburgh could not air games in CBS’ early window because it is a league rule that no game is shown opposite the game of the local team.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/nfl-ratings-brady-01fce6b89c7d738c21badda85901e33c#

A US “ultra-endurance” cyclist has claimed a new world record for fastest woman to circumvent the globe by bike.
Lael Wilcox took 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes to cycle 29,169km (18,125 miles), starting and ending in Chicago.
She beat the 2018 record held by Jenny Graham, from Scotland, whose journey took 124 days 11 hours.
Wilcox, 38, of Alaska, set off on 28 May, crossing 21 countries on four continents before arriving back in Chicago around 21:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

A Florida judge has declared Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner divorced and single, signing off on a confidential agreement reached between the two.

The Miami-Dade County judge approved the agreement on Friday, one year after the 35-year-old Jonas Brothers singer filed to divorce the 28-year-old “Game of Thrones” and “X Men” actor and five years after the two were married.

The split brought a quiet and relatively quick end to a divorce that briefly became acrimonious and looked headed for a long and ugly custody fight.

The documents said that moderated negotiations led to an agreement on splitting assets, spousal support and custody of their two daughters, 4-year-old Willa and 2-year-old Delphine.

Judge Gina Beovides declared that the marriage was “irretrievably broken,” and that the couple’s agreement, especially their parenting plan, was in the best interest of the family.

A representative for Turner declined comment. An email seeking comment from a representative for Jonas was not immediately answered.

The couple met through Instagram messages and began dating in 2016. They married in a secretive ceremony at a Las Vegas wedding chapel in May of 2019 after the Billboard Music Awards. Country duo Dan + Shay performed at the wedding.

CCTV footage shows the Livin’ on a Prayer singer leaning on the railings of the bridge as he speaks to the woman before helping her back to safety.

Rock legend Jon Bon Jovi has been captured on camera helping to persuade a “distraught” woman to step away from the ledge of a bridge in Nashville.

The US singer was reportedly filming a video for his band’s track “The People’s House” on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge when the woman was spotted on the other side of the railings.

CCTV footage, shared by local police, shows the Bon Jovi frontman and woman walking down the middle of the bridge on Tuesday evening.

They then slowly approach the distressed woman before the singer leans on the railings and appears to begin talking to her.

The woman Bon Jovi was walking with is seen stroking the person’s back as they encourage her to come back to safety.

They are then seen helping the woman to climb back over the railings.

Bon Jovi then embraces her as they stand together for around a minute before walking back down the bridge together.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department shared the video on its YouTube channel and said the singer had helped a “distraught woman”.

In a post on the X social media platform, the force wrote: “A shout out to @jonbonjovi and his team for helping a woman on the Seigenthaler Ped Bridge Tue night.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/jon-bon-jovi-helps-distraught-woman-to-step-away-from-ledge-of-nashville-bridge-13213178

A view of Earth shortly after the Polaris Dawn crew launched into orbit. Pic: SpaceX via APThe crew of a privately-funded space mission will today attempt the first spacewalk by non-professional astronauts.

The commander of the Polaris Dawn expedition – and one of his crewmates – will leave the relative safety of the SpaceX Dragon capsule more than 400 miles above the Earth and spend several minutes in the vacuum of space.

A spacewalk is considered one of the most dangerous activities an astronaut can do in orbit.

But the Polaris Dawn crew will do it without the usual training, from a space capsule that doesn’t have a safety airlock, while testing an experimental spacesuit.

Jared Isaacman, who is commanding and bankrolling the mission, said before lift-off: “Whatever risk is associated with it, it is worth it.”

It’s the first time since the early days of space travel that astronauts have attempted a spacewalk without an airlock.

The double-doored chamber – used on the International Space Station (ISS) and the US Space Shuttle – allows crew to exit to space while still sealing the rest of the spacecraft from the vacuum.

But Dragon is too small and not designed to host spacewalks.

So the entire capsule has been modified – from fittings to computers – to allow it to be depressurised for the two-hour event. Even the two crew members staying on board will have to wear full spacesuits to survive.

They’ll be attached to life support systems on board by an umbilical hose that provides power, communications and pure oxygen.

Once outside they will perform a series of tasks to test out a new SpaceX spacesuit. Critically it must allow full mobility, while still insulating astronauts from harsh extremes of temperature.

The suit itself is far slimmer than the bulky protective layers worn by NASA astronauts.

Data can also be displayed on the inside of the helmet visor.

Ms Gillis, a SpaceX employee, said in a video released of her training for the spacewalk: “So far only countries have been able to perform a spacewalk.

“Space X has huge ambitions to get to Mars and make life multiplanetary.

“In order to get there, we need to start somewhere. And the first step is testing out the first iteration of the spacesuit so that we can make spacewalks and future suit designs even better.”

To reduce the risks of a spacewalk, astronauts on the ISS repeatedly rehearse each task while wearing their suits in a deep-water pool to mimic weightlessness. Even small movements in zero gravity push astronauts in the opposite direction.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/spacex-mission-set-to-to-attempt-first-ever-commercial-spacewalk-13213009

Elon Musk’s trans daughter mocks ‘incel nonsense’ after Tesla founder offers to give Taylor Swift a baby

The estranged daughter of Elon Musk slammed his bizarre offer to impregnate Taylor Swift after the pop superstar dropped a surprise endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Vivian Wilson, 20, called her father’s indecent proposal ‘heinous incel nonsense’ in a post on X’s arch viral site Threads Wednesday.

The saga began when Swift signed her Harris endorsement as ‘childless cat lady’ in a sly jab at Trump. Musk then responded: ‘Fine Taylor … you win…I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.’

Vivian, who is transgender, praised Swift’s endorsement, saying the timing ‘could not have been better’ before teeing off on her father, whom she has not spoken to.

‘Also, yes, I saw “the tweet,”‘ she said about Musk’s missive. ‘Heinous incel nonsense is in fact heinous incel nonsense. I don’t really have anything to add to it, it’s just abhorrent.’

She added that Musk’s words were ‘disgusting, belittling and incredibly sexist’ and said that her audience ‘deserve better’ if people speak to them like that’.

Wilson finished her thread by writing: ‘I really am not the biggest fan of this subject. I am my own person with my own name after all. However, I just feel like that had to be said even if it’s incredibly self-evident. Cheers’.

The ‘Cruel Summer’ singer made her endorsement on Instagram immediately following last night’s debate, signed ‘Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady’ – in a refence to Donald’s Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance.

However, less than two hours later, father-of-twelve Musk, who has also spoken out against underpopulation in the past, penned the bizarre proposal to Swift.

Vivian and Musk have been engaged in a war of words with each other on socials after Musk said he was tricked into Wilson being allowed to go on puberty blockers.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13840175/Elon-Musk-trans-daughter-mocks-incel-nonsense-Taylor-Swift-baby.html

He’s giving all his apologies.

Foo Fighters rocker Dave Grohl revealed he fathered a child “outside of” his marriage to Jordyn Blum and is working to “regain” his wife’s “trust.”

“I’ve recently become the father of a new baby daughter, born outside of my marriage,” he announced on Instagram Tuesday.

“I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her. I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness.”

The singer, 55, did not disclose any information about his newborn’s mother in his post.

Grohl and Blum, 48, recently celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary as they tied the knot in their Los Angeles home in 2003.

The couple share three children: Violet Maye, 18, Harper Willow, 15, and Ophelia Saint, 10.

The guitarist and the former model first met in 2001 at the Sunset Marquis Whiskey Bar. However, it wasn’t true love at first sight.

“When I first met my wife, we went out on a few dates and I decided that I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, so I just stopped calling,” he shared in a 2007 interview with Elle.

However, he had a change of heart as time passed by.

“After three months, I had a revelation and called her back. She picked up the phone and said, ‘Oh, I never thought I’d hear from you again,’” he recalled.

Two years later, the former Nirvana drummer gushed about not wanting to spend time away from his kids while touring.

“I used to tour nine months out of the year. Now I don’t like being away from my kids for more than 12 days,” he told Time in 2009.

“It’s changed everything that I do. When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.”

Source:https://pagesix.com/2024/09/10/parents/foo-fighters-rocker-dave-grohl-fathers-baby-outside-of-marriage-working-to-regain-wifes-trust/

Sun Dawu was a vocal critic of China’s ruling Communist Party. Now he’s serving an 18-year sentence for corruption. Criminal defense lawyers say he is one of the most prominent targets in a crackdown on business leaders, as the Party deepens control over the economy.

In a handwritten submission from his prison in rural northern China, billionaire pig and chicken farmer Sun Dawu implored the court to hear his appeal. He was serving an 18-year sentence on charges including corruption. There was far more at stake than his own unjust conviction, the 70-year-old tycoon wrote in his Nov. 16 plea.

Without his leadership, the business he’d built for decades would collapse, he warned. His company, Hebei Dawu Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Group, had more than ten thousand employees.

If his appeal was delayed, “the enterprise will be completely wrecked,” he wrote in the legal document, seen by Reuters. “I don’t think this is what leaders of the court, party committees and governments at all levels want to see.”

The collapse of the giant business Sun built would indeed be unwelcome for Chinese leaders, at a time when a massive property crisis poses the biggest threat to China’s economy in decades. But his jailing in July 2021 shows how power is as big a priority as prosperity for the Chinese leadership.

Sun is one of the highest-profile casualties in a campaign under President Xi Jinping to clamp down on tycoons and top executives who are seen as a threat to the Communist Party’s control over the economy, according to Chinese criminal defense lawyers and fellow entrepreneurs familiar with Sun’s case. In the past three-and-a-half years, at least three dozen top business and financial figures have been detained, investigated, indicted or jailed, according to the website of China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, police statements, reports in state-controlled media and stock exchange filings.

Of these, at least 22 were in the private sector and more than a dozen worked at state-controlled firms. The biggest names are in the private sector, which accounts for more than half of GDP and the majority of jobs in China.

In Sun’s case, he dared to be a persistent critic of the Party and a long-time supporter of pro-democracy activists and liberal intellectuals in China. His 18-year sentence effectively spells life in jail given his age, his lawyers say.

It sends a clear message, they add: The party is committed to quashing any threat to its monopoly on power, even at the cost of economic growth.

China’s leadership rejects that view. The government “attaches great importance to the private sector,” and the suggestion that China is “cracking down” on business is false, a government official told Reuters. A crackdown would contravene China’s stated policy goals and run counter to its interests in developing private enterprise, the official said.

So far, the Hebei Province People’s High Court hasn’t agreed to hear Sun’s appeal, his legal advisers say. In addition to Sun, his family and top executives were jailed in the case.

Sun’s company is also under new management. In April 2022, Dawu was sold to a group set up just three days before a court-ordered auction, Chinese corporate filings and court documents show. It was sold at a fraction of its true value, according to social media posts by his family. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the value of Dawu Group or the current financial health of the business.

This account of Sun’s imprisonment and battle to regain his freedom is based on previously unreported legal and court documents, along with new details from interviews with his lawyers, dissidents and fellow entrepreneurs.

Xi’s forceful assertion of state control over big business is another chapter in the turbulent relationship between individual enterprise, capital and the Party since the Communists seized power in 1949. Private business played a crucial role in reviving China as it emerged from the economic calamity of the Maoist years, when it was better to be “red than expert,” according to one of the slogans at the time. After Mao, in the era of Deng Xiaoping, a new slogan emerged: “to get rich is glorious.”

Now, the Chinese leader sees menace in the rise of a tycoon class, say Chinese human rights lawyers, dissidents and some academics.

“You can’t look at Sun’s case in isolation,” said Li Jinxing, who was one of China’s top criminal defense and human rights lawyers before being disbarred for criticizing legal and political authorities. Unable to act in the case himself, Li assembled a team of about 30 lawyers who unsuccessfully represented Sun and some co-defendants. “In my opinion, the case is part of China’s wide-ranging elimination of private businessmen who have gained broad social influence.”

Sun’s fate does appear to fit a pattern. In September 2020, real estate tycoon and blogger Ren Zhiqiang was sentenced to an identical 18 years for corruption. Ren was detained after an article, widely attributed to him and circulated online, criticized the government’s handling of COVID-19. Without naming the Chinese leader, the article described the authority responsible for the pandemic response as a “clown stripped naked” – remarks widely interpreted as an attack on Xi.

Reuters couldn’t independently confirm if Ren was the author of the article. He couldn’t be reached for comment. When Ren was expelled from the Party in 2020, investigators said he had “shown disloyalty” and “besmirched” it, the government official told Reuters.

Also jailed for 18 years in 2018, for fraud and embezzlement, was Wu Xiaohui, former chairman of Anbang Insurance Group. Anbang was best known abroad for acquiring New York’s landmark Waldorf Astoria hotel. Prosecutors said Wu displayed unchecked ambition and reckless expansion, which resulted in risks to the Chinese financial system – a charge also leveled at other business moguls. He was also charged with fraud and embezzlement involving more than $10 billion.

Li Jinxing, the former defense lawyer, said he was Wu’s attorney for his appeal but was barred from meeting him. Li noted that Wu, Ren and Sun – three different tycoons in different places charged with different crimes – all got the same sentence.

“This isn’t a coincidence,” said Li, who left China in 2022 and is now living in Tokyo. “It’s very simple. The authorities want them to die in jail. It’s terrifying when you think about it.”

China’s top leadership has been promoting its support for the private sector as it seeks new investment at a time when economic growth has slowed. At a key meeting in July, the so-called third plenum, leaders resolved to leverage the role of market forces in the economy.

In comments in state media, Xi has stressed China remains committed to two “unswerving commitments” – developing the private and state sectors at the same time. Xi has also said the Party believes that private business owners and entrepreneurs “belong to our own family.”

Still, as the Party tightens control over business leadership, dozens of other high-profile entrepreneurs and executives have been jailed, arrested and sidelined – or have vanished from sight, widely believed to have been detained and put under investigation.

Alibaba’s Jack Ma, once a ubiquitous presence in the tech world, has been largely absent from the business since publicly criticizing Chinese regulators in 2020. He now stays mostly out of view.

Celebrity banker Bao Fan resigned from his posts of chairman and CEO of China Renaissance Holdings Ltd, citing health reasons and a desire to spend more time with his family, according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange in February. Earlier, the investment bank had announced that Bao was cooperating in an unspecified investigation, without elaborating. China Renaissance didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Also in February, a Chinese court imposed a suspended death sentence on the former president of China Merchants Bank, Tian Huiyu, after convicting him of charges including bribery and insider trading.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-economy-crackdown-tycoons/

Israeli strikes blasted a huge crater in a designated safe zone in southern Gaza before dawn on Tuesday, setting tents ablaze and burying Palestinian families under sand.
Palestinian officials said scores of people had been killed or injured in the strikes, with at least 19 dead bodies brought to hospital and other victims feared lost or buried. Reuters journalists saw several bodies in the morning aftermath. Israel disputed the Palestinian casualty figures.

Tents in the surrounding area had been incinerated, leaving only metal frames dusted with ghostly ash in a wasteland littered with debris. A car had been completely buried, only its top visible beneath the sand.

In the morning, mourners at a nearby hospital wailed over bodies heaped in white plastic bags or wrapped in bloodstained shrouds.

One of Raed Abu Muammar’s daughters had been killed. His wife and his other daughter had been buried but were pulled out alive. He carried the surviving baby girl.

“I was under the sand as well. I got out and started looking for my daughters and my wife. I saw body parts of the neighbours in my tent – I did not know those were our neighbours’ parts until I saw my family in one piece.”
“These are the Israeli targets. Look at them,” he said, gesturing to the baby girl in his arms. “We were in humanitarian areas that were supposed to be safe.”
The Gaza health ministry, which compiles casualty figures, said hospitals had so far received 19 bodies. Other victims were still under sand or on roads that rescuers could not reach, it said.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the number of fatalities at more than 40. It said that at least 60 others were wounded in the strikes and many remained missing.
Residents and medics said the camp was struck by five or six missiles or bombs.

“We saw women cut in pieces, children cut in pieces and martyrs. There are still people missing. People are looking for them and they still have not found them yet,” survivor Ola al-Shaer told Reuters at the site.

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said at least 20 tents caught fire. It estimated 65 dead or wounded including women and children.

“Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre,” a Gaza civil emergency official said.

U.N. Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland strongly condemned the Israeli strike on a densely populated safe area, while also saying civilians should never be used as human shields.

“The principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack must be upheld at all times,” he said. “I reiterate my call for all sides to immediately reach an agreement that will bring about the release of all hostages and a ceasefire. The killing of civilians must stop, and this horrific war must end.”

ISRAEL DISPUTES CASUALTIES

The Israeli military said it had struck senior Hamas commanders who were operating in a command centre embedded inside the designated humanitarian area.

“These terrorists were directly involved in the execution of the Oct. 7th massacre and have been recently operating to carry out terror activities,” it said.

The military added that casualty figures published by Hamas-run authorities in Gaza “do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike”.

Hamas denied Israeli allegations that gunmen were present in the targeted area, and rejected accusations it exploited civilian areas for military purposes.

“This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or use these places for military purposes,” said Hamas in a statement.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/several-palestinians-killed-wounded-israeli-strike-tent-encampment-gaza-medics-2024-09-09/

A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.

The robot’s trip into the Unit 2 reactor is a crucial initial step for what comes next — a daunting, decades-long process to decommission the plant and deal with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors that were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specialists hope the robot will help them learn more about the status of the cores and the fuel debris.

Here is an explanation of how the robot works, its mission, significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins.

What is the fuel debris?

Nuclear fuel in the reactor cores melted after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems to fail. The melted fuel dripped down from the cores and mixed with internal reactor materials such as zirconium, stainless steel, electrical cables, broken grates and concrete around the supporting structure and at the bottom of the primary containment vessels.

The reactor meltdowns caused the highly radioactive, lava-like material to spatter in all directions, greatly complicating the cleanup. The condition of the debris also differs in each reactor.

Midwife Siro Devi is clinging to Monica Thatte, sobbing. Monica, in her late 20s, has returned to her birthplace – the Indian town where Siro has delivered hundreds of babies.

Talk about “True Romance.”

Brad Pitt and girlfriend Ines de Ramon have taken their relationship to another level recently, making their red carpet debut together at the 2024 Venice Film Festival last week.

And after enjoying a double date with BFFs George and Amal Clooney in Italy ahead of the actors’ latest movie premiere, Pitt and de Ramon have also been circulating in New York City this week.

De Ramon, 31, and Pitt, 60, have been seen around the Big Apple on dinner dates, at a bar and at gallery openings hand in hand — and decked out in meaningful jewelry.

On Sept. 8, the “Fight Club” star chose eye-catching red gingham pants with a white button-up shirt, which he wore unbuttoned low enough to show off a slew of pendants from Anita Ko, the fine jewelry brand brand for which de Ramon’s served as vice president for more than three years.

The father of six’s many necklaces included a small, diamond-covered “I” pendant ($2,200) — presumably dedicated to his girlfriend, whom he’s been dating for two years.

De Ramon has her own version, stepping out last year wearing a “B” charm.

Pitt also added a Sagittarius zodiac pendant ($8,200), in a nod to both of their star signs. (Pitt’s birthday is Dec. 18, while de Ramon’s falls on Dec. 19.)

He also layered in a pear-cut emerald necklace ($16,500), also from Anita Ko.

For her part, de Ramon rocked a flashy diamond eagle pendant ($9,975) with her black vest and trousers, which she paired with a white Fendi purse ($4,700).

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/09/10/style/brad-pitt-shows-love-for-girlfriend-ines-de-ramon-with-i-pendant-necklace/

The unaccompanied climbers had alerted rescuers on Saturday afternoon, but weather conditions prevented rescuers from reaching their location from the ground or by helicopter.

Four bodies have been found on the French side of Mont Blanc.

French rescue officials say the bodies of the four climbers were found close to the peak of the mountain after they went missing on Saturday in bad weather.

Scientists can now accurately map where dengue fever is likely to break out for the first time – and they’ve pinpointed the European holiday destinations at risk.

Scientists tracking the spread of dengue fever have named popular European holiday destinations they say are at risk from future outbreaks.

The disease is carried by Asian tiger mosquitos, which are becoming more common in Europe, including parts of southern France, Italy and Spain.

The mosquito was even spotted at the Paris Olympics this summer.

Dengue fever can cause severe muscle and joint pain – earning it the nickname “break-bone fever” – and in some cases can result in internal bleeding and death.

But until now, attempts to predict its spread haven’t been localised.

“Sicily is a hotbed,” said Dr Steven White, a theoretical ecologist who worked on the study, adding that the locations around the Mediterranean basin are also “high-risk areas”.

Antony Blinken, during a visit to the UK, said Moscow had received the missiles and that Russian military personnel had been trained on how to use them in Iran.

Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia and the Kremlin “will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine”, the US secretary of state has said.

Speaking during a visit to the UK, Antony Blinken said the development was “a threat to all of Europe” and showed how Iran’s “destabilising influence reaches far beyond the Middle East”.

He told a news conference: “Dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close range ballistic missile system, which has a maximum range of 75 miles.

“Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine against Ukrainians.

“Russia has an array of its own ballistic missiles, but the supply of Iranian missiles enables Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that are further from the front line.”

However, when asked if he would approve Ukraine’s use of the Storm Shadow long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia, Mr Lammy said he would not comment on “operational issues”.

The US will be announcing further sanctions on Iran later on Tuesday, Mr Blinken said, including further measures against Iran Air.

He said other countries were also expected to announce fresh sanctions.

However, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff said imposing sanctions on Iran for supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles was not enough, and allies should allow Kyiv to carry out strikes deep into Russia using Western weapons.

“We also need permission to use Western weapons against military targets on the territory of the Russian Federation, deliveries of longer-range missiles, and strengthening our air defences,” the official, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Mr Lammy and Mr Blinken revealed they would be travelling together to Kyiv later this week, in what Mr Lammy described as the “first joint visit of this kind for well over a decade”.

Mr Blinken said Russia and Iran’s relationship was a “two-way street”, with the Kremlin sharing technology with Iran, including on nuclear issues and space information.

“So, as Iran’s destabilising activity spread, so does Russia, sowing even greater insecurity in their regions and around the world,” he said.

He added the US has been sharing intelligence behind the discovery with allies and partners “and working together to ensure that there will be significant economic consequences for Tehran’s actions”.

Nasser Kanani, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, condemned the UK, France, and Germany for cancelling bilateral air service agreements and the sanctioning of Iran Air.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/a-threat-to-all-of-europe-iran-is-supplying-russia-with-ballistic-missiles-says-us-secretary-of-state-13212343

Four private astronauts blasted into space early on Tuesday in a modified SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, kicking off the company’s five-day Polaris Dawn mission, which aims to test new spacesuit designs and conduct the first private spacewalk.
The crew, a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida about 5:23 a.m. EST (0923 GMT).

The mission’s Falcon 9 booster landed safely on a seaborne pad.
It is Crew Dragon’s fifth – and riskiest – private mission so far. The spacecraft will eventually settle into an oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190 km (118 miles) and as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest any humans will have ventured since the end of the U.S. Apollo moon program in 1972.
An attempt to launch last month was postponed hours before liftoff over a small helium leak in ground equipment on SpaceX’s launchpad. SpaceX fixed the leak, but the company’s Falcon 9 was then grounded by U.S. regulators over a booster recovery failure during an unrelated mission, further delaying the Polaris launch. The launch on Tuesday was delayed about two hours because of unfavorable weather.

Only highly trained, well-funded government astronauts have done spacewalks in the past. There have been roughly 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since its creation in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing’s Tiangong space station.
SPACEWALK PLANNED FOR THIRD DAY

The Polaris Dawn spacewalk is planned for the mission’s third day at 700 km in altitude and will last about 20 minutes. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon craft will slowly depressurize its entire cabin – it has no airlock like the ISS – and all four astronauts will rely on their slimmed-down, SpaceX-built spacesuits for oxygen.

The first U.S. spacewalk was in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, and used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurised, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.

Jared Isaacman, 41, a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payment company Shift4, is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did for his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021. He has declined to say how much he is paying for the missions, but they are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Joining him is mission pilot Scott Poteet, 50, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, 30, and Anna Menon, 38, both senior engineers at the company.

For the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the spacecraft tethered by an oxygen line while Poteet and Menon stay in the cabin.

The mission is the first in Isaacman’s private Polaris program that includes a follow-on Crew Dragon mission in the future, followed by a flight on SpaceX’s Starship, a giant rocket the company has spent billions of dollars developing as a flagship moon and Mars vehicle.

The four-person crew are effectively test subjects for an array of scientific experiments that will aim to shed light on how cosmic radiation and the vacuum of space affect the human body, adding to decades of studies on astronauts living aboard the ISS.

Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied heavily on the company and its Crew Dragon, which has flown nine astronaut missions to and from the ISS for the agency as the only U.S. crew-grade vehicle in operation.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-set-launch-billionaires-private-crew-breakthrough-spacewalk-mission-2024-09-10/

Pictures on social media showed the tail of one of the planes had been shorn off.

Two planes have collided on the runway at Atlanta airport in the US state of Georgia.

Pictures on social media showed the tail of one of the planes had been shorn off.

Delta Air Lines said one of its planes struck a regional jet while taxiing for departure, damaging both aircraft.

No injuries were reported and Delta said passengers would be rebooked on other flights.

The airline said the wing of a Delta Airbus A350 that was set to depart for Tokyo-Haneda made contact with the tail of an Endeavor Air CRJ-900 scheduled to depart for Lafayette, Louisiana. Endeavor is a subsidiary owned by Delta.

A man who was on one of the planes tweeted to say “another plane appears to have clipped the back of our plane”.

“Very jarring, metal scraping sounds then loud bangs,” he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate.

The man accused of dousing in petrol and setting alight Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from burns sustained during the fatal attack on the Ugandan athlete, a hospital official said on Tuesday.
Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in the Sept. 1 attack and died four days later.
Her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, died at 1830 (1530 GMT) on Monday, said Philip Kirwa, chief executive officer of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret in western Kenya where Marangach was being treated and where Cheptegei also died.

“This guy is dead because he killed my daughter. He has died because of his actions,” Cheptegei’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Reuters.

Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya, where many international runners train in the high-altitude highlands, are at a high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.

“Justice really would have been for him to sit in jail and think about what he had done. This is not positive news whatsoever,” said Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop’s Angels, a support group for survivors of domestic violence in Kenya’s athletic community.

“The shock of Rebecca’s death is still fresh,” Cheptoo told Reuters.

Cheptoo co-founded Tirop’s Angels in memory of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, who was found dead in her home in the town of Iten in October 2021, with multiple stab wounds to the neck.

Ibrahim Rotich, Tirop’s husband, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is ongoing.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ex-partner-killed-ugandan-athlete-cheptegei-dies-hospital-star-newspaper-reports-2024-09-10/

Melania Trump’s promotional activities for her new book took a turn for the wackadoodle Tuesday with a video in which she raised the possibility that the attempt to assassinate her husband was actually some kind of conspiracy.

“The attempt to end my husband’s life was a horrible, distressing experience,” the former first lady says in the clip. “Now, the silence around it feels heavy. I can’t help but wonder: Why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech? There is definitely more to this story and we need to uncover the truth.”

The brief clip released on Melania’s X ends with a message encouraging viewers to pre-order her forthcoming book, Melania. The post also contained a link to her website, where a “Collector’s Edition” of the memoir is available to buy for $250.

Precisely how the July 13 attempt to kill Donald Trump relates to the book isn’t clear. The tone of her video is markedly different from that which Melania took in the letter she released the day after the shooting, in which she thanked “the brave Secret Service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband.”

At the time, she also called for Americans to “ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.” Melania was not at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at the stage where her husband spoke, wounding the former president and several attendees, including one fatally.

Crooks was killed by countersnipers during the attack. An FBI investigation has yet to establish a motive for the incident.

In the wake of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life, questions were raised about how Crooks was able to get so close to killing the former president. Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position as the director of the Secret Service after acknowledging her agency was responsible for lapses in security at the event.

By contrast, some of the Republican nominee’s most ardent supporters have interpreted the law enforcement failure to stop Crooks before he opened fire as evidence of a conspiracy. Donald Trump’s son, Eric, quickly blamed Democrats, as did Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who baselessly claimed the party had “tried to murder President Trump” (Crooks was a registered Republican).

Despite being largely absent from her husband’s campaign trail this year, Melania’s remarks about the assassination attempt are the latest in a recent flurry of public comments to promote her book. Last week, she released a black-and-white video advertising the memoir, saying its composition had been a “deeply personal and reflective journey for me.”

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/melania-goes-full-truther-on-trump-assassination-bid

Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump on Tuesday in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly needling him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy.

The Democratic vice president seemed to get under the skin of the Republican former president, provoking him with reminders about the 2020 election loss that he still denies, mocking his rally crowds and delivering derisive asides at his other false claims. Trump tore into Harris as too liberal and questioned why she was proposing ideas she hadn’t accomplished while serving as vice president. He often launched into the sort of freewheeling personal attacks and digressions from which his advisers and supporters have tried to steer him away.

Harris promised tax cuts aimed at the middle class and said she would push to restore a federally guaranteed right to abortion overturned by the Supreme Court two years ago. Trump said his proposed tariffs would help the U.S. stop being cheated by allies on trade and said he would work to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine war — though he twice refused to say he wanted Ukraine, which bipartisan majorities in Congress have backed, to win the war.

On a sweltering summer morning in Serbia’s capital Belgrade, Vadim Morus, a professional ice skater from Russia, glides across an outdoor rink. Morus is 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from his native Moscow, but is beginning to feel at home.
He fled Russia with his fiancee in 2022, part of a wave of tens of thousands who came to Serbia after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s a long way to come, but many chose Belgrade for its ancient cultural and religious ties to Moscow.

Russian-owned clubs, kindergartens, and medical practices have sprung up. Russians buy food in Russian shops. Russian bands, singers and comedians are performing in Russian clubs, and Russian artists showcase their work in Russian-owned galleries.

Between February 2022 and mid-2023, more than 30,000 Russians registered for temporary residence in Serbia, the latest interior ministry data show. Officials did not provide data for the comparative period before this but said that the numbers represented a sharp increase.

During this influx, Russians established 11,081 businesses across various sectors, from internet-based services to hospitality and sports schools, according to Serbia’s business registry.

RUSSIAN CLIENTELE

Viktor, 42, a veterinarian from St. Petersburg, fled Russian mobilisation in the fall of 2022. Without the necessary qualifications to practise in Serbia, he works as a handyman in Belgrade, exclusively serving Russians.

“I repair plumbing, electrical installations, windows, and even make furniture. I don’t really need Serbian customers,” said Viktor, who asked not to be named for fear of his family’s safety back in Russia.

Relations between Serbia and Russia date back centuries and remain cordial today, although Serbia is also trying to join the European Union, which condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After World War I, thousands of so-called White Russians fled the Communists during the civil war to the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

Still, many struggle to integrate and prefer instead to cling to a mini Russia inside Serbia. Ironically many Serbians support Putin and do not share the views of those who fled.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/mini-russia-emerges-serbia-thousands-flee-war-2024-09-09/

World Bank President Ajay Banga said in a speech on Tuesday after visiting 27 countries from Peru to Tuvalu that the global lender needs to work faster and simplify its processes in a world experiencing greater polarisation.
Speaking at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney on Tuesday, Banga said his visit on Friday to Tuvalu in the South Pacific marked the end of a journey that began just over a year ago when he started in the job and promised to listen to voices in every region where the Washington-based lender operates.

“Though aspirations of people around the world are universal, we live in a world of greater polarisation and extremes,” Banga said.
The countries he visited “need more and require us to be faster, simpler, and more impact oriented”, he added, after meeting Pacific Islands leaders in Fiji last week, who said small island states sometimes struggled to meet World Bank requirements.
In Fiji, Banga visited chronically understaffed health clinics facing rising rates of non-communicable disease such as diabetes, an example of the importance of the bank’s new focus on job creation. The bank’s new targets include bringing affordable health care to 1.5 billion people by 2030.

The World Bank saw global challenges of climate change, inequality and fragility as intertwined, he said.
“We understand that the challenges of the Pacific Islands are a microcosm of forces playing out around the globe,” he added.
The Pacific Islands, the region most impacted by warming oceans, is also the most aid-reliant region, according to the Lowy Institute.
Banga said reforms to the World Bank in the past year were already starting to bring change, citing a corporate scorecard cutting the bank’s goals from 150 to 22 items and the shortening of approval times for projects by an average three months.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/peru-tuvalu-world-bank-chief-says-global-lender-must-change-2024-09-10/

American actor James Earl Jones, an imposing stage and screen presence who overcame a childhood stutter to develop a stentorian voice recognized the world over as intergalactic villain Darth Vader, died on Monday at the age of 93.
Jones, a longtime sufferer of diabetes, died at his home surrounded by family members, his agent, Barry McPherson, said.
No cause of death was provided.
Jones had a great physical presence on stage and television, as well as in movies, but he would have been a star even if his face was never seen because his voice had a career of its own. The resonating bass could instantly command respect – as with the sage father Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and many Shakespeare roles – or instill fear as the rasping Vader in the “Star Wars” films.

“#RIP dad,” Hamill wrote on X on Monday with a broken heart emoji above a story about the death of Jones.

Jones said he never made much money off the Darth Vader part – only $9,000 for the first film – and that he considered it merely a special effects job. He did not even ask to be in the credits of the first two “Star Wars” movies.

His long list of awards included Tonys for “The Great White Hope” in 1969 and “Fences” in 1987 on Broadway and Emmys in 1991 for “Gabriel’s Fire” and “Heat Wave” on television. He also won a Grammy for best spoken word album, “Great American Documents” in 1977.

Although he never won a competitive Academy award, he was nominated for best actor for the film version of “The Great White Hope” and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.

He began his movie career playing Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Later acclaimed movie roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989’s “Field of Dreams” and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.” He also starred in “Conan the Barbarian,” “Coming to America,” “The Sandlot,” “Matewan,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Field of Dreams,” among others.

Jones also was heard in dozens of television commercials and for several years CNN used his authoritative “This is CNN” to introduce its newscasts.

ESTRANGED FROM FATHER

James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931, in the tiny community of Arkabutla, Mississippi, to a family with a mixed ethnic background of Irish, African and Cherokee.

His father, prizefighter-turned-actor Robert Earl Jones, left the family shortly afterward. James was raised by his maternal grandparents, who forbade him to see his father, and the two did not get together until James moved to New York in the 1950s. Eventually they appeared in several plays together.

Jones was about 5 years old when his grandparents moved the family from Mississippi to a farm in Michigan and it was around that time that he quit speaking because of his stutter.

He was mostly silent for a decade until a ploy by his high school English teacher got him to speak up. The teacher made Jones recite to the class a poem that he said he had written to prove he was familiar enough with it to be the author.

Although after that he said he still had to choose his words carefully, Jones learned to control his stutter and became interested in acting.

After studying drama at the University of Michigan, he moved to New York, where his theater performances increasingly attracted critical attention and acclaim.

His breakthrough role on Broadway was “The Great White Hope,” playing a character based on Black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. The play examined racism through the lens of the boxing world and critics raved about Jones’ performance.

A popular theater draw for decades, his Shakespeare leading roles included Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. He also had a notable portrayal of singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson on Broadway in 1977 and of author Alex Haley in the television mini-series “Roots: The Next Generation.”

He was “capable of moving in seconds from boyish ingenuousness to near-biblical rage and somehow suggesting all the gradations in between,” the Washington Post wrote in a 1987 review of “Fences.”

Jones’ first wife was Julienne Marie Hendricks, one of his “Othello” co-stars. Earl and his second wife, actress Cecilia Hart, who died in 2016, had one child, Flynn Earl Jones.

Jones was a trailblazing Black actor, winning big roles in racially charged movies and plays that broke ground for Black actors that came after him.

But Jones, who first found fame at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, largely kept himself out of direct action on matters of race.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/james-earl-jones-voice-darth-vader-dies-93-2024-09-09/

The plane was carrying parts for a British Airways plane that has been grounded since another plane collided with it in April.

An unusually-shaped plane has landed at London’s Heathrow Airport to deliver spare parts.

The Airbus Beluga, named after the whale the aircraft resembles, flew to the airport from Toulouse in France.

It was carrying parts for a British Airways plane that has been grounded since another plane collided with it in April.

An empty Virgin Atlantic 787 was being towed from the stand at Terminal 3 when it clipped the wingtip of the British Airways Airbus A350.

Footage of the crash shows minor damage to the planes as well as emergency services and ground crew on the runway.

A spokesperson from British Airways said its plane was stationary when the collision happened.

No passengers were injured.

While the Virgin Atlantic plane returned to service the British Airways aircraft was grounded due to serious damage.

The Airbus Beluga was delivering spare parts to repair the damaged plane.

It will return to Toulouse later today, according to Flightradar24.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/airbus-beluga-lands-at-londons-heathrow-airport-13211889

Surgeons said they had been “truly amazed” by the 47-year-old’s recovery and said the “whole thing has been a monumental achievement” after he lost most of his face in an accident three years ago.

An army veteran who received the world’s first whole-eye transplant has said he has been given “the gift of a second chance”.

Aaron James, 47, from Arkansas in the US, lost his left eye and most of his face after an electrical cable touched the left side three years ago.

He also lost his left arm in the accident and now wears a prosthetic.

In May 2023, he underwent 21 hours of surgery involving more than 140 healthcare professionals to replace his face – which included receiving a new eye and has been hailed by doctors as a “monumental achievement”.

More than a year later, his donor eye continues to maintain normal pressure and blood flow – despite surgeries on animals showing a different outcome where the eye often shrank significantly, doctors said.

Mr James said: “This has been the most transformative year of my life.

“I’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I don’t take a single moment for granted.”

India had a lone shining moment at the 2012 London Paralympics when Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda won a silver medal in the men’s high jump.
The country hadn’t won any medal at the 2008 edition in Beijing, so it felt special to millions of Indians.
But Nagarajegowda’s win also sparked discussions on whether a lone medal was enough for a country that has millions of people with disabilities.
It also raised questions around India’s attitudes to para sport and disability in general. But something seems to have clicked for the country since 2012.
India won four medals in Rio in 2016 and 20 at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
And it closed the Paris Paralympics with an impressive tally of 29 medals. There have been so many moments to savour for India in Paris – from Sheetal Devi, who competes without arms, winning a bronze with Rakesh Kumar in a mixed compound archery event to Navdeep Singh registering a record throw of 47.32m in javelin to win a gold in the F41 category (athletes with short stature compete in this class).

These achievements are special given the leap of growth Indian para athletes have shown in just over a decade.
India still has a long way to go to take on countries like China (220 medals), Great Britain (124) and the US (105) but supporters of para sports in the country say the tide may be turning.
So what changed in this relatively short period of time?
Plenty.
Several government agencies, coaches and corporate firms came together to invest in para athletics.
And as they helped more heroes emerge, more children and their parents felt confident to take up para sport as a profession.
Gaurav Khanna, the head coach of the Indian para badminton team, says having people to look up to has changed mindsets:
“This has increased the number of athletes who are participating and who are having confidence that they can do better. When I joined the para badminton team in 2015, there were only 50 athletes in the national camp. Now that figure has gone up to 1,000.”

Disability rights activist Nipun Malhotra also acknowledges the change in mindset. He says the biggest change he has noticed is that parents now believe that children with disabilities can also become heroes:

“I think families have started playing a much more important role, and people with disabilities have got integrated much more into families today than they were 20 years ago. This also affects how society looks at disability as well. The fact that there are people with disabilities who are excelling in sports also gives hope to the future generations.”

Khanna and Malhotra both give credit to government schemes like TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) for identifying and supporting young talent.

Private organisations like the Olympic Gold Quest, which is funded by corporate houses, have also helped para athletes realise their full potential.

And then there are people like Khanna who started talent scouting and coaching using their own money, and continue to do so.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c990z4pgd8mo

Man accused of shooting 5 on Kentucky interstate vowed to ‘kill a lot of people,’ warrant says

The man suspected of opening fire on a highway in Kentucky sent a text message vowing to “kill a lot of people” less than 30 minutes before he shot and wounded five people on Interstate 75, authorities said in an arrest warrant.
“I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least,” Joseph Couch, 32, wrote in the text message, according to the warrant affidavit filed in court. In a separate text message, Couch wrote, “I’ll kill myself afterwards,” the affidavit says.
The Lexington Herald-Leader identified the woman Couch sent the text messages to as his ex-wife. The affidavit does not describe the relationship between Couch and the woman who received the texts.
The affidavit, written by Capt. Richard Dalrymple of the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, said that before authorities received the first report of the shooting about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, a dispatcher in Laurel County got a call from a woman who told them Couch had sent her the text messages at 5:03 p.m.

In response to that call, police initiated a tracker on Couch’s cellphone but the location wasn’t received until 6:53 p.m., the affidavit states, almost 90 minutes after the highway shooting.

The affidavit obtained by The Associated Press charges Couch with five counts each of criminal attempt to commit murder and first-degree assault.

On Sunday, law enforcement officers searched an area near where Couch’s vehicle was found, with a view of I-75. There, they found a green Army-style duffel bag, ammunition and numerous spent shell casings, the affidavit says. A short distance away, they found a Colt AR-15 rifle with a site mounted to the weapon and several additional magazines. The duffel bag had “Couch” hand-written in black marker.

Searchers have been combing thousands of acres in the rugged, hilly area near London, a small city of about 8,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.

Residents and medics at the scene said at least 20 tents caught fire after the missile strikes, which left craters as deep as nine metres in the tent camp near Khan Younis. The IDF has said the strike hit “significant Hamas terrorists” operating in the area.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 40 people and wounded at least 60 others in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, according to the Hamas-run government.

According to the Gaza civil emergency service, a tent encampment near Khan Younis in the Al-Mawasi area – which is a designated humanitarian zone – was struck by at least four missiles in the early hours of Tuesday.

Residents and medics at the scene said at least 20 tents caught fire after the missile strikes, which left craters as deep as nine metres (30ft).

A Gaza civil emergency official said their teams “are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area” and claimed “it looks like a new Israeli massacre”.

The emergency service said women and children were included in the 65 killed and wounded, but did not say how many had died or had been injured respectively.

In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces confirmed it had carried out an attack, which they said “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis”.

They added: “The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional means.”

Hamas denied Israel’s claims that it had gunmen in the camp and that it exploited civilian areas for military purposes, and claimed they were “a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes”.

In a statement, Hamas called the strike a “brutal act of genocide” and claimed Israel’s attacks “are being deliberately carried out without regard for international law, humanitarian law, or resolutions calling for an end to the aggression”.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/israeli-airstrikes-in-khan-younis-tent-camp-kill-or-wound-65-people-gaza-emergency-service-says-13212132

Despite no rain throughout Monday, not a single ball could be bowled on Day 1 of the Afghanistan vs New Zealand one-off Test.

Deplorable conditions at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, subpar drainage, a sodden outfield and woeful facilities played spoilsport as the opening day of the historic one-off Test between Afghanistan and New Zealand was called off on Monday without a ball being bowled. Rain had affected the buildup to the Test, the first between the two nations, with New Zealand not being able to complete a single practice session properly.

Apart from overnight shower, rain did not affect the venue throughout Monday. But the absence of modern facilities left the inexperienced ground staff struggling to prepare the field as the sack of saw dust saw more action than the players on the opening day.

The umpires conducted as many as six inspections throughout the day. Several New Zealand players too came out to assess the field, including skipper Tim Southee, all-rounders Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra also ventured onto the pitch to evaluate the conditions.

But the mid-on and mid wicket area seemed cause of concern while there were also several patches inside the 30-yard circle.

At one point with the sun shinning nice and bright, it looked like the match could get underway but the hopes of that were dashed when Kane Williamson tread wearily towards the pitch around 2pm IST.

Even Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott looked unimpressed as the groundsmen struggled. The Super soppers inexplicably came into action only after 1pm.

The day’s play was eventually called off at 4pm. The toss has been scheduled for 9am tomorrow and the remaining four days will have 98 overs each starting at 9.30am, instead of 10am.

Ahead of the Test, the ground staff had resorted to using table fans to dry the ground for Afghanistan’s training sessions.

The absence of modern facilities extended beyond the field itself, impacting operations off the pitch. The venue lacked a proper media stand and adequate seating arrangements for fans.

Additionally, the accredited media faced significant inconveniences, including a lack of water, power supply, and access to a female washroom. The fans too had no idea what was going on as there was no public announcement system.

There was poor communication and complete mismanagement between the stadium authority and the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB).

“This is a huge mess, we are never coming back here. The players are also unhappy with the facilities here,” an ACB official said.

“We had spoken with the concerned people well in advance and were assured by the stadium guys that everything will be in order (pertaining to the media facilities),” he added, While the Test is not a part of the World Test Championship, it is an ICC affiliated tournament.

The stadium, managed by the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, had hosted a pink ball Duleep Trophy match in 2016.

However, it had been banned by the BCCI in September 2017 due to match-fixing during corporate matches. No BCCI affiliated match has been hosted here since.

The stadium has served as the home ground for Afghanistan in the past.

Source: https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/huge-mess-never-coming-back-afghanistan-slam-facilities-in-greater-noida-as-day-1-washed-out-vs-new-zealand-6526818

Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab on Monday unveiled its long-awaited, artificial intelligence-boosted iPhone 16 and promised improvements in its Siri personal assistant as it rolled out new software, beginning in test mode next month.
“The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up. It marks the beginning of an exciting new era,” Chief Executive Tim Cook said at a product launch.

Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI software, will be used to improve Siri as well as enhancing features such as understanding and identifying objects captured by the phone camera, executives said.

A test version of Apple Intelligence will be available in the U.S. version of the English language next month. It will be available for other localized versions of English in December, with versions in languages including Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish next year. Features including improvements to Siri will be rolled out over time, Apple said. It did not say, however, when it would move beyond test.

.The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will cost the same as models they replace and use a new chip and an aluminum case. A customizable button that can control the camera was one of the most touted hardware features in a format that looks similar to previous models.
The higher-end 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are made from titanium and have more AI capability, such as offering suggestions on how to set up a photo shoot more effectively and audio-editing capabilities aimed at professional-level video production.
Apple’s new iPhone chips use the latest version of Arm’s architecture that includes specific features to speed AI applications.
“Existing iPhone users who have had their device for 3-4 years will definitely be enticed to upgrade, even if some things are rolling out later, as this will future-proof their device for AI,” said International Data Corp analyst Nabila Popal.
Still, several analysts described the delays in features as keeping many potential buyers on the sidelines initially.
“You might see people wait a little bit to see how these things work out, how well they function, and then they’ll start to investigate it. But I don’t think we’ll see the mad rush that we’ve seen in years past,” said TECHnalysis Research founder Bob O’Donnell.
By comparison, Huawei’s website showed on Monday that it had garnered more than 3 million pre-orders for its Z-shaped tri-fold phone ahead of its official unveiling. This underscores Huawei’s ability to navigate U.S. sanctions and solidifies its position against Apple in China, where consumers are hankering for more AI features and are willing to pay for them.

WATCHES AND AIRPODS
Apple also unveiled new Watches and AirPods with health-focused capabilities, as well as hardware-design improvements. Apple highlighted the Watch’s ability to discover longer-term health conditions such as sleep apnea as well as detecting and responding to emergencies such as a fall.
As it updated AirPods, Apple rolled out hearing-aid features that it has submitted for U.S. regulatory review.
Apple fans globally have been waiting to see the new phones with AI. IPhones accounted for more than half of Apple’s $383 billion sales last year.
“While Android phones may have some of these features, Apple has packaged them well and will be able to market them far more broadly,” said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria.
China offers particular challenges to Apple.
“Apple fell out of the list of top five smartphone vendors in China in Q2,” said eMarketer senior technology analyst Gadjo Sevilla. “It was the first time that China’s domestic smartphone firms held all five spots. Since Apple Intelligence still needs to be approved by Beijing for a rollout in China, it will likely not initially be a key driver for adoption in the region.”
In China, Apple aggressively slashed prices earlier this year, prompted by government restrictions and increased domestic competition.
The iPhone 16 lineup is the first Apple smartphones designed around these AI features though those are expected also to be available on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the top-end versions of the previous-generation devices.
Rivals including Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google are also showcasing AI features to try to upend Apple’s dominance in the high-end smartphone market.