US, Japan and Australia to conduct joint military drills in disputed South China Sea: report
Philippines officials reportedly revealed Sunday that the United States, Japan and Australia are gearing up to conduct joint military drills in the disputed South China Sea this week.
The move, which will include three aircraft and helicopter carriers sailing together in a show of force and undertaking joint drills, is meant to underscore the three countries' commitment to the rule of law in the region after a recent show of Chinese aggression in the disputed waters, two Filipino security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to publicly discuss details of the planned drills, told the Associated Press. Their commanders are set to meet with Filipino counterparts in Manila after the offshore drills.
The U.S. plans to deploy an aircraft carrier, the USS America, while Japan would send one of its biggest warships, the helicopter carrier JS Izumo. The Royal Australian Navy would send its HMAS Canberra, which also carries helicopters, one of the two officials told the AP, adding that the joint drill was planned a few months ago.
The Philippines would not be part of this week's drills due to military logistical limitations but is open to becoming a participant in the future, the official said.
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The White House shared a join-statement from Camp David Friday between the U.S., Japan and South Korea that, among other topics, condemns the "dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims that we have recently witnessed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the South China Sea."
"We strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific," the statement said. "In particular, we steadfastly oppose the militarization of reclaimed features; the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels; and coercive activities. In addition, we are concerned about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. We reiterate our firm commitment to international law, including the freedom of navigation and overflight, as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)."
"We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community. There is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, and we call for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues."
The drills this week come after Philippine officials said six Chinese coast guard ships and two militia vessels blocked two Philippine navy-chartered civilian boats taking supplies to the Philippine forces stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal on Aug. 5. One supply boat was hit with a powerful water cannon by the Chinese coast guard while the other managed to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to the Filipino forces guarding the shoal, the Philippine military said.
The U.S., Japan and Australia were among several countries that immediately expressed support for the Philippines and concern over the Chinese action following the tense stand-off.
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The Chinese coast guard acknowledged its ships used water cannons against the Philippine vessels, which it said strayed without permission into the shoal, which Beijing calls Ren’ai Jiao.
"In order to avoid direct blocking and collisions when repeated warnings were ineffective, water cannons were used as a warning. The on-site operation was professional and restrained, which is beyond reproach," the Chinese coast guard said. "China will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty."
The Philippine military said on Saturday that it would again attempt to deliver basic supplies to its forces in the Second Thomas Shoal, but didn't provide further details. The mission "is a clear demonstration of our resolve to stand up against threats and coercion and our commitment in upholding the rule of law," the Armed Forces of the Philippines said.
Following the incident earlier this month, Washington renewed a warning that it is obliged to defend its longtime treaty ally if Philippine public vessels and forces come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
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Meanwhile, the AP reported, citing satellite photos just days ago, that China appears to be constructing an airstrip on a disputed South China Sea island that is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. The work on Triton island in the Paracel group mirrors construction on seven human-made islands in the Spratly group to the east which have been equipped with airstrips, docks and military systems, although it currently appears to be somewhat more modest in scale.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea as its own, denying the claims of others and defying an international ruling invalidating its assertion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Netherlands and Denmark to give long pleaded-for F-16s to Ukraine
The Netherlands and Denmark will provide Ukraine with long-requested F-16 fighter jets in the coming weeks, the two countries announced Sunday.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says his country has 42 available F-16s, though he did not commit to sending them all to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Rutte and expressed hope it could turn the tide against Russia.
"The military training will start in the very near future, and then it will take of course some time for the planes to get operational with well-trained pilots, but we'll do everything to make it happen as soon as possible," Rutte said after meeting Zelenskyy in Eindhoven.
"We highly appreciate the leadership of the Netherlands in the comprehensive and powerful support for Ukraine," Zelenksyy said in his own statement.
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Zelenskyy went on to express hope that the Netherlands would continue with its current level of support for Ukraine even after the country goes through its upcoming parliamentary elections.
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The U.S. approved Denmark and the Netherlands to provide the F-16s last week. President Biden's administration had already approved F-16 training programs for Ukrainian pilots earlier this year.
Zelenskyy has argued that the F-16s could provide a boost to Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces, which so far has struggled to gain ground.
"Aircraft can speed up this process," he said Sunday. "We are speaking about air defence, because we have the winter ahead of us and we understand more than anyone else in the world what winter without electricity is like."
Zelenskyy is expected to conduct a similar meeting with Denmark officials later Sunday.
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The gift of fighter jets to Ukraine comes as the U.S. is becoming more divided over continued support for the country. President Biden proposed an additional $24 billion for their war effort earlier this month, only to run into outrage from many Republicans.
"This additional spending request deserves strict scrutiny from Congress and the American people," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital on Friday. "While the Biden Administration has ignored the security and humanitarian disaster happening at the border, their appetite to spend billions on other priorities has no end."
"We have real work to do here at home. The United States has doubled what other NATO countries have contributed – combined. Our NATO allies need to step up because the U.S. will not shoulder this alone," he added.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Russian moon mission ends in disaster as lander has ‘ceased to exist'
Russia's Lunar lander failed on approach and crashed into the surface of the moon on Sunday, marking an end to Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years.
Russia's spaceflight group, Roskosmos, announced the failure in a statement, saying the craft ran into a problem as it attempt to enter a pre-landing orbit. The Luna-25 spacecraft had been scheduled to land on Monday, but Roskosmos says it careened out of control and crashed into the moon around 12:00 GMT on Saturday.
"The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon," Roskosmos said in a statement.
Roskosmos says a commission has been set up to investigate the cause for the failure. It was Russia's first trip to lunar orbit since 1976.
The probe was intended to search for frozen water on the lunar surface, but the international prestige of the mission was far more important for the Russian government than any scientific discoveries.
"Study of the moon is not the goal," Russian space analyst Vitaly Egorov said previously of the mission. "The goal is political competition between two superpowers — China and the USA — and a number of other countries which also want to claim the title of space superpower."
The Luna-25 mission was the first ever to attempt a landing at the moon's south pole, where researchers have long suspected frozen water may exist.
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The failure of the Luna-25 mission underscores the decay of Russia's space program since the Cold War, when it went toe-to-toe with America's NASA.
The Russian program was the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth with Sputnik-1 in 1957, and again the first to launch a human being into orbit, with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Canada's British Columbia declares state of emergency as thousands are forced to evacuate Kelowna
British Columbia has declared a state of emergency as massive wildfires tore through the western Canadian province, forcing residents to flee their homes and seek shelter.
The province was declared to be under a state of emergency due to hundreds of wildfires Saturday, with the emergency management minister saying 15,000 people had been told to leave their homes.
The fires have mostly threatened large swaths of land in the Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories and Kelowna, a city of more than 132,000 people in British Columbia. The entire city of Yellowknife was told to evacuate, according to Fox Weather.
Since April 1, according to the province's Wildfire Service, 1,818 wildfires have burned about 1.61 million hectares (nearly 4 million acres) of land in the province. There are currently 366 active fires burning across the province.
The TransCanada highway, the main east to west interstate, is closed near Chase, around 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Vancouver, and between Hope, 150 km (93 miles) east of Vancouver, and the village of Lytton. British Columbia's Drive B.C. said detours were available for motorists.
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On Friday evening, British Columbia’s Premier David Eby said at a news conference that this wildfire season has been the "worst" in the province’s history.
"In just the last 24 hours, the situation has evolved and deteriorated quite rapidly," Eby said. "If you get an evacuation order, please leave. The situation is unpredictable right now, and there are certainly difficult days ahead."
Despite overnight efforts to battle the blaze in neighborhoods and other areas, those recovery efforts were "poor," the Wildfire Service said Saturday morning. The fire has burned nearly 26,000 acres (just over 40 square miles) as of Saturday.
"It was a devastating night last night, probably one of the toughest of my career, the toughest of all of our firefighter's careers," said West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund during a Friday press conference.
"We fought hard last night to protect our communities," the chief continued. "It was like fighting 100 years worth of firefighting at once in one night."
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge back peddled on Canada's earlier demands for news to be taken down from social media sites by insisting that Meta allow news to return to Facebook and Instagram in the wake of the fires.
"Meta's reckless choice to block news ... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," St-Onge said in a social media post. "We are calling on them to reinstate news sharing today for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency. We need more news right now, not less."
Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier echoed St-Onge, saying that the ban meant people did not have access to crucial information.
Their cries for news to be reinstated on social media sites come after Canada passed The Online News Act, which requires Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to remove news content for its Canadian viewers.
"We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, which was passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada," said Lisa Laventure, head of communications for Meta in Canada.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Taiwan's defense ministry detects 42 Chinese military aircraft amid 'warning' after top official's US trip
Taiwan's defense ministry says it detected 42 Chinese military aircraft on Saturday amid Chinese drills, which Beijing says is a "stern warning" over so-called collusion with "separatists and foreign forces," which comes just days after the island's vice president made a short visit to the United States.
Taiwanese Vice President William Lai's trip to Paraguay included stops in both New York City and San Francisco, which China's Communist Party blasted, saying the island is its territory and shouldn't be conducting foreign relations.
In a tweet on X, the company formerly known as Twitter, the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense said it detected 42 Chinese military aircraft, with 26 of them crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
8 Chinese military vessels were also detected.
"The R.O.C. Armed Forces are closely monitoring the situation with our ISR system and have deployed CAP aircraft, naval vessels, and land-based missile systems in response," the tweet states.
In a brief statement, a spokesperson for China’s Eastern Theater Command said the military exercises involved coordination between planes and vessels and their capability to seize control of sea and air spaces.
The spokesperson also said that the drill was testing the military's "actual combat capabilities." He added the drills are to serve as a warning over so-called provocations from pro-Taiwan independence forces and foreign forces.
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Chinese state media network CCTV reported that fighter jets and missile-equipped boats were used in the drill, which was intended to simulate the surrounding of Taiwan.
Taiwan's defense ministry blasted the drills as "irrational, provocative moves," adding that its military will stand ready amid Chinese threats, and that its forces have "the ability, determination and confidence to safeguard national security."
Xinhua, another Chinese state media outlet, quoted an unnamed official in China's Taiwan Work Office, who said that Lai's trip is collusion between Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the U.S., in what the officials call a "new provocative move."
The official also told the state media outlet that Lai is a "troublemaker who will push Taiwan to the dangerous brink of war."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
DOJ rules Capitol police suicide a ‘line of duty’ death
The Department of Justice has ruled that the police officer who died by suicide following the Capitol riots in January 2021 died in the line of duty.
Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith took his own life following the mass protest and riots in support of former President Trump.
"When my husband died, I was denied the line-of-duty benefits that he deserved," widow Erin Smith told The Hill on Friday.
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"But I knew from the beginning that Jeffrey died in the line of duty from the injuries he suffered on Janary 6," she continued.
Jeffrey Smith was a 12-year veteran of the force assigned to patrol in the 2nd District and assisted Capitol Police during the riots, where he was hit in the head with a metal pole by protestors. Erin said he then began to behave unlike himself and slipped into a depressive state.
He killed himself with a handgun on January 15, the day he was set to return to duty. He was 35 years old.
"What we learned was that Jeffrey’s injuries clearly caused his death," Erin told the outlet. "Right then, I decided that we needed to seek the line-of-duty death benefits, and we needed to change the law to allow such claims."
Jeffrey Smith's loved ones are the first beneficiaries of President Biden's Public Safety Officer Support Act, which was signed into law exactly one year before the Department of Justice made its ruling on Smith.
The legislation, championed by Erin Smith following her husband's death, "provides death, disability, and education benefits to public safety officers and survivors of public safety officers who die or become disabled as a direct and proximate result of a personal injury in the line of duty."
"The act specifies that post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, or trauma and stress-related disorders suffered by a public safety officer following an exposure to a traumatic event while on duty constitutes a personal injury in the line of duty if exposure to the traumatic event was a substantial factor in the disorder," the text of the legislation reads.
David Weber, an attorney for the Smith family, is seeking dispensation to have Jeffrey interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
During the height of the incident on January 6, approximately 850 Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) members were at the Capitol to assist U.S. Capitol Police, and by the day’s end, an additional estimate of 250 MPD members had been in the area to directly support the response and aftermath, Contee said.
Fox News Digital's Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
Suspension bridge collapses, injuring 32 in Indonesia, police say
A suspension bridge collapsed into a river, injuring 32 people at a duck-catching contest in Indonesia.
Footage shows the moment a bridge carrying dozens of locals fell into the shallow river near the village of Nanga Mentukak, East Kalimantan province, during Independence Day celebrations Aug. 17.
Residents of the town gathered along the shoreline and on the bridge to watch the competition. Joyous shouts were heard as villagers dashed and splashed around in the water, trying to catch the fowl. But cheers turned to screams when the bridge suddenly twisted and fell, dropping on top of people in the water, including children.
Local authorities said 32 people were injured in the collapse.
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"Some people had broken bones," said Inspector Rahmad Kartono, head of the Sekadau Police Criminal Investigation Unit.
"All the victims were immediately taken to the Community Health Center. Some of them were also referred to the hospital."
Police said the spectators had been told not to stand on the bridge, which was known to be unstable and unfit to carry heavy loads.
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"The suspension bridge broke because many residents watched the duck-catching competition from the bridge," police said.
Both contestants and spectators were injured, Rahmad said.
Those hurt were taken to the Nanga Taman Health Center for treatment, while those with more serious injuries were taken to the Sekadau Regional General Hospital.
No casualties were reported.
A police investigation into the incident is ongoing.
The incident comes nearly a decade after another deadly bridge collapse in the western part of the country. In 2014, ten children died after a bridge in the Aceh province collapsed in 6-feet high floodwaters triggered by heavy rains. Dozens of people were on the bridge watching a traditional wedding ceremony intended to ward of disasters when the bridge fell.
Another deadly bridge collapse in central Indonesia in 2011 claimed the lives of at least three people. That bridge linking the towns of Tenggarong and Samarinda in East Kalimantan province was clogged with traffic when the accident occurred, The Associated Press reported.
A witness said he saw at least one bus and a dozen motorcycles fall into the Mahakam River and survivors swimming to the shore in panic.
In 2016, officials said at least eight people were killed when a suspension bridge connecting two small islands near the resort island of Bali collapsed. Police said the water was not deep, but the victims were crushed by debris.
German archbishop 'disappointed' by diocese employees' attempts to access porn
The archbishop of Cologne, one of Germany's most important Catholic dioceses, expressed disappointment Friday that employees used work computers to try to access pornographic websites.
The statement from Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki came after the city's Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported that a list from the archdiocese showed more than 1,000 attempts to access such sites from its computers. It said that dozens of employees, including senior clerics, had made such attempts.
The archdiocese confirmed the existence of a list. It said that its IT service provider routinely checks whether its firewalls fend off attempts to access sites with risky content such as violence, pornography and drugs, and that they are not meant to check individuals' usage habits.
It said that the check turned up "no indications of criminally relevant behavior."
"It disappointed me that employees tried to access pornographic pages with the help of devices that our archdiocese made available for their work — even though the firewalls kicked in," Woelki said.
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"To some, the consumption of pornography may appear harmless," he added. "But I agree with Pope Francis, who condemns it and warns of its dangers, in particular the violation of human dignity."
The archbishop said he asked for the incidents to be examined as soon as he heard of them. He added that the archdiocese has many "committed and reliable" employees.
The archdiocese said its internal investigation had shown that Woelki himself wasn't one of the "users of incriminated sites," German news agency dpa reported.
Cologne prosecutors told dpa that they have the archdiocese's list and are examining it, but so far there is no suspicion of any crime and no investigation.
The issue came to light as the archdiocese experiences an unprecedented crisis of confidence centering on Woelki, a conservative who has become a divisive figure in the German church.
In 2020, Woelki kept under wraps a report he commissioned on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse, citing legal concerns and infuriating many local Catholics. A second report, published in March 2021, found 75 cases in which high-ranking officials neglected their duties.
The report absolved Woelki of any neglect of his legal duty with respect to abuse victims. He subsequently said he made mistakes in past cases involving sexual abuse allegations.
Two papal envoys were dispatched to Cologne to investigate possible mistakes by senior officials in handling cases. Their report led the Vatican to give Woelki a " spiritual timeout " and criticize major communication errors.
In March 2022, after his return, the archbishop said he had submitted an offer to resign. Francis hasn't yet acted on it.
Young Dutch man arrested in Italy after father and family friend fatally stabbed
Italian police on Friday arrested a 21-year-old Dutch man suspected in the stabbing death of his father and a family friend in the countryside near the French border.
An official from the Carabinieri paramilitary police confirmed the arrest. Italian media said the suspect was found hiding in the woods near where the attack occurred in the Cuneo province of Piedmont. He has been transported to the city of Cuneo aboard an ambulance.
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According to Italian news reports, the 21-year-old suspect is believed to suffer from psychiatric problems.
The family friend, who was also Dutch, was reportedly hosting the father and son for a visit at his home when the attack occurred.
The motive for the stabbings wasn’t immediately clear.
ECB to raise objections to Italy's windfall tax on banks
The European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing to send a letter to Italy raising objections about the government's windfall tax on banks' profits, the Corriere della Sera daily wrote on Friday.
The letter will criticize the fact Rome announced the tax last week without previously informing either the Bank of Italy or the ECB as it is supposed to do under EU rules, the newspaper wrote, without citing sources.
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A spokesman for the ECB told Reuters on Friday its President Christine Lagarde has received an official request for consultation over the measure from Italy's economy minister Giancarlo Giorgetti and the ECB will publish its opinion "in due course."
According to the Corriere della Sera article, the ECB believes the tax risks weakening Italy's banks and its economy in general, concerns it will raise in the letter to be sent within "a couple of weeks" at the latest.
Recent opinions issued by the ECB regarding similar taxes on banks in Lithuania and Spain warned that they could erode lenders' resilience to economic shocks and reduce their ability to provide credit.
Australia's wine industry grapples with oversupply issues amidst Chinese tariffs and pandemic disruptions
Australia's wine industry faces severe oversupply problems that will need years to resolve, experts say, pointing to Chinese tariffs, high production and export bottlenecks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vineyards nationwide have enough wine in domestic storage to fill 859 Olympic swimming pools, Rabobank said this week in its third-quarter wine report.
"That’s over two billion litres of wine, or over 2.8 billion bottles," said RaboResearch analyst Pia Piggott, adding that the inventory was depressing prices, particularly for commercial red wines.
Ties with biggest trading partner China deteriorated in 2020 after Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID, triggering reprisals by Beijing, such as anti-dumping duties on Australian wine and barley.
The curbs battered the wine industry, with exports to China shrinking to just $5.2 million in the year to June, from a peak of $1.2 billion for the year to January 2020, when the pandemic began to take hold.
"No other market can quickly compensate for the China market," said Lee McLean, chief executive of industry body Australian Grape & Wine, thanks to Chinese drinkers' obsession with red wine.
Diversification into markets such as Britain, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere in Asia would take time to yield results, McLean added.
China, traditionally an avid purchaser of Australian commodities, including iron ore, resumed buying coal and timber this year after tension between the two has eased since the centre-left Labor party won power in Australia last year.
The recent removal of tariffs on Australian barley has fed hopes for an early easing of the five-year tariffs China imposed on Australian wine in 2021.
But even if the tariffs are lifted this year and Chinese wine consumption recovers, Australia’s wine industry will take at least two years to work through the surplus, Piggott said, as the curbs had coincided with an exceptional growing season.
"This coincided with COVID, logistics bottlenecks and inflation, which were major hurdles in the way of plans to grow and diversify exports," she added.
"Thus, two-plus years into the tariff, prices of Australian commercial red grapes have significantly declined, and oversupply issues remain."
Australian wine exports declined a tenth in value to $1.87 billion and 1% in volume to 621 million litres in the year ended June, Wine Australia’s Export Report said in July.
This week, Australia's Treasury Wine Estates, the world's biggest standalone winemaker, reported a drop in its profits, hurt by lower sales.
Wine sales will not return to the same level for the company even if the high tariffs are dropped, its chief executive said in May.
The crisis has made quality red wines more affordable for Australian domestic consumers, however.
"All we can say is next time you go to buy a bottle of wine, make sure it's Australian," McLean said.
Ice cream prices double in 1 month as Argentina battles massive inflation
When Ernesto Acuna, a convenience store owner in Buenos Aires, received the new price list this week from his supplier of the snacks, condiments, sodas and ice creams he sells, he was shocked to find costs on some had risen 60% since late July.
The price list, updated after a primary election shock led to a sharp devaluation of the peso and interest rate hike on Monday, underscores the scale of Argentina's challenge to avoid inflation, already at 113%, climbing faster.
"An ice cream for someone who comes to the store that was 1,000 pesos before, today is 2,000," said Acuna, citing an increase of 35% and then 50% two weeks later. He added that owners like him of 'kiosko' mini-stores didn't know how to respond.
"We kiosko owners don't know if we should increase prices each day, or by how much."
The price lists from a major national supplier, analyzed by Reuters, showed an average hike of 18% between July 26 and Aug. 15. Many were grouped around 25%, while some prices were left unchanged. Ice creams and desserts saw the steepest jumps, although there was variance among different products.
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The analysis suggests that wholesalers are rapidly moving to raise prices after market volatility this week, which will feed into higher inflation in August as the country battles to avoid the hyperinflation it suffered in the late 1980s.
The price list offers a window into how these market shocks are passed on to small business owners, and eventually customers. Acuna said products that are imported, face scarcities, or are seasonal see the highest increases.
Businesses selling everything from cleaning products to car parts have rushed to adapt to the higher wholesale prices this week, suspending special offers and sometimes sales altogether.
Juan Pablo Spagnolo, 46, another convenience store owner, said after initial increases of 40%-50% on Monday and Tuesday compared to the previous month, by Wednesday he had received lists with more "reasonable" increases, ranging from 15% to 25%.
"I'm telling you the reality of today, but the reality of next Monday is completely different," Spagnolo said.
Even business owners with decades of experience, such as Acuna, are struggling to adapt to the triple-digit inflation, which analysts forecast will rise further in the lead-up to the Oct. 22 general election, where radical libertarian economist Javier Milei has taken pole position.
Since March, business owners have received updated price lists from their suppliers twice a month, double the frequency of a year ago, said Acuna. Any drastic news, such as Monday's devaluation, can lead to an additional list, he said. The price hikes are much steeper than past years, at least 10% per month, but with some products seeing much higher rises.
Owners then decide how to pass these price hikes on to customers, treading a fine line between maintaining profitability and ensuring a steady clientele, according to Acuna. Some implement the price hikes gradually so as not to scare away customers. Others decide to accept losses on some products in favor of keeping loyal customers.
"You keep trying to buy cheaper, look for a good price, run promotions," Acuna said. "You keep trying to keep people coming to your kiosko, to choose you. There's no other option."
Maria Leguizamon, a 48-year-old apartment manager and frequent customer at Acuna's store, said she will have to trim spending after this week's price increases – buying less meat and fewer treats.
"Prices have gone through the roof, in every way," Leguizamon said, adding that she didn't blame the store owners and small businesses who were just trying to survive. "It's madness what we're living through."
5 students beaten, murdered by Mexican cartel in horrifically graphic video were lured by job offer: report
The five young men who went missing in Mexico and were later shown on camera being brutally murdered by a Mexican drug cartel were lured to meet the gang with a fake job offer, according to a report.
The young men, all students and friends whose ages ranged between 19 and 22, who were duct-taped, beaten, stabbed and beheaded in a horrifically graphic video that made its rounds online this week, sought employment as private security, met a contact in town and were not seen again until the video surfaced, according to El Universal.
According to El Universal journalist Carlos Arrieta, the men were deceived into a meeting with the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel. The cartel hoped to recruit the victims into their ranks and killed them after they refused.
The men were later identified by their relatives as Roberto Olmeda, Diego Lara, Uriel Galvan, Jaime Martinez and Dante Cedillo, El Pais reported.
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El Universal reported the "strongest hypothesis" pointed to the young men contacting a call center to gain employment. Unbeknownst to the friends, the center is often "managed by the CJNG for [the] forced recruitment of people," the outlet reported.
According to the report, these call centers offer high-paying jobs with attractive job benefits that are actually a hoax to trick young people into the CJNG, which then forcefully recruits applicants.
The Fiscalía del Estado de Jalisco — the Attorney General's Office in the Mexican state of Jalisco — has yet to confirm the report and has not yet confirmed which of the two major drug cartels that vie for control over the La Orilla del Agua neighborhood in the town of Lagos de Moreno — the CJNG or the Sinaloa cartel — are responsible for the video and deaths.
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El Pais reported the mark "Pure MZ" on the released video is attributed to Mayo Zambada, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mexican authorities located the property where the photo and video were allegedly filmed and found four burned and decapitated bodies.
The bodies were badly burned and had not yet been identified, according to prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco. However, the bodies were found inside a building near where the young men were kidnapped on Aug. 11 and later photographed in captivity.
A fifth body was found by police inside a burned-out car in a nearby area.
Photos shared by Jalisco prosecutors show brick and concrete buildings on a ranch, isolated by an open field. They also showed bloodstains on the floor, shoes scattered about and investigators examining the area.
"This makes one think the five youths were there at this ranch," the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
During a news briefing Wednesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the killings as "very regrettable," while saying very little else about them. He mentioned federal prosecutors were taking over the case from Jalisco authorities as drug cartels were involved.
The young men went missing Friday while on a trip to attend a festival in the city of Lagos de Moreno, an area known for cartel violence.
They were next seen bound by tape, kneeling on the ground and surrounded by gang members, with one of them seen bludgeoning and apparently decapitating his friend.
It revives memories of the most horrifying instances of drug cartel brutality, where kidnapped victims were forced to fight and even kill each other in gruesome ways.
In 2010, the old Zetas cartel abducted men and forced any who refused to work for the cartel to beat each other to death with sledgehammers.
The following year, authorities found 48 clandestine graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with sledgehammers.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
UNRWA temporarily suspends services in Lebanon's largest refugee camp amidst concern over armed groups
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says it has decided to suspend all of its services in Lebanon’s largest refugee camp on Friday in protest against the presence of gunmen in its facilities.
UNRWA’s decision went into effect shortly before noon Friday at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon. Services will resume Saturday, UNRWA said.
Days of street battles took place in the camp between the Fatah group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and two Islamic militant groups, Jund al Sham and Shabab al Muslim. The clashes broke out on July 30, after Fatah accused its rivals of shooting dead a senior Fatah military official.
The fighting killed at least 13 people, injured dozens and caused millions of dollars' of damage in the camp, according to UNRWA officials.
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Lebanese security forces don’t operate inside the refugee camps, where security is in the hands of Palestinian factions who often compete for clout.
UNRWA said in its statement Friday that armed fighters are still present in its facilities, including schools. It added that UNRWA reiterates its call on armed actors to immediately vacate its facilities, "to ensure unimpeded delivery of much-needed assistance to refugees."
UNRWA said it "does not tolerate actions that breach the inviolability and neutrality of its installations." It added that schools are unlikely to be available for 3,200 children at the start of the new school year given repeated violations and significant damage reported.
Ein el-Hilweh is home to more than 50,000 people and is the largest of 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
'Cold-blooded' nurse Lucy Letby found guilty of murdering 7 babies at hospital neonatal unit
MANCHESTER, England — The nurse who led "a campaign of violence" and enjoyed "playing God" has been found guilty of murdering seven babies at a hospital, making her the U. K.'s most prolific child serial killer.
Lucy Letby, 33, was also convicted of trying to kill six other babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit during a yearlong killing spree between June 2015 and June 2016.
The trial shared shocking details of how a total 17 babies — all but one premature — were allegedly murdered or injured by Letby, described by the prosecution as a "devious," "calculating" and "cold-blooded" killer.
She attacked infants by injecting insulin, milk or air into their tiny bodies, leading to their sudden collapse. She was accused of physically assaulting one baby and causing a liver injury akin to a road traffic collision.
Letby took four attempts to kill one baby girl, attacked three sets of twins, twice murdering one twin, and murdered two triplets within 24 hours of each other.
BABY ATTACKED BY ALLEGED ‘KILLER NURSE’ LUCY LETBY RECOVERED AFTER BEING MOVED TO NEW HOSPITAL
She denied the 22 charges against her — seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder — but was convicted on 13 charges after the jury had deliberated for more than 99 hours.
Letby was found not guilty of two attempted murder charges, and the jury was undecided on further attempted murder charges relating to four babies.
The verdicts were delivered in three stages over a series of days, causing Letby to break down in tears. She refused to appear in the dock for the final verdicts.
Prosecutors told the jury that Letby was a "constant, malevolent presence" at the hospital’s neonatal unit when the trial opened at Chester Crown Court in October.
They claimed she was the "common denominator" and that the baby’s deaths coincided with her shifts.
Babies who had not been unstable "suddenly severely deteriorated," while others who had been sick and recovered suddenly deteriorated "for no apparent reason."
Letby was variously accused of "getting a thrill" out of murdering babies, "playing God" and killing one infant because she wanted to get the attention of a doctor she had a crush on.
Prosecutors described her as an "opportunist" who had targeted sick children while she was alone with them and used their vulnerabilities to "camouflage" her attacks, which had "patterns" or similarities.
They claimed she was caught red-handed on two occasions, once by a mother whose baby son was murdered and another time by a doctor as she tried to murder a baby girl.
However, Letby was able to get away with her crimes for so long, the jury heard, because colleagues simply could not contemplate there was a murderer on the unit.
She was eventually removed from front-line duties in July 2016 when doctors raised concerns about her involvement in baby deaths and first arrested her two years later in 2018.
A "confession" Post-It note, found by police at her home, read, "I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them."
She added, "I am a horrible evil person" and: "I AM EVIL I DID THIS."
Letby carried out social media searches of babies’ parents and was accused of being "a killer who was looking at your victims."
However, she denied harming babies and told the jury, "I only ever did my best to care for them."
Letby claimed the babies were the victims of poor care and accused a "gang of four" consultants of a conspiracy to cover up failings at the neonatal unit.
And a system that wanted to apportion blame, it was claimed, she became the "obvious target."
For legal reasons, the babies — who were referred to as Child A to Child Q in evidence — their parents and some witnesses could not be identified.
In heartbreaking testimony, some parents described seeing their babies collapse.
One mother, according to the prosecution, had unknowingly interrupted Letby as she was in the process of killing one of her newborn twin sons — Child E — by injecting him with air on Aug. 4, 2015.
The woman recalled the "horrendous" screams and seeing blood around his mouth and "feeling frightened" because she knew something was "very wrong."
Letby told the panicked mother that the bleeding was caused by a feeding tube rubbing her baby’s throat and "got rid" of her by saying, "Trust me, I’m a nurse."
However, Child E suffered significant blood loss, and when the mother later returned to the neonatal unit, she found medics desperately trying to resuscitate her son, to no avail.
Letby attempted to kill the boy’s brother — Child F — the following day by injecting insulin into a nutrition bag, but he survived.
She later showed "unusual interest" in the twins’ family, the jury heard, with many social media searches of them following Child E’s death, including on Christmas Day.
NURSE LUCY LETBY WROTE SYMPATHY CARD TO PARENTS OF BABY GIRL SHE’S ACCUSED OF MURDERING
The jury was told how a "smiling" Letby spoke to the mother of Child I after murdering her at the fourth attempt by injecting air into her feeding tube and bloodstream on Oct. 23, 2015.
The mother had witnessed medics trying to resuscitate her baby, and after she died, Letby asked if she wanted to bathe her daughter’s body and offered to take photos for her to keep.
Letby also later sent a sympathy card to the girl’s grieving parents just hours before her funeral, which contained the message, "Your loved one will be remembered with many smiles."
The prosecution claimed a "completely out of control" Letby went on a "murder spree" in June 2016 after returning from holiday to Ibiza, Spain.
She murdered two triplet boys, Child O and Child P, and allegedly attempted to murder another baby boy, Child Q, over three successive days.
Letby had already "got away" with so much already, the prosecutor said, it gave her "the misplaced confidence" she could do what she wanted.
Prosecutors claimed that when Letby spoke to a colleague about Child P and asked, "He’s not leaving alive is he?" it was because she knew what was going to happen.
"She was controlling things. She was enjoying what was going on and happily predicting something she knew was going to happen," said prosecutors.
"She, in effect, was playing God."
Prosecutors claimed her "campaign of violence" went undetected for so long because Letby’s colleagues had not contemplated the remotest possibility of a nurse killing babies, and her methods left little trace.
They said she was "calculating and devious" and had "gaslighted" staff by persuading them what they knew to be "utterly abnormal" was "just a run of bad luck."
Giving testimony, Letby denied "getting a thrill" from the "grief and despair" of parents whose children she murdered.
When asked for their motive, she replied that "I believe to cover failings at the hospital."
'SMILING' NURSE LUCY LETBY ACCUSED OF KILLING BABY GIRL AFTER FOUR ATTEMPTS
Meanwhile, her lawyers argued that babies had received "sub-optimal" care, and it was "unfair and inaccurate" to blame her.
The prosecution's case, it was claimed, was "fueled" by a presumption of guilt. They described Letby as a hardworking and dedicated nurse who "loved" her job and also pointed out that she worked on the unit for years and treated hundreds of children prior to the alleged events.
Her behavior did not change, they argued, and the more likely reason babies had collapsed or died was their health or condition, staffing pressures, failings in care, and the unit taking on too many babies with high care needs.
In a statement, Pascale Jones, of the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service said, "Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability.
"In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids — or medication like insulin — would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponized her craft to inflict harm, grief and death."
The statement noted, "Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families."
It went on, "Her attacks were a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her. My thoughts are with families of the victims who may never have closure, but who now have answers to questions which had troubled them for years."
The British government has ordered an independent inquiry into the case. It will investigate the circumstances behind the crimes to ensure "vital lessons are learned".
U.K. Health Secretary Steve Barclay said, "I would like to send my deepest sympathy to all the parents and families impacted by this horrendous case," concluding, "This inquiry will seek to ensure the parents and families impacted get the answers they need."
Canadian woman who attempted to assassinate Trump sentenced to 22 years behind bars
A Canadian woman who mailed a threatening letter containing a poisonous substance to former President Donald Trump while he was serving in the White House was sentenced to over two decades in prison on Thursday.
Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, a 56-year-old dual citizen of Canada and France, was sentenced to 262 months, nearly 22 years, behind bars in Washington, D.C., for mailing a letter containing the poison ricin in 2020 to then-President Trump and others. She pleaded guilty in January to violating biological weapons prohibitions.
In the letter, Ferrier referred to Trump as "The Ugly Tyrant Clown" and laced it with the potentially deadly ricin, saying, "If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy! FREE REBEL SPIRIT."
Ferrier was ultimately arrested trying to drive across the U.S.-Canada border at the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, New York, while carrying a gun, a knife and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, authorities said. The letter was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House.
COULD TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF IF CONVICTED OF GEORGIA CHARGES? EXPERTS WEIGH IN
In court, Ferrier’s defense attorney Eugene Ohm said the "inordinately intelligent" French immigrant had no previous criminal record prior. He also highlighted that she had earned a master’s degree in engineering and raised two children as a single parent.
The judge ultimately sided with prosecutors, who argued that Ferrier made the ricin at home in Quebec and mailed the potentially deadly poison to Trump and to several police officials in Texas.
Ferrier was jailed for around 10 weeks in the spring 2019 after she refused to leave a park area after it closed. Investigators found eight similar letters sent to law enforcement officials in charge of the Texas jail where she was held.
In September 2020, Ferrier posted on X, then called Twitter, that someone should "please shoot [T]rump in the face."
In the letter, she instructed Trump to "[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election."
GEORGIA COURT CLERK ADMITS 'MISHAP' BEHIND 'FICTITIOUS' TRUMP INDICTMENT: 'I AM HUMAN'
Ferrier told the judge that she considers herself a "peaceful and genuinely kind person" but admitted she gets angry about problems like unfairness, abuses of power and "stupid rules." She also said she considers herself to be an "activist" rather than a "terrorist."
Ferrier added, "I want to find peaceful means to achieve my goals."
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich handed down the 262-month sentence outlined in a plea agreement with prosecutors, which also would expel Ferrier from the U.S. once she is released from prison. She will be required to be under supervised release for life, if she ever returns.
The judge also pushed back on Ferrier's actions. "That isn't really activism," she said. "I hope you have no desire to continue on this path."
Prosecutor Michael Friedman called the sentence an "appropriately harsh punishment" that sends a clear message.
"There is absolutely no place for politically motivated violence in the United States of America," he said. "There is no excuse for threatening public officials or targeting our public servants."
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The mail interception is a standard procedure for the White House, lawmakers and other senior officials and has successfully prevented previous potentially deadly letters from reaching their intended targets.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Democracy may end in Africa if coup becomes successful in Niger, politician says
If mutinous soldiers who ousted Niger's president succeed, it will threaten democracy and security across the region and the continent, a high-ranking member of Bazoum's political party warned in an interview with The Associated Press.
Boubacar Sabo said President Mohamed Bazoum had been "kidnapped" by members of the presidential guard who overthrew him on July 26 and have since kept him under house arrest.
"What is happening in Niger, if it succeeds, is the end of democracy in Africa. It’s over. ... If we fight today, it is to prevent these kind of things from happening and to ensure a future for our continent," Sabo said on Thursday. Sabo is deputy secretary general of Bazoum's Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism.
In a region rife with coups, Niger was seen as one of the last democratic countries that Western nations could partner with to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. The overthrow of the president nearly one month ago has been a big blow to the United States, France and other European nations, which have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance into training Niger's army and — in the case of the French — conducting joint military operations.
Analysts and locals say the coup was triggered by an internal struggle between Bazoum and the head of the presidential guard, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who says he's now in charge. Since then, the junta has been shoring up support among the population, exploiting grievances toward Niger's former colonial ruler, France, and silencing opposers.
Sabo is one of the few openly outspoken critics of the junta still in the country and not in hiding.
Several ministers and high-ranking politicians are detained, with human rights groups saying they are unable to access them, while others have been threatened, he said. Sabo called the groundswell of support for the regime in the capital deceptive, because the junta was paying people to rally in its favor. Niamey was also never a stronghold for Bazoum and the junta is being opportunistic, he said.
Pro junta rallies happen almost daily with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people marching through the streets, honking cars and waving Nigerien and Russian flags and chanting "down with France." The junta has severed military agreements with France and asked Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group for help.
But although there was real frustration from political parties and civil society organizations toward Bazoum's party, including disagreements with its military alliance with France, it's unclear how much genuine support the junta has in the capital and across the country, Sahel experts say.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS SAY NIGER’S DETAINED OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN INACCESSIBLE FOLLOWING COUP
"While many of those protesters may support the transition, it is probably the case that a sizeable amount of them are present only for monetary reasons or out of curiosity and the thrill of being part of the crowd," said Adam Sandor, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bayreuth.
The junta could face challenges with its support base across the country if it can't financially appease local elites and if the army continues to suffer losses from growing jihadi violence, he said.
Attacks by jihadis are increasing since the coup, with at least 17 soldiers killed and 20 injured earlier this week during an ambush by jihadis. It was the first major attack against Niger’s army in six months.
Militants are taking advantage of a gap in support by France and the United States, which have both suspended military operations in the country, as well as Niger’s distracted security forces, which are focusing on the capital and concerned about a potential invasion from regional countries, say conflict experts.
The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS has threatened to take military action if Niger doesn't release and reinstate Bazoum. It has activated a ‘standby’ force and on Friday its defense chiefs are wrapping up a two-day meeting about next steps.
Meanwhile, in Niamey and across the country, a volunteer recruitment drive is expected Saturday where people can register to fight and help with other needs so the junta has a list in case it needs to call on people for help.
"We know that our army may be be less in terms of numbers than the armies (coming)," said Amsarou Bako, one of the organizers. "Those who are coming, they have information about our army," he said.
Residents of the capital are struggling to cope with the financial impact caused by the coup. Not only have the severe economic and travel sanctions made it hard for people to access their money and for shop owners to import food, the crisis has also forced hundreds of foreigners to leave, which has impacted local businesses.
"I used to have all kind of customers here, Americans, French, Italians," said Mamoudou Idrissa a restaurant owner. But now many foreigners have left and those who remain are afraid to go out, he said. "Only Nigerien citizens come here now to eat."
Residents of besieged Gaza escape life hardships with city’s 1st cat cafe
The global cat cafe trend, where people pay to have coffee and hang out with cats, has finally come to the besieged Gaza Strip.
In the impoverished Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas militant group and crippled by a 17-year blockade, residents seeking to escape the territory's troubles flocked on Thursday to the new Meow Cafe — Gaza City's answer to the quirky concept tried successfully around the world.
The cafe's founder, 52-year-old Naema Mabed, said she envisioned the spot as a unique escape from the pressures of life in Gaza — with its lack of recreational options, a youth unemployment rate of over 60% and frequent rounds of conflict with Israel since Hamas violently seized control of the strip in 2007.
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At the cozy hang-out, Mabed offers a modest drink service and encourages guests to head straight to the cat corner to pet and play with furry friends. The rules of entry are simple: Visitors must cover their shoes with plastic and wash their hands before cuddling the cats.
"I have spent my life raising cats, and they’re a source of joy and quiet, a release of pressures," Mabed told The Associated Press, as cats roamed around her. She described feline communion as a "global anti-depressant."
Her customers seem to agree. They looked exuberant as they played and lounged with the 10 cats in residence, including some named Tom, Dot, Simba and Phoenix. Some guests were quiet as they soaked in the cats' calming presence.
The cats are not adoptable, says Mabed, who is strongly bonded to her feline friends.
"The feeling, honestly, is that you just come to feel the psychological comfort of the cats," said 23-year-old Eman Omar, who had paid the entrance fee of $1.30 to spend half an hour snuggling with cats. "Everything is beautiful!"
Experts said the cafe does far more than indulge the cat-crazed and give visitors a chance for a good selfie. Psychologist Bahzad al-Akhras said that in places like Gaza such havens can serve as therapy for those scarred from the strip's devastating wars and other hardships.
"Any place that provides humans a kind of interaction with animals has a positive psychological impact," al-Akhras said.
It wasn't easy for Mabed to bring the cat cafe trend to Gaza. Opening shop in the enclave presented a range of challenges — not only financial. The idea of paying to hang out with cats when stray cats roam free on Gaza City's streets every day struck some residents as ridiculous.
But for cat-lovers who face travel restrictions because of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade and might not experience the wildly popular trend elsewhere, the experience was pure bliss.
"If you’re a cat lover, this is your place," Omar, the customer, said. "If you don’t love cats, you will feel an urge to love them."
Beijing begins annual robotics fair, astonishing visitors with humanoid robots, animatronic heads
Winking, grimacing or nodding their heads, robots mimicked the expressions of visitors at a robot expo in Beijing.
They were among the creations dazzling people attending the annual World Robot Conference, where companies showed off robots designed for a wide range of uses, including manufacturing, surgery and companionship.
The animatronic heads and humanoid robots on display at the EX Robots booth this week personified the image of what robots are supposed to be in the popular imagination, with synthetic skin and lifelike facial expressions complimented by moving arms and hands.
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CEO Li Boyang said they’re ideal for roles that require interacting with the public, such as in museums, tourist attractions, school settings and "companion scenarios."
Doggie droids — a mainstay of high tech fairs — were out in force. Canine robots shook hands with fairgoers and performed handstands on their front paws.
Elsewhere at the fair, robotic arms served Chinese tea, prepared ice cream cones, bounced ping pong balls and gave visitors back massages.
Harvesting robots demonstrated how they could pick apples off the branch, while an artist robot drew portraits of visitors.
Industrial robot arms for factory production lines also grabbed focus. One of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s goals is to move the country’s vast manufacturing sector away from low-cost creation of cheap goods into more high-tech production, and industrial robots will be an important element of that plan.
North Korean taekwondo athletes spotted in Beijing, marking country’s first delegation sent abroad since COVID
North Korea appears to have cracked open its borders in the first significant way since they were shut at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, with the impoverished nation sending a large group of taekwondo athletes and officials through Beijing to an international competition.
The group of around 80 men and women wearing white track suits with the North Korean flag on the front were in the departure hall of Beijing’s international airport. They reportedly arrived Wednesday or Thursday.
The group was expected to take an Air Astana flight to Kazakhstan to compete in the International Taekwon-do Federation World Championships, according to Japanese and South Korean media. The competition is being held in Astana through Aug. 30.
North Korea has very limited air connections at the best of times, and international travel all but ended when it closed its borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19. How badly North Koreans were affected by the illness is unknown. Most of the country's 26 million people have no access to vaccines, lack basic health care and are prevented from sharing information with the outside world.
In September 2022, North Korea resumed freight train service with China, its biggest trading partner and economic pipeline.
On Thursday, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers that North Korea is preparing to further reopen its border gradually as part of its efforts to revitalize its struggling economy.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that North Korea’s economy shrank each year in 2020-2022 and its gross domestic product last year was 12% less than in 2016, according to Yoo Sang-bum, one of the lawmakers who attended the briefing.
The apparent resumption of travel came as the U.N. rights chief, Volker Türk, told the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council on North Korean human rights since 2017 that the country was increasing its repression and people were becoming more desperate, with some reported to be starving as the economic situation worsens.
Türk said North Korea's restrictions are even more extensive, with guards authorized to shoot any unauthorized person approaching the border and with almost all foreigners, including U.N. staff, still barred from the country.
Passengers on Argentina bus run for their lives after public bus becomes engulfed in flames
Passengers fled a public bus on a highway in Argentina after it burst into flames in dramatic footage.
On Wednesday, August 16, police security cameras captured the large bus merging onto the General Paz highway in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Moments later security cameras capture the bus pulling into the breakdown lane and a small crowd of passengers tumbling out of the bus and fleeing as smoke slowly drifted from the vehicle.
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Video captures the fire spreading like wildfire and rapidly engulfing the entire bus and spreading across the asphalt and into the grassy embankment.
At first, incoming traffic was able to navigate around the fiery blaze, but after the fuel spillage, the flames impeded all three lanes of traffic, bringing traffic to a halt.
Local media reported that the cause of the fire was an electrical mechanical problem that was quickly put out by firefighters.
No one was injured during the incident.
Mexican investigators find decapitated, burned bodies after circulation of gruesome execution video
Mexican authorities have found four burned and decapitated bodies that may be linked to a gruesome video showing one of five kidnapped young men forced to kill one of his friends on camera.
Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco said the bodies were badly burned and had not yet been identified. But the bodies were found inside a building near where the young men were kidnapped Friday and later filmed while in captivity.
Photos shared by Jalisco prosecutors shows what appears to be a dilapidated building standing on an open field.
A fifth member of the group might be the body found by police inside a burned-out car in the area earlier.
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The decapitations matched the details of a disturbing video that appeared online earlier this week. It shows the bound, beheaded bodies of three young men.
In the video, someone tosses a brick off-camera for one of the victims to bludgeon the fifth member of the group before sawing off his head with a knife.
Families of the missing young men told authorities they recognized the clothing and appearance of the young men seen in the video.
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State officials are investigating the video but have called upon federal prosecutors to intervene because it likely involves drug cartels. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that decision was up to the federal attorney general.
The young men went missing Friday while on a trip to attend a festival in the city of Lagos de Moreno, which is in an area known for cartel violence. Investigators raided a series of brick and concrete buildings on a ranch Wednesday and found bloodstains on the floor and shoes scattered about.
"This makes one think the five youths were there at this ranch," the state prosecutor's office said in a statement Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Russia arrests US citizen on espionage charges: report
An American citizen of Russian origin has been arrested in Russia upon accusations of espionage, according to local reports.
The Lefortovo Court of Moscow had authorized the arrest of Gene Spector, but it wasn't clear if he had been taken into custody.
Russian news agencies said Spector had previously been convicted in a bribery case against the former assistant to former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. He was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for that alleged offense.
"The court granted the request of the investigation to detain US citizen Spector on charges under Article 276 (espionage) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation," the state-owned TASS news agency reported.
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The State Department said it was monitoring the situation.
"We are aware of reports of charges against a U.S. citizen in Russia," an agency spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "When a U.S. citizen is detained overseas, the Department works to provide all appropriate assistance."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Spector was born and raised in Leningrad, but later moved to the U.S. and became a citizen, TASS reported. He was the chairman of the board of directors of the Medpolymerprom Group of Companies, which specialized in drugs for cancer. He was previously accused of mediating the transfer of bribes to Anastasia Alekseeva, Dvorkovich's ex-assistant.
In a Thursday interview with CNN, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said there were no updates on Spector or his possible arrest.
"No, I'm afraid we're still digging into that kind of reporting, too. We just don't have any updates," he said.
Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and former senior official at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), told Fox News Digital that Russia continues to "hunt for Americans on Russian soil who can be imprisoned for any possible pre-text."
"Why? Because Joe Biden’s naiveté encourages this sort of hostage diplomacy. It works every single time," she said. "The Russians are able to compel the Biden administration to exchange ordinary Americans for high-value assets such as the former GRU military intelligence officer nicknamed "Merchant of Death," Victor Bout."
Bout was exchanged for WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was imprisoned in Russia for 10 months following her arrest at an airport for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil in vape cartridges into the country. The exchange drew heavy criticism because Bout was serving a 25-year sentence in U.S. prison after being convicted in 2011 of conspiracy to kill Americans, conspiracy to deliver anti-aircraft missiles and aiding a terrorist organization.
In April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged his Russian counterpart to release two Americans being held in Russian prisons, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being detained on espionage allegations, as well as former Marine Paul Whelan.
Whelan has been detained since 2018 on spy charges his supporters say are baseless. Relations between Washington and Moscow have been tense following Moscow's invasion of neighboring Ukraine and the U.S.' continued supply of military aid to Kyiv.
"Biden’s White House traded Bout for Britney Griner. Next, the Russians arrested Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter," Koffler said. "A few days ago, the Biden administration struck another misguided prisoner exchange deal, with Iran. The Russians know how to push Biden’s buttons."
Koffler, who was born in the former Soviet Union and authored "Putin’s Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America," noted that Russia typically charges American with espionage because it carries long prison sentences, which makes that American a high-value candidate for an exchange.
Taliban says women lose value if men can see their faces in public: 'should be hidden'
The Taliban believe that women lose their "value" if men can see their uncovered faces in public, a view shared by Afghan religious scholars.
Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif, the spokesman for the Taliban's Ministry of Vice and Virtue, told The Associated Press Thursday that there is the possibility of "fitna," or falling into sin, if women’s faces are visible in public.
"It is very bad to see women (without the hijab) in some areas (big cities), and our scholars also agree that women's faces should be hidden," Akif said. "It's not that her face will be harmed or damaged. A woman has her own value and that value decreases by men looking at her. Allah gives respect to females in hijab and there is value in this."
Akif’s comments come two years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan following 20 years of U.S. occupation.
The radical Islamist group quickly re-imposed harsh restrictions on women’s dress and barred them from attending school – provoking global outrage, even from some Muslim-majority countries.
On Wednesday, U.N. special envoy Gordon Brown said the International Criminal Court should prosecute Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity for denying education and employment to Afghan girls and women.
RED CROSS TO CEASE FUNDING 25 AFGHAN HOSPITALS AMID AID CONCERNS AND FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS
Akif, meanwhile, claimed that the imposition of Sharia (Islamic law) has been welcomed by Afghans and that men no longer harass or stare at women like they used to do in the time of the previous government. He said the ministry relies on a network of officials and informants to check if people are following regulations.
"Our ombudsmen walk in markets, public places, universities, schools, madrasas and mosques," he said. "They visit all these places and watch people. They also speak with them and educate them. We monitor them and people also cooperate with and inform us."
When asked if women can go to parks, one of the spaces they are banned from, he said they would be able to if certain conditions could be met.
"You can go to the park, but only if there are no men there. If there are men, then Sharia does not allow it. We don't say that a woman can't do sports, she can't go to the park or she can't run. She can do all these things, but not in the same way as some women want, to be semi-naked and among men."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Accusations of rape and sexual violence by Sudan's paramilitary spark outcry from rights groups and UN experts
Sudan's powerful paramilitary has been singled out by leading rights group and 30 United Nations experts with accusations of rape and sexual violence against women in separate statements Thursday, as the war-torn country enters its fourth month of conflict.
Sudan plunged into chaos on Apr.15 when months of simmering tensions between the military and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the paramilitary group apparently targeted women and girls in the western Darfur region of non-Arab ethnicity as well as activists recording human rights abuses during the conflict.
It said it documented 78 victims of rape between April 24 and June 26.
U.N. officials warned in June that the fighting in Darfur has taken an ethnic dimension, with the RSF and allied militias targeting African communities. Darfur was the scene of genocidal war in the early 2000s when state-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed were accused of widespread killings, rapes and other atrocities. The Janjaweed later evolved into the RSF.
OFFSHORE DRILLING RIG ARRIVES OFF COAST OF LEBANON, WILL BEGIN OPERATING IN COMING WEEKS
Several victims, who had fled Darfur for neighboring Chad, told HRW they were targeted because they were from the African Massalit community or because they were activists reporting on the conflict. At least one victim said she was pregnant after being raped by a paramilitary member.
In the report, the rights group stated it spoke with nine women and one girl who said they had all been victims of rape, four by multiple men. HRW also spoke with four women who witnessed sexual assaults as well as five service providers, including medical workers, who provided victims in the West Darfur capital, Geneina, with support.
Rapes and sexual violence reported during the conflict so far by activists and rights groups — including HRW and Amnesty International — have been attributed to the RSF and their allied militias. Earlier this month, Amnesty accused the paramilitary of abducting 24 women and girls — as young as 12 — and holding them for days in conditions amounting to "sexual slavery" during which "they were raped by several RSF members."
"The Rapid Support Forces and allied militias appear responsible for a staggering number of rapes and other war crimes during their attack on El Geneina," associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, Belkis Wille, said in the report.
Several women who spoke to HRW also said they did not receive emergency post-rape care because it was not available or because they did not report the sexual assault they suffered to humanitarian staff in neighboring Chad.
HRW said the paramilitaries’ acts of sexual violence could amount to Crimes Against Humanity. It called on the U.N. human rights council to launch an investigation and initiate "a way to preserve evidence of the abuses."
Also Thursday, a group of 30 independent United Nations experts expressed alarm at reports "of widespread use of rape and other forms of sexual violence" by the paramilitary.
"Sudanese women and girls in urban centers as well as in Darfur have been particularly vulnerable to violence," they said in a brief statement. The group called on the RSF to "demonstrate its commitment to upholding humanitarian and human rights obligations."
The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, told the U.N. Security Council last week they were investigating alleged new war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
At least 4,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, the U.N. human rights office said. Activists and doctors on the ground say the death toll is likely far higher.
Rights groups and U.N. officials have criticized the military for bombing residential areas with artillery fire and airstrikes. Amnesty International said earlier this month that both sides have committed extensive war crimes in the ongoing conflict.
According to the latest U.N. statistics, the conflict has displaced over 4.3 million people. Over 900,000 of the displaced have fled to neighboring countries such as Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
In a separate development, Sudan's military said that it repelled an attack on Wednesday in South Kordofan from the Sudanese Popular Liberation Movement-North, or SPLM-N, a rebel force active in the area.
New York-bound Delta flight diverted to Rome after sustaining post-takeoff hailstorm damage
Hail battered a Delta Air Lines passenger jet bound for New York shortly after taking off from Milan on Monday, forcing it to divert safely to Rome's main airport, Italian media and the airline said.
The aircraft sustained damage to its nose and on the fuselage near the wings, Italian media said.
NORTH CAROLINA MAN, 69, ACCUSED OF GROPING TEEN ON FLIGHT
According to Delta, Flight DL185 "from Milan to New York JFK (was) diverted to Rome after encountering severe weather after take-off." A Delta statement didn't specify the kind of damage.
The plane had taken off from Milan’s Malpensa airport.
PLANE IN BRAZIL SKIDS OFF RUNWAY IN LATEST AVIATION MISHAP AS PASSENGERS HEARD SCREAMING
"The flight landed safely and passengers deplaned normally. The aircraft sustained some damage during the bad weather which is being reviewed by our local maintenance team,″ the airline’s statement said.
Delta didn't say how many passengers and crew were aboard the flight, nor whether they were booked on another flight Monday or might have to spend the night in Rome after landing at Leonardo da Vinci airport.
Milan is in the Lombardy region, which in recent days has been pummeled by several storms with hail the size of tennis balls and whipped by strong winds. On Monday, a 58-year-old woman walking to work in a factory died was killed by a falling tree in Lombardy, Italian Rai state TV said. In Milan, firefighter divers rescued a man trapped in his flooded garage after heavy rain.
New Zealand's justice minister resigns after being criminally charged in car crash
New Zealand Justice Minister Kiri Allan stepped down Monday after she was charged with being over the legal alcohol limit as she crashed into a parked car.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Allan was involved in the crash in the country’s capital of Wellington Sunday evening and was detained for several hours. Police have charged her with careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer.
Hipkins noted the police’s report that Allan tested over the legal alcohol limit, but she was not charged with drunk driving. Police said they issued Allan an infringement notice in relation to a breath test.
A court date has not been set. If found guilty, Allan could face fines and a suspension of her driver's license.
Once considered a rising star of the Labour Party, Allan had recently taken time off for her mental health after being involved in a publicized split with her partner. She also faced accusations of having poor working relationships with some staff.
Hipkins said he spoke with Allan on Monday morning and told her he thought she wasn't in a fit state to remain a minister and it was untenable for a justice minister to be charged with criminal offending. She agreed and resigned her ministerial roles, Hipkins said.
For now, Allan remains a member of Parliament.
"Kiri is an incredibly talented person who clearly has been battling some demons, and has not won that battle," Hipkins said, noting that she had been experiencing "extreme emotional distress" at the time of the incident.
Allan said she was sorry for her actions and was heading home to consider her future in politics.
"Over recent weeks I've faced a number of personal difficulties. I took time off to address those, and believed I was okay to juggle those challenges with the pressure of being a minister," she said in a statement. "My actions yesterday show I wasn't okay, and I've let myself and my colleagues down."
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon said he hoped Allan was getting the support she needs, but added the situation raised questions about the judgment of Hipkins, who took over as prime minister in January after predecessor Jacinda Ardern stepped down.
The incident was the latest scandal involving government ministers: Transport and Immigration Minister Michael Wood resigned last month after failing to disclose a possible conflict of interest with stock he owned; Police Minister Stuart Nash was fired in March for giving confidential information to donors; Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri was in May fired after switching allegiance to another political party.
The scandals in New Zealand’s government come ahead of the country’s national elections in October. Polls indicate the conservative opposition has pulled level or moved slightly ahead of the incumbent liberals in what promises to be a close race.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Some US arms shipments to Ukraine ending up in hands of criminal gangs, arms traffickers, watchdog says
U.S. Defense Department arms shipments to Ukraine have come with very little oversight, and at times end up in the hands of criminal gangs and weapons traffickers.
Criminal gangs within Ukraine have gotten their hands on some U.S. shipments of grenade launchers, machine guns, rifles, bulletproof vests, and thousands of rounds of ammunition since the U.S. began supplying the Ukrainian military with arms, according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report obtained by the Heritage Foundation.
The 19-page report, which was issued last October and only became public after a Heritage Foundation Freedom of Information Act request, details specific instances in which U.S. shipments were intercepted by criminal actors in Ukraine. In one example, Ukraine's security services, Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy (SBU), disrupted a plot by gangs to pose "as members of a humanitarian aid organization who distributed bulletproof vests."
UKRAINE LAUNCHED DRONE STRIKE NEAR MOSCOW'S DEFENSE HQ, RUSSIA CLAIMS
"The group illicitly imported the vests and sold them, rather than distributed them to Ukrainian forces. A member of the group was found with a cache of vests worth $17,000," the report reads.
In another instance the SBU "disrupted a group of arms traffickers who were selling weapons and ammunition stolen from the front lines in southern Ukraine," the report said.
In other instances, criminal groups were found to be storing weapons sent to Ukraine by the United States.
"In mid-August 2022, the SBU disrupted a group of volunteer battalion members who took more than 60 rifles and almost 1,000 rounds of ammunition and stored them illegally in a warehouse, presumably for sale on the black market," the report reads.
CRIMEAN BRIDGE ATTACK LEAVES TWO DEAD, DAMAGES KEY RUSSIAN SUPPLY LINE
The U.S. has sent over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia's invasion last year, a figure that includes military, humanitarian and financial aid. But there has at times been a lack of oversight to ensure that aid is reaching the correct places, which the report blamed on a lack of U.S. presence in the country.
"During the evaluation, we found that the DoD was unable to provide ‘[end-use] monitoring (EUM) in accordance with DOD policy because of limited U.S. presence in Ukraine," the report said. "Therefore, we are issuing this report identifying the challenges faced by DoD personnel responsible for conducting EUM and Enhanced EUM (EEUM) when there are limited or no U.S. personnel present in the area the equipment is being used."
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.
Deadly suicide bombing at Somali military academy in Mogadishu claims lives of 25 soldiers
A suicide bomber on Monday targeted a military training academy in Somalia, killing 25 soldiers in the capital of Mogadishu, a senior army officer said.
Al-Qaida’s affiliate in East Africa, the Somalia-based al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The officer said more than 40 others were wounded in the bombing at the Jalle Siyad military academy, said the officer. He only his first name, Abdullahi, because he was not authorized to speak publicly. There was no immediate statement from Somali authorities.
BUILDING COLLAPSE IN CAMEROON'S LARGEST CITY CLAIMS OVER 30 LIVES, RESCUE OPERATIONS CONTINUE
Al-Shabab controls parts of rural Somalia and often targets high-profile areas of the capital.
Somali authorities launched a new offensive against al-Shabab last year to try to recapture extremist-held territory and dismantle the taxation and broader financial network that funds the fighters.
Somalia’s military is under growing pressure to assume responsibility for the Horn of Africa country’s security as a multinational African Union force slowly draws down. Partners including the United States, the European Union and Turkey help to train Somali forces.
Fierce wildfires sweep across Algeria, resulting in 15 fatalities, 26 injuries
Wildfires raged across Algeria killing 15 people and injuring 26 others, state media reported Monday.
APS news agency quoted the Interior Ministry as saying that at least 1,500 people were evacuated but did not provide details.
Wildfires, some spread by strong winds, moved across forests and agricultural areas in 16 regions causing 97 blazes in the north African country. The largest and deadliest fires ravaged parts of Bejaia and Jijel — in the Kabyle region east of the capital, Algiers — and Bouira, about 60 miles southeast of Algiers.
Operations to tamp down the fires continued with some 7,500 firefighters and 350 trucks on the ground as well as air support.
LOCAL WORLD FOOD PROGRAM HEAD SHOT, KILLED IN YEMEN
Algeria is no stranger to summer wildfires.
At least 37 people were killed in August after wildfires blazed near Algeria’s northern border with Tunisia.
A year earlier, at least 42 people were killed in blazes — 25 of them were soldiers called in to help fight the fires in the mountainous Kabyle region that is dotted with villages.
2 arrested in Serbia suspected of smuggling Cubans to Spain as part of international crime group
Serbian police said Monday they have arrested two people suspected of helping smuggle Cubans toward Spain as part of an international crime group.
The two Serbian citizens were arrested in a monthslong investigation in cooperation with Spain, the Interpol and Europol, police said in a statement. They said 18 more suspects have been arrested in Spain.
The suspects in Serbia are accused of organizing the illegal transfer of at least 53 people to neighboring countries — North Macedonia or Bosnia — and on to Spain, said the statement.
Serbia, a southeastern European nation located on the Balkan peninsula, is at the heart of a key land route for migrants trying to reach the European Union.
The country in April revoked a visa-free travel arrangement with Cuba following reports of Cubans moving on toward Spain and other EU countries after first coming to Serbia as tourists.
Serbia also imposed visas earlier this year for the citizens of Burundi, Tunisia and India for the same reason and under pressure from the EU, which is seeking to curb migration into the 27-nation bloc.
Roof collapse at Chinese middle school gymnasium claims 11 lives in Qiqihar tragedy
Eleven people were killed when a roof collapsed at a middle school gymnasium in China's far northeast, authorities said Monday.
The incident occurred Sunday in the city of Qiqihar and the last victim was pulled from the wreckage Monday morning. The official Xinhua News Agency said construction work at the school was the likely cause, after workers stored materials on the gym's roof that absorbed rain water.
Nineteen people had been in the gymnasium of the No. 34 Middle School, Xinhua said, but gave no details on how many were students. Social media and the Baidu news website carried footage of angry parents complaining about what they said was a lack of communication from authorities.
BURMA'S MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNVEILS GIANT SITTING BUDDHA STATUE AMID ONGOING CIVIL WAR AND TURMOIL
Such expressions of anger and defiance are usually quickly suppressed by police and government departments worried over social unrest. The ruling Communist Party allows no challenges to its authority and seeks to keep total control over the press and social media.
Construction and industrial accidents are regular occurrences in China, largely resulting from companies ignoring safety standards and corruption or a lack of diligence on the part of local government agencies.
Those problems are especially acute in second- and third-tier cities such as Qiqihar, which lies in the Chinese rustbelt province of Heilongjiang bordering Russia that has seen large-scale economic decline and outward migration in recent years.
Overloaded passenger boat capsizes off Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, claiming 15 lives
An overloaded passenger boat capsized off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing 15 people, rescuers said Monday. Authorities said that the 33 other passengers survived.
The vessel was traveling from Lanto village in Buton Central regency in Southeast Sulawesi province to nearby Lagili village when it capsized just after midnight on Monday, local search and rescue agency head Muhammad Arafah said.
The wooden boat was designed to carry 20 people.
A search and rescue team initially found 15 bodies and rescued six people, and had continued their search for the others. But the operation was later called off when officials determined that all on board had been accounted for.
"There were 27 people who survived, but had not previously been reported, because they went straight home," local search and rescue agency head Muhammad Arafah said in a statement.
Three inflatable boats, two fishing boats and six divers were deployed while the search was underway.
Thousands of residents had traveled to their villages to celebrate the regency's ninth anniversary on Sunday, and many people were transported by fishing or passenger boats.
Television news showed footage of people on fishing boats retrieving bodies in the overnight darkness, and grieving relatives waiting for information at a port and a local hospital.
Indonesia is an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands, and ferries and boats are a common form of transportation. With lax safety standards and problems with overcrowding, accidents occur frequently.
In 2018, an overcrowded ferry with about 200 people on board sank in a lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people.
In one of the country’s worst recorded disasters, an overcrowded passenger ship sank in February 1999 with 332 people aboard. Only 20 people survived.
17 found dead after migrant boat capsizes off coast of Senegal's capital city
At least 17 people were found dead after a boat capsized in Senegal's capital, local officials said Monday.
The bodies were discovered by the navy early in the morning and are believed to be migrants because of the type of boat they were in, said Ndeye Top Gueye, the deputy mayor of the Ouakam neighborhood of Dakar where the bodies were found.
"Because of the size and shape, we know that it’s a pirogue (a long wooden boat)," she said.
While this is the first time bodies have washed up in the neighborhood, migrant deaths at sea are becoming more common in Senegal, she said.
8 FOUND DEAD OFF SENEGAL COAST AFTER MIGRANT BOAT CARRYING 155 PEOPLE CAPSIZES
"It’s not the first time, it’s the umpteenth time. The government needs to take countermeasures."
It was unclear where the people were coming from, what nationalities they were or where they were going. But the Atlantic migration route is one of the deadliest in the world, with nearly 800 people dying or going missing in the first half of 2023, according to Walking Borders a Spanish aid group.
In recent years, the Canary Islands have become one of the main destinations for people trying to reach Spain, with a peak of more than 23,000 migrants arriving in 2020, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry.
RESCUE SHIPS SEARCH FOR HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS OFF COAST OF GREECE FOLLOWING SHIPWRECK
The boats mainly travel from Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania, with fewer coming from Senegal. However, locals and officials say there's been a surge of boats leaving Senegal this year.
Factors such as ailing economies, a lack of jobs, extremist violence, political unrest and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats to reach the Canaries. Last month in Senegal, at least 23 people were killed during weeks of protests between opposition supporters and police.
At the beach where the bodies were found, Associated Press reporters saw rescuers and volunteers working together to pull the capsized boat ashore. Clothes from the deceased washed onto the side and lay in a pile while authorities coordinated a response.
The tragedy on Monday is the latest in a string of rescued boats and bodies found along Senegal's coast.
Earlier this month, eight migrants were found dead after a boat capsized off the coast of northern Senegal as it tried to reach Europe, and seven people were found dead and 50 rescued on another vessel discovered off the coast of the northern town of Saint-Louis. At least 90 people are feared missing from that boat.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg fined by Swedish court for disobeying police during protest at oil facility
A Swedish court on Monday fined climate activist Greta Thunberg for disobeying police during an environmental protest at an oil facility last month.
Thunberg, 20, admitted to the facts but denied guilt, saying the fight against the fossil fuel industry was a form of self-defense due to the existential and global threat of the climate crisis.
"We cannot save the world by playing by the rules," she told journalists after hearing the verdict, vowing she would "definitely not" back down.
GRETA THUNBERG CHARGED WITH DISOBEYING LAW ENFORCEMENT DURING CLIMATE PROTEST IN SWEDEN
The court rejected her argument and fined her about $240.
SCHOOL-STRIKING GRETA THUNBERG VOWS TO CONTINUE PROTESTING AFTER GRADUATION
Charges were brought against Thunberg and several other youth activists from the Reclaim the Future movement for refusing a police order to disperse after blocking road access to an oil terminal in the southern Swedish city of Malmö on June 19.
"If the court sees our actions of self-defense as a crime, that’s how it is," said Irma Kjellström, a spokesperson for Reclaim the Future who was also present at the June protest. She added that activists "have to be exactly where the harm is being done."
The sentencing appeared to have little effect on the youths' determination — just a few hours later, Thunberg and Reclaim the Future activists returned to the oil terminal to stage to another roadblock.
9 people killed in plane crash in eastern Sudan as war reaches the 100-day mark
A civilian plane crashed after taking off from an airport in eastern Sudan, killing nine people, including four military personnel who were aboard the aircraft, the military said, as the conflict in the northeastern African country reached the 100-day mark on Monday with no sign of abating.
The military said in a statement that a child survived late Sunday's crash in Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea that so far has been spared from the devastating war between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Antonov plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, the military said. It blamed a technical failure for the crash. The statement provided no further details.
Al-Taher Abdel-Rahman, the secretary of Finance Minister Gebreil Ibrahim, was among the dead, according to the minister, who took to social media to mourn his employee.
Sudan has plunged into chaos since mid-April when monthslong tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country.
IRANIAN HORNET'S NEST OF TERROR GROUPS SURROUND ISRAEL AMID CALLS FOR NEW US SANCTIONS
"It’s been 100 days of war in Sudan, with a devastating toll on lives and infrastructure, but worse lies ahead," said William Carter, Norwegian Refugee Council’s director in Sudan.
The fighting has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. The sprawling region of Darfur saw some of the worst bouts of violence in the conflict with the fighting turning into ethnic clashes.
The clashes have killed more than 3,000 people and wounded more than 6,000 others, Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said in televised comments last month. The casualty tally is likely much higher, according to doctors and activists.
More than 2.6 million people fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, while more than 757,000 people crossed into neighboring countries, according to the U.N. migration agency.
The U.N. refugee agency warned that about 300 South Sudanese refugee children in Sudan's southern province of White Nile were dying from suspected measles and malnutrition since the start of the conflict.
"These figures are staggering — civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict are sadly uprooted from their homes and livelihoods on a daily basis," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said.
The conflict derailed Sudanese hopes of restoring the country’s fragile transition to democracy, which had begun after a popular uprising forced the military’s removal of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. A coup, led by the military and RSF, disrupted the democratic transition in October 2021.
Carter, of the NRC, warned about a "total collapse" in the country as international efforts have so far failed to establish a cease-fire to allow humanitarian support to millions of people impacted by the war.
"The first 100 days drew attention, but it’s fading. We must sustain efforts and apply diplomacy and mediation to tangibly impact civilians in Sudan," he said.
Humanitarian group Care International called for a cease-fire and the establishment of a safe corridor to allow the delivery of basic goods and services to those trapped in the fighting, as well as funds to meet the growing needs of Sudanese.
"The world cannot afford to look away from the worsening situation in Sudan as it has the potential to destabilize the entire region," said David MacDonald, CARE’s country director in Sudan.
Talks between the military and the RSF the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah repeatedly failed to stop the fighting. The Jeddah talks were brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Pro-democracy leaders, meanwhile, were meeting Monday afternoon in Egypt's capital, Cairo, the first such gathering for Sudanese politicians since the breakout of the war.
The Forces of Freedom and Change, the pro-democracy coalition, said the two-day meeting would discuss ways out of the war, and reviving the derailed transition to democracy.
The alliance, which co-ruled Sudan with the generals following the ouster of al-Bashir, reiterated its calls for the warring factions to stop fighting.
Building collapse in Cameroon's largest city claims over 30 lives, rescue operations continue
The death toll from a building collapse in Cameroon has more than doubled as rescue teams continue searching for survivors, authorities said Monday.
At least 33 people died in a four-story building that collapsed onto a smaller one in Cameroon's largest city of Douala early Sunday morning, said Celestine Ketcha Courtes, the housing and urban development minister.
Courtes said that more bodies were recovered from the rubble by rescue teams Monday morning and that some died in hospital from injuries. Five out of more than 20 people injured are in critical condition, she added.
The building collapsed in the Ndogbon neighborhood and was severely dilapidated, said Lt. Col. Abdel Kadrey, a fire department commander. "Occupants of neighboring houses told us that there were so many cracks on the walls of the building before it collapsed," he said.
Authorities say more than 200 people occupy both impacted buildings. It was unclear how many were home at the time of the collapse.
TRAGEDY STRIKES IN NORTHEASTERN CONGO AS BOMB BLAST KILLS 9, LEAVES A DOZEN INJURED
Rescue operations are still ongoing.
Cameroon's President Paul Biya has asked the housing ministry to appraise the damage.
Building collapses happen often in Douala, sometimes due to natural disasters such as landslides and other times because of poor construction, locals say.
Douala’s city council is currently demolishing houses in high-risk zones susceptible to floods or landslides. The building that collapsed on Sunday was not marked for demolition.
Japanese novelist Seiichi Morimura, known for trilogy about wartime army unit's atrocities, dies
Renowned Japanese mystery writer Seiichi Morimura, whose nonfiction trilogy "The Devil’s Gluttony" exposed human medical experiments conducted by a secret Japanese army unit during World War II, died Monday. He was 90.
His official website and publisher, Kadokawa, said Morimura died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital.
"Akuma no Hoshoku," or "The Devil’s Gluttony," which began as a newspaper series in 1981, became a bestseller and created a sensation across the country over atrocities committed by Japanese Imperial Army Unit 731 in China.
From its base in Japanese-controlled Harbin in China, Unit 731 and related units injected war prisoners with typhus, cholera and other diseases as research into germ warfare, according to historians and former unit members. Unit 731 is also believed to have performed vivisections and frozen prisoners to death in tests of endurance.
INDONESIAN FITNESS INFLUENCER JUSTYN VICKY CRUSHED TO DEATH BY 450-POUND BARBELL
Morimura began contributing articles to magazines while working in hotels. He won the prestigious Edogawa Rampo Prize for his mystery fiction in 1969 and the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1973.
Born in 1933 in Saitama, just north of Tokyo, Morimura survived harsh U.S. bombings of the Tokyo region toward the end of World War II and developed pacifist principles. He wrote a book about his commitment to defending Japan's postwar pacifist Constitution and opposing nuclear weapons. He joined protests against a 2015 reinterpretation of the constitution by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe allowing greater military activity.
His 1976 novel "Ningen no Shomei" ("Proof of the Man"), a mystery about a young Black man who is murdered, revealed the dark side of postwar Japan and was made into a movie.
Another popular novel, "Yasei no Shomei" ("Proof of the Wild"), published a year later depicts a conspiracy over genocide in a remote village.
Human rights group exposes atrocities in Mali: Abuses by army, suspected Russian mercenaries
Mali's army together with suspected Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries have committed summary executions, lootings, forced disappearances and other abuses, said a leading human rights group Monday.
Human Rights Watch said the atrocities happened in Mali’s central region and that several dozen civilians were summarily executed or forcibly disappeared since December 2022. The human rights group interviewed 40 people by phone, including witnesses, and reviewed a video "showing evidence of abuses by Malian soldiers and associated foreign fighters."
Abuses, according to witnesses interviewed by HRW, included the killing of at least 20 civilians, among them a woman and a six-year-old, during an operation in the Mopti region by "scores of Malian and ‘white’ foreign soldiers."
HRW said that much of the abuse took place during military operations in response to the presence of extremist groups in the Mopti and Segou regions and all, except one, involved foreign non-French speaking armed men described as "white", "Russians" or "Wagner", said the report.
Most of the civilians killed, arrested, or forcibly disappeared are from the Fulani ethnic group, which extremists have targeted for recruitment.
8 FOUND DEAD OFF SENEGAL COAST AFTER MIGRANT BOAT CARRYING 155 PEOPLE CAPSIZES
Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities the following year, with the help of a French-led military operation, but they regrouped in the desert and began launching attacks on the Malian army and its allies.
The country's military government ousted French forces in 2022 and has welcomed up to 1,000 fighters from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military contractor, which worked alongside Mali’s armed forces and has been accused by rights groups and civilians of committing abuses.
In a response to correspondence by HRW, Mali’s foreign affairs ministry said it was not aware of the abuse and that an investigation would be opened into the allegations.
The report comes weeks after Mali ousted the United Nations peacekeeping mission, which had been operating in the country for a decade and investigated human rights abuses as part of its work.
"(The UN mission) had flaws and weaknesses, but was capable of carrying out some very important activities, including granting a minimum of security to urban centers in central and northern Mali," Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior researcher at HRW, told The Associated Press.
Allegrozzi added that they are "concerned about whether civilians living in the most at-risk areas will have the protection they need," given Wagner forces’ "gruesome reputation and appalling human rights record."
Reports of abuse by Mali’s army and foreign troops suspected to be Russian are not new.
Last year the UN Human Rights Office found that more than 500 people were killed – the majority summarily executed – by Malian troops and foreign military personnel during a military operation in the village of Moura.
Allegrozzi said the government's counter-terrorism strategy is abusive and won't stem the insecurity.
"Killing civilians in the name of security won’t help," she said.
Nigeria tanker explosion leaves 8 people burned to death
A tanker exploded in Nigeria’s southern Ondo state on Monday, burning eight people to death, the road safety agency said.
The tanker was carrying gasoline and exploded while the victims were trying to extract the much sought-after fuel, according to Ezekiel Sonallah, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps in Ondo.
Sonallah said the driver lost control of the tanker on Sunday and veered off the road and crashed in Ondo’s Odigbo district. Both the driver and his assistant escaped unscathed. He said that the "problem was the scooping," hinting it was the reason for the explosion.
Authorities said all the victims were burned beyond recognition and couldn’t be identified.
VIDEO SHOWS MOMENT SUSPECTED GAS EXPLOSION ROCKS MAJOR CITY DURING RUSH HOUR, KILLING 1
Scooping fuel from tanker accident scenes has often resulted in deaths in parts of Nigeria. It has continued this year with the price of gasoline more than doubling since June 1 after the West African nation's new President Bola Tinubu ended the decades-long gasoline.
Fatal truck accidents are also common along most major roads in southern Nigeria. In January, 20 people were killed in two truck accidents in the southwest while 12 died in similar circumstances there in November.
Traffic regulations have been difficult to enforce and authorities are now seeking stricter penalties for offenders, said Sonallah.
European country plans city with high-rises made of wood: 'Engineered Timber'
A Swedish development company has revealed its plan to build a city made entirely out of wood.
"Sweden is progressive when it comes to wood construction," Annica Anäs, the CEO of Atrium Ljungberg, told The Economist, "but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work elsewhere."
"Stockholm Wood City" will reportedly be located in Sickla, a municipality to the south of the Swedish capital Stockholm. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2025 and conclude a decade later, according to Anäs.
The project will incorporate environmentalist aspirations, replacing traditional materials, such as steel and concrete, with wood. Development company Atrium Ljungberg reportedly hopes to reduce the "carbon footprint" of construction by 40%.
GRETA THUNBERG CHARGED WITH DISOBEYING LAW ENFORCEMENT DURING CLIMATE PROTEST IN SWEDEN
The project will largely use a special type of wood called "engineered timber," which are large composite wood panels in which its layered fibers have been adhesively connected.
Employed in various construction sites, it is known for increasing structural strength and can be industrially produced, allowing for a quicker and higher-quality construction process.
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For "Stockholm Wood City," this material will reputedly play a large part in meeting the completion deadline of 2035 and in achieving a set goal of a 20% return on the investment for the company.
Anäs hopes this may inspire a surge in wood construction throughout the world.
The city will encompass 250,000 square meters of land, or approximately 2.7 million square feet, which is the size of nearly 47 football fields.
The site specifically will include 2,000 homes, 7,000 offices, restaurants, and shops, all structured with wood, per the report. It is slated to cost around $1.4 billion.
Some traditional construction materials other than wood will also be used, but only for necessary foundational elements.
The group believes it can avoid some of the more obvious hazards, such as fire, due to advances in safety technology, fire safety methods and wood-refining methods.
Axios highlighted previous examples of wood composites that have proven highly successful despite these fire safety concerns, such as Singapore's college campus with buildings made almost entirely out of timber and the 280-foot-tall timber skyscraper in Norway.
Engineered timber has proven to resist fire damage well, as demonstrated by the U.S. Forest Service during construction testing and other research according to the report in The Economist.
Fox News Digital's Peter Petroff contributed to this report.
Video shows moment suspected gas explosion rocks major city during rush hour, killing 1
A suspected gas explosion rocked South Africa’s largest city on Wednesday, leaving at least 1 person dead and dozens injured.
Authorities in Johannesburg are investigating the cause of an explosion that resulted in the death of a man whose body was found by firefighters underneath a vehicle.
In addition to the man’s death, at least 48 people are said to have been injured.
The cause of the blast during evening rush hour Wednesday in downtown Johannesburg remains unclear. The company that supplies gas to that part of the city said it did not believe its underground pipelines were responsible, as authorities first thought.
An investigation is underway as city authorities brought in specialists to determine what other underground pipes or cables there were in the area and to determine if there was a threat of another explosion or gas leak.
"We are still searching for the source," said Panyaza Lesufi, the premier of the Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located.
Authorities estimated that an area covering five city blocks was damaged and at least six roads were affected. At least 34 vehicles were damaged, with some of them flipped on their sides or lying on top of other vehicles. Others had tumbled into gaping crevices that appeared in the middle of roads as the damage resembled a scene from an apocalyptic movie.
The explosion happened just before 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, Lesufi said, just as many people were gathering on the streets to catch a minibus taxi home, one of South Africa’s most common commuting methods. Most of the damaged vehicles were minibus taxis. Eyewitnesses said some people were sitting in the buses when the explosion threw them into the air.
One man, who did not give his name, told television station eNCA that he was in his car when he heard, "a big sound. The next thing, I was in the air and my car was overturning."
He said he was shaken but unhurt.
The blast comes just a few weeks after another explosion, on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, killed 17 people including three children ageS 1, 5 and 15.
Authorities have blamed that explosion on a toxic gas leak allegedly related to an illegal gold processing operation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ukraine launched drone strike near Moscow's Defense HQ, Russia claims
Russian authorities have accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on its capital city of Moscow early Monday, with one of the drones landing near the Defense Ministry's main headquarters.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the military jammed the two attacking drones, forcing them to crash into two non-residential buildings. Local Russian media reported one fell on the Komsomolsky Highway near Moscow's main Defense Ministry building, and the other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, destroying several floors at the top of the structure.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties.
The alleged attack comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has continued for more than 510 days and as the Russian military launched new strikes on port infrastructure in southern Ukraine.
CRIMEAN BRIDGE ATTACK LEAVES TWO DEAD, DAMAGES KEY RUSSIAN SUPPLY LINE
Ukrainian authorities, who do not usually claim responsibility for strikes on Russian soil, have not said if they organized the drone attack, which was the second on the Russian capital this month.
On July 4, the Russian military said five drones attempted an attack on Moscow. During the incident, Russia claimed it downed four of the five drones with air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow. A fifth was jammed electronically and was forced down, military officials said. The raid prompted authorities to temporarily restrict flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport.
Russian authorities said Monday that another Ukrainian drone attack in Crimea struck an ammunition depot and forced a halt in traffic on a major nearby highway.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, said an evacuation of several villages was also ordered within a 3-mile radius of the attacked depot. The military also shot down or jammed 11 attacking drones, Aksyonov said.
The reported attack was similar to one launched just days earlier, on Saturday, when drones targeted another ammunition depot in Crimea, sending huge plumes of black smoke skyward. It also prompted an evacuation of residents.
Russian forces responded to Monday’s attack by targeting port infrastructure along the Danube River in southern Ukraine with exploding drones. The attack left four workers injured and destroyed a grain hangar, the Ukrainian military said. Ukrainian forces downed three of the attacking drones.
The strike was the latest in a barrage of attacks specifically aimed at damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine. The Kremlin said the strikes were retribution for Ukraine’s attack last week on the crucial Kerch Bridge, which connects mainland Russia with Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the Aspen Security Forum over the weekend, that the bridge must be "neutralized" as Russia uses it to ferry military supplies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel parliament passes Netanyahu's judicial reform bill amid mass protests
Israeli parliament on Monday voted in favor of a judicial reforms bill supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has ignited mass protests.
The Reasonableness Standard Bill, part of a judicial reform package, passed along a 64-0 vote after members of the opposition left the Knesset hall once the voted started.
Netanyahu, who was released from the hospital earlier Monday after being fitted for a pacemaker, had arrived at Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, to continue negotiating revisions to the bill that seeks to limit the Supreme Court’s powers to reject government or executive decisions based on the current reasonableness standard.
Critics of the legislation say it would feed corruption and lean toward authoritarianism by preventing the country’s highest court from quashing the appointment of corrupt officials and allowing the ruling coalition to expunge individuals who disagree with its policies. However, those in favor of the bill say it will reign in the judiciary, arguing the reasonableness standard is too vague and allows the courts to reject the decisions of election officials based on political grounds.
On Sunday night, President Biden reportedly cautioned Netanyahu against rushing toward a vote. The Knesset is scheduled to go on recess at the end of this week until mid-October, the Wall Street Journal reported, and there has been talk of potentially extending the current session to allow time to negotiate.
"From the perspective of Israel’s friends in the United States, it looks like the current judicial reform proposal is becoming more divisive, not less," Biden said in a statement to Axios, addressing Netanyahu. "Given the range of threats and challenges confronting Israel right now, it doesn’t make sense for Israeli leaders to rush this — the focus should be on pulling people together and finding consensus."
"We believe that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of support," a U.S. State Department official echoed in a statement to Politico late Sunday.
Netanyahu and his far-right allies, a collection of ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties, say the changes are needed to curb the powers of unelected judges. Their opponents, coming largely from Israel's professional middle class, say the plan will destroy a fragile system of checks and balances.
"This is a clash between the Israelis and the Jews," Gideon Rahat, chair of the political science department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told the Journal. "It’s a clash between a more civil identity and a more religious identity."
ISRAEL'S HERZOG SHARPLY ADDRESSES CRITICISM FROM HOUSE MEMBERS AFTER SQUAD MEMBER'S REMARKS
Those in support of the judicial reforms say the bill will properly balance the powers of government, categorizing how an activist and liberal Supreme Court has blocked legislation pushed forward by Netanyahu’s government despite its growing political power. Opponents fear the judicial reforms could usher in an ethno-religious state that would potentially afford Jews a greater status above other citizens.
Demonstrators, many of whom feel the very foundations of their country are being eroded, stepped up their opposition, blocking a road leading up to parliament.
Businesses shuttered their doors in protest at the vote.
Further ratcheting up the pressure, thousands of military reservists have been declaring their refusal to serve under a government taking steps that they see as setting the country on the wrong path. Those moves have prompted fears that the military’s preparedness could be compromised.
"We are in a state of national emergency," Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who returned Sunday from a trip to the White House, said in a statement Monday. "During these decisive hours, I call on elected officials to act with courage, and to reach out in order to arrive at understanding."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
United Nations breaks silence on US soldier detained in North Korea, confirms dialogue with hermit country
The United Nations has started conversations with North Korea for the return of American soldier Travis King, who was detained in the county last week after he ran across the Koreas’ heavily armed border, according to the deputy commander of the U.N. Command.
Gen. Andrew Harrison said Monday that the well-being of Pvt. King, who crossed the Military Demarcation Line last Tuesday while he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, remains the command’s primary concern and that communication lines have been set up at the Joint Security Area between the North Korea and South Korea to initiate the process of returning him to the U.S.
This security area was established under the armistice agreement that stopped the fighting of the 1950-53 Korean War. Harrison did not provide additional details citing the sensitivity of the discussions.
The U.N.’s confirmation that dialogue and discussions were ongoing comes as North Korea has remained publicly silent about King.
NORTH KOREA DETAINS US SOLDIER WHO CROSSED BORDER 'WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION,' OFFICIALS SAY
Harrison said he "remains optimistic" but made no guarantees about how the conversation with North Korea would proceed or what determinations could be reached. Civilian tours to the Joint Security Area have been suspended since King was detained Tuesday.
U.S. officials have expressed that North Korea was ignoring their requests for information about King.
King’s crossing came at a time of high tensions in the Korean Peninsula, where North Korea has been conducting military demonstrations while joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States continue as well.
NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR MAKES RARE APPEARANCE AT UN, BLAMES US FOR ESCALATION
Harrison's comments came hours after South Korea's military confirmed USS Annapolis, a nuclear-propelled U.S. submarine, arrived at a port on Jeju Island. The submarine was sent as North Korea continues test-firing ballistic and cruise missiles.
It is the second major U.S. naval asset to visit the Korean Peninsula this month aimed to counter North Korean nuclear threats after USS Kentucky traveled to South Korea last week.
USS Kentucky became the first U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to come since the 1980s. North Korea reacted to its arrival in Busan by firing two short-range missiles into the ocean on Wednesday in an apparent show of force, suggesting the hermit kingdom could make nuclear strikes against South Korea and deployed U.S. naval vessels.
The two missiles are only the latest in a series fired by North Korea amid protestations against U.S. presence in the region and insistence that the communist nation is only acting in self-defense.
"Exercise of the right to self-defense is a legitimate right of a sovereign state which nobody can deny as it is recognized under the UN Charter and international law," said North Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Kim Song.
Analysts say North Korea may wait weeks or even months to provide meaningful information about King to maximize its leverage in eventual negotiations. The delay also adds urgency to U.S. efforts to secure his release, potentially setting up additional concessions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel PM Netanyahu released from hospital as demonstrators protest judicial overhaul plan ahead of key vote
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, was released from the hospital Monday morning following an emergency heart procedure as tens of thousands of demonstrators held rival rallies ahead of a key vote on the government's judicial overhaul plan.
Netanyahu’s sudden hospitalization for the implant of a pacemaker came ahead of Monday's vote in Parliament that is expected to approve the first major piece of legislation in the contentious plan.
The overhaul calls for sweeping changes to the powers of the judiciary, including limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to challenge parliamentary decisions and changing the way in which judges are selected.
Netanyahu and his allies say the changes are necessary to keep the powers of unelected judges in check, but opponents argue the plan will damage the country’s system of checks and balances and push Israel toward authoritarianism.
ISRAEL PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU HAS SUCCESSFUL SURGERY FOR PACEMAKER IMPLANTATION AFTER HEALTH SCARE
The prime minister said he was looking for a compromise with his opponents as he was preparing for Monday's vote, which would move a key piece of the legislation into law.
"I want you to know that tomorrow morning I’m joining my colleagues at the Knesset," he said on Sunday.
According to the Associated Press, protesters Monday morning were seen waving Israeli flags, and banging on drums while blocking roads in Jerusalem as police used water cannons to disperse them.
"The state of Israel stands before destruction and ruin that is being brought upon it by a gang of extremists and kooks. We must go up to Jerusalem today!" one branch of the protest movement declared on social media.
ISRAELI PROTESTORS BLOCK HIGHWAYS AS PART OF COUNTRYWIDE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST JUDICIAL OVERHAUL
The plan prompted seven months of protests and led to harsh criticism from business and medical leaders. An increasing number of military reservists in key units have said they will stop reporting for duty if the plan is approved.
U.S. President Joe Biden has called on Netanyahu to freeze the plan and Israel's ceremonial president Isaac Herzog, who returned Sunday from a trip to the White House, has attempted to reach a compromise between the prime minister and his opponents.
"This is a time of emergency," Herzog said. "We have to reach an agreement."
Herzog planned meetings later Sunday with Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid and the head of another opposition party, National Unity's Benny Gantz.
During the meeting, tens of thousands of supporters and opponents were gathering for mass rallies. Netanyahu's supporters marched on central Tel Aviv, which is normally the setting for anti-government protests, while his opponents were in Israel's Knesset, or parliament.
ISRAELI EX-SECURITY CZAR BACKS RESERVIST PROTEST AGAINST NETANYAHU JUDICIAL REFORM PLAN
After seven months of protests, legislators will vote Monday on an overhaul measure that would stop judges from striking down government decisions for being "unreasonable."
Simcha Rothman, a main proponent of the overhaul, denounced the courts by saying they damaged Israel's democratic ideals by arbitrarily striking down government decisions.
"This small clause is meant to restore democracy to the state of Israel," Rothman said. "I call on Knesset members to approve the bill."
Supporters say the current "reasonability" standard gives judges excessive powers over decision-making by elected officials. Critics, on the other hand, argue that removing it would allow the government to approve arbitrary decisions and make improper appointments or firings.
"Our country is on fire. You've destroyed the country," Orit Farkash HaCohen of the opposition National Unity party said of the government. "I can't believe what I'm seeing."
Protesters claim the overhaul is an attempt at a power grab prompted by personal and political grievances of the prime minister and his partners.
Netanyahu and his allies announced the overhaul plan in January, just days after taking office. He paused the overhaul in March amid intense pressure from protesters and labor strikes that halted outgoing flights and shut down parts of the economy.
He said after a failed compromise that his government was moving forward with the overhaul.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Iranian hornet's nest of terror groups surround Israel amid calls for new US sanctions
JERUSALEM — Amid President Biden’s pledge to Israel President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday that America’s commitment to the security of the Jewish state is "ironclad," a new think tank report reveals the U.S. has declined to designate a number of Iranian-backed entities as terrorist organizations.
Just weeks ago, Israel deployed nearly 2,000 troops to root out Palestinian terrorists who are backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division.
Avivi told Fox News Digital, "For the last year and a half, Iran stated clearly that its main strategy is to make the Samaria region another Gaza." Samaria is the biblical Hebrew name for a part of the West Bank. The entire West Bank is also known in Israel by its biblical name Judea and Samaria.
Avivi, who is the CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, said the Iranians "are pouring money and smuggling weapons into the region. They are supporting Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and other factions within the Palestinian Authority."
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Iran’s clerical state has repeatedly called for the obliteration of Israel. The U.S. government has classified, under both Democrat and Republican administrations, the Islamic Republic of Iran as the world’s worst international state sponsor of terrorism.
Many of the 19 Iranian regime-supported entities targeting Israel and U.S. interests have not been outlawed, according to the new report published by the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The FDD report said, "Over the last four decades, the Iranian regime has built a network of armed groups on Israel’s borders to create instability and foment terrorism. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and a mosaic of other terrorist organizations receive funding, training and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF)."
While Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the IRGC have been classified by the U.S. government as terrorist entities, the following Iranian regime-backed groups on Israel’s borders are not listed on the U.S. Foreign Terror Organization list: Abd Al-Qadir Al-Husseini Brigades, Badr Organization, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Lions' Den, Liwa Al-Quds and Popular Resistance Committees.
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "We do not comment on deliberations or potential deliberations related to terrorist designations. Iran’s support of and partner groups that commit terrorist violence throughout the Middle East destabilizes the region. The United States is committed to countering Iran’s destabilizing influence in the region and around the world."
Joe Truzman, the author of the FDD report titled "Iran and its Network of Nineteen Terrorist Organizations on Israel’s Borders," told Fox News Digital that all the groups meet the U.S. "terror designation criteria" and "We are trying to shed light on that so these groups will be sanctioned."
FDD’s Long War Journal, which is run by the military expert Bill Roggio, has "monitored the buildup of Iran-backed terrorist organizations on key fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. Israel has worked to limit the growth of these terrorist organizations, but they remain a significant threat on multiple fronts," the report reads.
Truzman, who laid out the report as a visual with the symbols of the jihadi and terrorist organizations along with their commanders, said, "The most dangerous one is Hezbollah" because it is the "the biggest one" and then follows Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave the Gaza Strip. In 1983, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 243 Marines and 58 French paratroopers. In 2007, Hezbollah operative Ali Musa Daqduq played a key role in the murder of five American soldiers in Karbala, Iraq.
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Truzman noted Palestinian Islamic Jihad is the third-most dangerous entity, noting, "There are smaller groups. It is difficult to rank them." The U.S. has classified Hezbollah, Hamas and PIJ as foreign terrorist organizations. However, the U.S. has not classified the Palestinian organization Lions’ Den, which was founded in 2022 and operates in the West Bank. The Lions’ Den has been responsible for outbreaks of terrorism targeting Israelis, including the murder of an Israeli Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch, according to Israel’s government.
"Just because one group is not the most powerful does not mean the other groups are not," Truzman said. "They coordinate. When they coordinate, they are more efficient that way. They coordinate rocket attacks or they launch drones."
He cited the example of 2021 when rocket attacks were launched into Israel from Gaza and Lebanon, where Hezbollah is the de facto ruler, according to Mideast experts.
The following Tehran-backed organizations are not U.S. proscribed terrorist organizations but listed on Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list: Liwa Fatemiyoun, Liwa Zeynabiyoun and Palestinian Mujahideen Movement.
Beni Sabti, an expert on Iran from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told Fox News Digital the 19 Iran regime-backed groups can be viewed as "squads within one division" who all aim "to harm Israel."
Sabti, who was born in Tehran, said it is a "very dangerous thing" if these 19 organizations can unite, and they can create many fronts against Israel.
Last week Reuters reported that an Islamic Jihad spokesman claimed Palestinian Authority security forces arrested five members of its group in a counterterrorism raid in Jenin.
Fox News Digital sent press queries to Iran’s government and the Palestinian Authority.
Fox News' Peter Petroff and Reuters contributed to this report.
Spain’s conservative, right-wing parties fail to win enough votes to beat socialists in general election
Spain appeared headed for political gridlock after Sunday's general election showed no clear front-runner to build a coalition government.
Though the conservative Popular Party won the election, it fell short of removing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, leader of the Spanish Socialists Workers Party.
The mainstream conservative Popular Party, which led most polling during the campaign, was hoping that its first national victory since 2016 could let candidate Alberto Núñez Feijóo unseat Sánchez. But it needed the help of far-right Vox to do so.
Even though Sánchez’s Socialists finished in second place, they and their allied parties celebrated the outcome as a victory since their combined forces gained slightly more seats than the PP and the far-right. The bloc that could likely support Sánchez totaled 172 seats; the right bloc behind Feijóo, 170.
A PP-Vox government would have pushed another EU member firmly to the right, following similar developments in Sweden, Finland and Italy.
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Spain's two main leftist parties are pro-EU participation. On the right, the PP is also in favor of the EU. Vox, headed by Santiago Abascal, is opposed to EU interference in Spain's affairs.
The closer-than-expected election was likely to produce weeks of political jockeying and uncertainty over the country's future leadership. The next prime minister only would be voted on once lawmakers are installed in the new Congress of Deputies.
But the chances of Sánchez of picking up the support of 176 lawmakers — the absolute majority in the Madrid-based Lower House of Parliament — needed to form a government are not great either. The divided results have made the hardline Catalan separatist party Junts (Together) emerge as Sánchez’s potential kingmaker. If Junts asks for a referendum on independence for northeast Catalonia, that would likely be far too costly a price for Sánchez to play.
Voters are to elect 350 members to the lower house of Parliament and 208 members to the Senate.
With 98% of votes counted, PP is on track for 136 seats. Even with the 33 seats that the far-right Vox is poised to get and the one seat going to an allied party, the PP would still be seven seats from the absolute majority.
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The Socialists are set to take 122 seats, two more than they had. But Sánchez can likely call on the 31 seats of its junior coalition partner Sumar (Joining Forces) and several smaller forces to at least total more than the sum of the right-wing parties.
Sumar, which brings together 15 small leftist parties, is led by second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, the only woman among the top four candidates.
With no party expected to garner an absolute majority, the choice is basically between another leftist coalition and a partnership of the right and the far right.
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Sánchez's government has steered Spain through the COVID-19 pandemic and dealt with an inflation-driven economic downturn made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
But his dependency on fringe parties to keep his minority coalition afloat, including the separatist forces from Catalonia and the Basque Country, and his passing of a slew of liberal-minded laws may cost him his job.
The right-wing parties vow to roll back dozens of Sánchez's laws, many of which have benefited millions of citizens and thousands of companies.
Near-final results were expected before midnight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tourists flee vacation destination 'in just swimsuits' as wildfires rage
Nearly 20,000 people have been evacuated from a Greek island as wildfires continue raging for the sixth day.
Travel agencies in Europe have canceled flights to Rhodes as of Sunday as thousands of residents and vacationers flee the island to avoid the wildfires. Police on the island said 16,000 people were evacuated by land and another 3,000 by boats from 12 villages and a handful of hotels.
The vast majority of those evacuated are vacationers, according to local authorities and witnesses. Rhodes is a vacation destination known for its beach resorts and historical landmarks such as the Acropolis of Rhodes.
"There were lots of people in Gennadi sent from the hotels – many in just swimsuits having been told to leave everything in the hotel," British tourist Kevin Evans told U.K. outlet PA. "As night fell, we could see the fire on the top of the hills in Kiotari. They said all the hotels were on fire."
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One Belgian tourist said he evacuated Saturday by foot and has nowhere to go, according to The Guardian.
"We told the hotel about the messages we had received on our phones to evacuate the area, but they didn’t even know about it," tourist Cedric Guisset told public radio station RTBF. "We really just took our identity cards, water and something to cover our faces and heads."
A Greek fire brigade spokesperson said the evacuation is the largest the country has carried out.
WILDFIRES THREATEN VACATION HOMES NEAR ATHENS, GREECE
"It is the biggest operation to safely transport residents and tourists that has ever been carried out in our country," said Greek fire brigade spokesperson Ioannis Artopios, according to The Guardian.
A hotel manager in Lardos, a village on the island of Rhodes, said he had to evacuate roughly 400 people – mostly vacationers from France and Italy – from the hotel this weekend.
"Fortunately, no one here was hurt," hotel manager Juri Viesi said, according to The Guardian. "The situation is very saddening not just because of the tourism aspect but because the island has burned. The area was very beautiful, very green, with many animals. I hate to think what has happened. It is black, reduced to ash. That is so sad. It’s not about losing one or two weeks’ tourism; it’s about the impact on people’s lives."
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Europe is in the midst of a heatwave, with fires breaking out across Greece, including on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese region. The Rhodes fires sparked on Tuesday and have grown as high winds fan the flames, according to Reuters.
The island of Rhodes reached a high of 96 degrees Farenheit on Sunday and is expected to see temperatures in the mid to low 90s for the rest of this week.
Firefighters from nations across Europe have been deployed to Greece to assist with containing the flames.
"Over 450 firefighters and seven airplanes from the EU have been operating in Greece as fires sprout across the country," EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic tweeted early Sunday afternoon.
Spain votes in election that could shift power from socialists toward the right, in trend for liberal Europe
Spanish voters are headed to the polls in the scorching heat Sunday in an uncertain election that could shift power from socialists to the far right, following a greater trend in Europe.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has been premier since 2018, called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers Party and its far-left partner, Unidas Podemos, took a severe beating in local and regional elections in May. Support for established parties across the continent has waned amid the war in Ukraine, soaring post-pandemic inflation and consistently high migration, suggesting Spain could become the latest member of the European Union to swing to the political right.
Most opinion polls for Sunday’s voting have put the right-wing Popular Party, which won the May vote, ahead of the Socialists but likely needing the support of the far-right Vox party if they want to form a government, according to The Associated Press. Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has said he would prefer to avoid having to form that coalition, fearing that bringing Vox Party leader Santiago Abascal to power would tarnish his own reputation.
The Vox party, which campaigns against the influx of migrants and the idea of manmade climate change, has appealed to some voters for its staunch opposition to separatist movements.
Meanwhile, Sánchez has lost some credibility for relying on support from pro-independence parties in the Basque Country and in Catalonia, which staged an illegal referendum vote in 2017. The premier has also faced criticism for making deals with the far-left party Podemos.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Vox is projected to come in third with roughly 13% of the vote. The Popular Party is expected to garner around 34% of the votes, and the Socialists, 28%. A left-wing group known as Sumar, Socialists’ most likely coalition partner, is expected to win around 13%.
A PP-Vox government would return a far-right force to the Spanish government for the first time since the country transitioned to democracy in the late 1970s following the nearly 40-year rule of dictator Francisco Franco. The coalition would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy.
Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies.
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Spain’s two main leftist parties are pro-EU participation. The PP's Feijóo is also in favor of the EU, while Vox is opposed to EU interference in Spain's affairs.
The election comes as Spain holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Sánchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made.
An election defeat for Sánchez could see the PP taking over the EU presidency reins.
Voter turnout is also a concern. The election takes place at the height of summer, with millions of voters likely to be vacationing away from their regular polling places.
But postal voting requests have soared with roughly 2.6 million people having requested to vote by mail, which the Journal notes is nearly three times the amount in the 2019 elections. Spanish officials have estimated a 70% election turnout. Coming on the tail of a month of heat waves, temperatures are expected to average above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and to rise between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius above normal in many parts of the country Sunday. Authorities distributed fans to many of the stations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Crime-weary Ecuador residents forced to build walls to keep out criminals
Residents of Ecuador's largest city are walling themselves into their neighborhoods to protect against criminals who are running rampant in the city, according to a report.
"It’s regrettable we have to close ourselves off and the criminals are outside, but there was no other way for us to feel safe," Johana Torres, a resident and president of a neighborhood in Guayaquil, told news outlet EFE.
An average of seven people a day were killed in Guayaquil in the first quarter of 2023, which is double the rate during the same time period last year, the outlet reported. Police say violence exploded following the pandemic and as drug gang wars erupted on the streets.
Residents in certain neighborhoods are turning to security gates to keep criminals away, including in Torres' Samanes 1 neighborhood on the north side of the city. Six gates were installed around the neighborhood in December to protect the more than 300 families who live there and prevent outsiders from entering the area between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.
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"If they didn’t break into your house, they robbed someone, beat someone up. Cars got stolen. All kinds of stuff happened," Torres said. She said the neighborhood averaged 12 crimes a day before the gates were installed.
An urban planner and public safety expert told EFE that Guayaquil is working to "bunkerize" with security gates to protect law-abiding citizens from criminals, similar to other nearby cities that have high crime.
"These cities are in a process of bunkerization. The idea is to close yourself off and turn yourself into a bunker so no one can enter," Fernando Carrion told the outlet.
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"How can you enter one of these places? First of all, with a passport, which is an identification; secondly, with a visa, because you have to ask for a person’s authorization to enter; and thirdly, going through customs, which is basically a body search they do before you can enter. We’re creating a series of borders within cities," he continued.
He called the new safety measures "a natural reaction amid government inefficiency."
The outlet reported that extortion cases in the city have exploded in recent years, with prosecutors recording 1,603 such cases between January and June, compared to 1,265 cases for all of 2022 and only 425 in 2021.
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Robberies that target both homes and retail stores have also skyrocketed this year – already surpassing all of 2022's robberies.
Last month, residents in Guayaquil's Nueva Kennedy neighborhood installed 17 gates around its outskirts to protect the more than 600 residents and families who live in the area.
"Since the start of last year, we’ve unsuccessfully approached the police [about the crime problems]. The cases rose and rose until we were left defenseless," Nueva Kennedy leader Francisco Torres told EFE.
"We got the idea to protect ourselves with a comprehensive enclosure that didn’t affect residents and allows us to walk freely on the streets once again."
Amsterdam moves to ban cruise ships from city center to combat pollution: 'Sea of locusts'
Lawmakers in Amsterdam have moved to ban cruise ships from disembarking passengers in the downtown area in order to cut down on pollution and hordes of tourists clogging up city streets.
The city's aldermen voted Thursday in favor of a motion directing the city to move the cruise terminal out of the current location in the heart of the city as Amsterdam attempts to grapple with a flood of tourism and the pollution and other negative effects that come with an influx of people.
"A clear decision has been made by the council that the cruise (terminal) should leave the city," Ilana Rooderkerk, leader of the centrist D66 party in Amsterdam, told The Associated Press in an email on Friday. "The municipal executive of Amsterdam is now going to work on how to implement it. In any case, as far as we are concerned, large ships no longer moor in the city center of Amsterdam."
Amsterdam has been working in recent years to play down its notorious reputation as a party city and the BBC reported that the city has urged British tourists not to hold bachelor parties in the city.
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The Dutch capital is one of the many picturesque European cities – from Rome to Venice to Paris – grappling with how to manage visitor numbers that are again soaring in the aftermath of shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rooderkerk has referred to the influx of tourists as a "sea of locusts," according to the BBC.
Officials are also concerned about climate change and the pollution brought in by cruise ships. A 2021 study concluded that one big cruise ship emitted the same nitrogen oxide levels in a day as 30,000 trucks.
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"The polluting cruise does not match the sustainable ambitions of our city," Rooderkerk tweeted after the vote.
Dick de Graaff, director of Cruise Port Amsterdam that operates the terminal in the city center, says he is waiting to see what the next move is following the vote.
"There is no immediate closing of the terminal. The council’s call is to relocate the terminal – and we await a follow-up from the alderman on investigations," he wrote in an email response.
In December, Amsterdam lawmakers made another attempt to crack down on what they call "nuisance tourism" by requiring brothels in the famed Red Light District to put up curtains.
"Visitors will remain welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause nuisance. In that case we as a city will say: rather not, stay away," Deputy Mayor Sofyan Mbarki said earlier this year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Indonesian fitness influencer Justyn Vicky crushed to death by 450-pound barbell
A 33-year-old Indonesian fitness influencer died while attempting to lift a 450-pound barbell July 15, breaking his neck.
Justyn Vicky, who had amassed over 30,000 followers on Instagram, suffered a fatal accident when he was trying to stretch his legs while holding the barbell over his shoulders. He was accompanied by a spotter.
The bodybuilder had previously referenced the exercise as "dangerous as hell," in a fitness video posted July 5 on his Instagram.
"The squat provides you with opportunities that are unprecedented by any other exercise you can think of. But it's dangerous as hell," Vicky is heard saying in the Instagram video.
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In a video obtained by an Indonesian TV station, Vicky is seen attempting to lift the massive dumbbell. He is accompanied by his squatter, who is standing directly behind him.
As he tries to hold the weight, Vicky is seen falling back into a sitting position as the barbell drops on the back of his neck. His spotter also loses his balance and can be seen falling backwards during the horrifying incident.
After the accident, Justyn was rushed to a local hospital with a broken neck and critical compression of vital nerves connecting to his heart and lungs.
He received emergency surgery, but died shortly after.
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The Paradise Bali, the gym where he worked and where the accident occurred, wrote in a heartfelt Instagram post, calling Vicky "more than just a fitness expert."
"Today, we gather to celebrate the incredible life of our beloved personal trainer and friend, Justyn," they wrote. "It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of his passing, and yet, our spirits are lifted by the profound impact he had on each and every one of us."
"Justyn was more than just a fitness expert. He was a beacon of inspiration, motivation, and unwavering support," they added.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has successful surgery for pacemaker implantation after health scare
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a pacemaker successfully implanted Sunday morning amid recent health problems, his office said.
"The procedure is over. The PM feels fine, he will stay for a few hours at the hospital and will be discharged later today," Netanyahu's office and the Sheba Medical Center said in a joint statement, adding that cabinet meeting that had been set for Sunday was pushed off.
Netanyahu's surgery was first announced in a Twitter video early Sunday morning.
"A week ago I was fitted with a monitoring device. That device beeped this evening and said I must have a pacemaker and that I must do this already tonight," the 73-year-old Netanyahu said in the video. "I feel great, but I need to listen to my doctors."
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Pacemakers send electric pulses to chambers of the heart in order to regulate one's heart beat rate and rhythm, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported that Netanyahu's statements, which were in Hebrew, were made before a vote in the Knesset about controversial Israeli judicial reform.
"The attempts to reach a broad agreement continue even now," KAN quoted him as saying.
Last week, Netanyahu was released from a hospital after experiencing severe hydration. The prime minister was given a heart monitor in his chest.
Netanyahu said that he was at the Sea of Galilee without water or sun protection when he fell ill last weekend. Israel was undergoing a heat wave, with temperatures hitting 38 degrees Celsius or 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
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"On the recommendation of the doctors, the prime minister continues to undergo additional routine tests," the prime minister's office previously said in a statement.
Netanyahu has faced recent criticism from Israelis over his proposed judicial overhaul. On Friday, a group of over 1,100 Israeli air force pilots and aircrew said they would suspend their voluntary reserve duty if the overhaul goes through.
"Legislation that enables the government to act in such an extremely unreasonable way would hurt the security of the State of Israel, would lead to a deep mistrust and jeopardize my ability to continue and risk my life - therefore, with great sadness, and without any other options, I am suspending my voluntary reserve duty," the letter read.
Fox News Digital's Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Yonat Friling contributed to this report.
Brits skipping on soap to penny-pinch during cost-of-living crisis: report
British people have turned to a surprising penny-pinching move during an ongoing cost-of-living crisis — skipping on soap during bath time.
"We are seeing significant sales drops in the personal health care category, suggesting consumers are cutting back on products not deemed essential as the cost-of-living crisis continues," James Lamplugh, commercial director at Reapp, told The Times UK.
"However, we have seen that the impact of the pandemic lingers, with sales of hand sanitizer being the only product type to buck the trend."
Reapp, a data analyst that looks at sales trends for supermarkets, marked a 48% decline in demand for soap during the first six months of 2023 compared to the same time last year, with sales of hand wash down 23%.
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The data came from three of Britain’s leading supermarket chains, The Times reported. Reapp noted that the average price of a bar of soap has increased 50%, which has made it tough for families to keep buying at the same level as in previous years.
The phenomenon is another facet of what some call hygiene poverty, which occurs when consumers are not able to afford many of the everyday hygiene and personal grooming products."
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Price rises have occurred across the board, according to The Guardian, which cited price increases in toothpaste and shampoo as well, each at a higher level than that of soap.
Ruth Brock, the chief executive of the Hygiene Bank, said that hygiene poverty was a "hidden crisis" that has grown "much more widespread than we feared" and is "disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable."
The Hygiene Bank works with suppliers and volunteers to donate products to people who cannot afford it. The group claims that 6% of adults are affected by this crisis, rising to 13% in lower-income households.
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Yahoo Finance Australia reported at the end of May that the country was seeing a similar issue: Aussies have overall cut their spending back in clothes shopping, beauty treatments and home improvements, with a 26% drop in hair and wash products.
Israeli man refuses to leave home he built into cliffside over 50 years despite eviction threat
An Israeli man who spent half a century carving out his home into a cave on a Mediterranean beach now faces eviction – and refuses to budge from his lifetime achievement.
"I really love the sea," Nissim Kahlon told the Tazpit Press Service (TPS). "I don’t have money to buy a home."
"I am not leaving here. I am ready for them to bury me here," Kahlon added. "I have nowhere to go, I have no other home."
Kahlon, 77, faces eviction as Israeli authorities, including the Israel Land Authority and the Environmental Protection Ministry have deemed his home dangerous for the coastline and illegal for habitation. He told the Associated Press that the authorities are "denigrating" him.
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In a statement to TPS, the Environmental Protection Ministry called the house "a significant environmental, and security, hazard, according to professional reviews on behalf of the Herzliya Municipality, which is subordinate to the ministry."
"In the reviews that the Herzliya Municipality have released throughout the years it seems that the building is dangerous, and that the cliff is falling apart," the statement added. "The municipality even informed the ministry that they have alternative accommodational solutions."
Kahlon admitted that he had received a demolition order in 1974, just after he had started building his home, but no one carried it out, and he never heard any further issue from authorities until last year.
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The notice is on hold until he finishes his appeal, which he has initiated with support from friends and family who have started crowdfunding to cover his legal expenses.
Kahlon was living in a tent along the Herzliya beach in 1973 when he started digging into the sandstone cliffs and creating a cave. He added to the simple cave over time, adding more rooms and filling it with material he gathered from the beach and dumpsters around Tel Aviv.
The home has no telephone or internet connection, and people can only reach Kahlon by visiting personally or reaching out to a social worker who knows him.
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"From the stones I quarry, I make a cast and build a wall. There’s no waste here, only material, that’s the logic," Kahlon explained. "Everything is useful, there’s no trash."
Kahlon acknowledged that he built the home without any permits, and he had to shut down a restaurant he tried to open because of city hall opposition, but he argues that officials tacitly approved of his home when they connected his home to the electric grid decades ago.
But the EPM has raised concerns in light of explosions at an abandoned facility in the 1990s that damaged the integrity of the cliffs, which have only continued to deteriorate in the intervening years. Another explosion last month compounded the damage.
The ministry also said Kahlon had caused "significant damage to the cliff, endangered the public and reduced the beach for public passage" over the past 50 years. It says the recent explosion only increases the potential risk to the cliff.
The Herzliya municipality and EPM have continued to argue over who has the responsibility to deal with the condition of the area, with the EPM ultimately taking the charge to issue the eviction notice, while the Herzliya municipality allegedly found alternative housing for Kahlon, which he does not appear keen to take up.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Miss Italy pageant bans transgender competitors: 'a bit absurd'
The Miss Italy beauty pageant has announced that it will not allow transgender competitors, and all entrants must be "a woman from birth."
"Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from birth," Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said during an interview with a local outlet and reported by Newsweek.
"Probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women," she added.
Evie Magazine reported that Mirigliani criticized efforts from other competitions to create inclusivity as "a bit absurd" and merely attempts to "make the news." She also claimed the rules for the competition always specified that entrants must be a woman from birth.
The news follows the Miss Netherlands competition crowning its first trans-identifying winner, Rikkie Valerie Kolle, which marked a major step forward for inclusivity that was also met with some considerable backlash.
Kolle received an immense volume of hate online following her win, but she said she was trying to focus on the positive side of her progress, which will see her compete in the Miss Universe competition, which has yet to crown a transgender winner.
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"I thought we were really accepting . . . in the Netherlands, but the hate comments show the other side of our society. I hope that's a wake-up call," Kolle told Reuters, calling the comments unprovoked.
The Miss Italy competition has regularly made updates to maintain strict standards on entry, with a major update in 2012 to ban any contestant who had undergone plastic surgery, The Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time.
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Mirigliani even banned "revealing swimwear," body piercings and tattoos, enforcing a black-and-white one-piece option only for the contestants to wear. She argued that the changes helped evoke the kind of "classic beauties" of the 1950s.
Those changes had elicited criticism from local media, with Il Giornale, a newspaper owned at that time by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, arguing that no one wanted to see "little darlings dressed in clothes their grandmothers have would have worn."
British political candidate used AI to build policy platform to create 'meaningful participation'
An aspiring British politician crowdsourced his platform and used artificial intelligence (AI) to build his manifesto, a "brave" measure despite its seeming failure, according to one expert.
"Andrew Gray had a brave idea, but having finished 11th out of 13 candidates and with just 99 votes, I wouldn’t expect mainstream politicians to rush to copy his tactics just yet," Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.
"That said, it’s clear that AI is going to have an impact on how political parties in the U.K. source and target data going forwards, as well as focus their campaigns," he argued. "We may not have to wait that long for the first AI-inspired victorious candidate, but they will undoubtedly emerge from one of the major parties, with all the electoral advantages they already possess."
Gray stood for election in a surprise parliamentary by-election for the constituency of Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire after Conservative Party member Nigel Adams stood down from his seat with immediate effect.
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The seat ultimately went to Keir Mather, a 25-year-old Labour Party candidate, but Gray took 99 votes in the election using an AI-generated political manifesto. That won him more votes than the Climate Party candidate and an independent candidate, and he came up short of the Heritage Party candidate and a candidate from the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Gray first asked constituents to voice their concerns regarding local issues on his website using a program called Pol.is, developed by a Seattle group a decade ago and most notably used in Taiwan to resolve deadlocked issues.
In an interview with the Associated Press Gray argued that Pol.is is not the same as ChatGPT and other generative AI models but a "slightly more sophisticated polling than what is already happening."
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"The AI isn’t that clever that it can spit out exactly what the policies are," Gray said, stressing the process still needs "human moderation and ... analysis of what would be a sensible policy position."
But as the program polls the users on a topic, it uses machine learning in real time to group the statements and map them out to identify gaps between viewpoints as well as points of agreement. Gray said he would use the technology weekly to get a sense of constituency concerns.
The attraction of this kind of approach to platform building can help bring constituents into the electoral process in a more direct way, which would prove "extremely attractive" for community engagement," according to Stacy Rosenberg, associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.
Far from the kind of false information-spreading device that some people fear AI could become, a tool like Pol.is utilizes active conversations to compile its data sets, which can play to the crowd that "craves meaningful participation in the decision-making process," Rosenberg explained to Fox News Digital.
"Giving voters who do want a voice that power will be mutually beneficial for campaigns and constituents as long as ethical considerations for public policies are still factored in."
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Ultimately, AI will have deeper impacts in the electoral process, whether that’s through crowdsourcing policy platforms or using generative AI to help construct models for speech writing and marketing materials, Rosenberg noted. The key, she said, lies in promoting participation versus giving AI total control of the process.
The most significant risk, though, would arise if a politician didn’t align with the views expressed through this crowdsourcing process and create a sense of "insincere" engagement, Rosenberg warned.
"Voters want candidates who share their views," she said. "If they think a candidate could be swayed too easily by shifting public opinions then they may not trust that politician will protect voters' interests in the long term."
"The use of AI by politicians makes the candidate appear knowledgeable about new technologies, [and] it could play well with voters in younger demographics or early adopters," Rosenberg added, acknowledging that the technology could also possibly alienate voters who remain skeptical of AI.
"Politicians need to play to both types of constituents," she said. "In this way, interpersonal skills will continue to matter."
Having lost the election, Gray will likely turn over the data he gathered, which he promised to do in the event his tilt at the windmill proved unsuccessful. He claimed to have recorded 7,500 votes cast on the platform, which he acknowledges represents only a fraction of the total voting population in his constituency.
The official registered electors in the constituency number just over 80,000, though only about 36,000 people actually showed up to vote, a drop compared to the 2019 general election that saw around 56,400 people voting.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Guilty verdict: Man convicted for killing 8 in Puerto Rico bar mass shooting
A man accused of killing eight people after opening fire at a bar rented by a rival drug trafficker in northern Puerto Rico was found guilty on Friday following a retrial.
A federal jury also found Alexis Candelario Santana guilty of killing an unborn child and injuring 19 other people in the October 2009 mass shooting in which Candelario’s godson and cousin were killed.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that 17 different weapons were used in the shooting, with more than 330 shell casings found at the bar called La Tómbola in Toa Baja.
Authorities said that Candelario and others opened fire on people gathered outside the bar as they celebrated its grand opening and then entered the building and continued shooting.
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Candelario, who also was convicted of 40 counts of drug trafficking, is scheduled to be sentenced in October. His attorneys said they would appeal Friday's conviction.
Candelario previously had been found guilty in the case and received a life sentence in 2013, but an appeals court ordered a new trial after finding a judge erred in a proceeding.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said that Candelario once ran a drug trafficking operation in Toa Baja from 1993 to 2003, despite being arrested in 2002 on various murder charges. He was released from prison in February 2009 and was arrested in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2009, two months after the mass shooting.
Russia evades world's sanctions with lessons learned from Iran: 'An alliance of convenience'
This week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia and entities based in other countries in an effort to continue limiting Moscow’s access to finances and products that support its invasion of Ukraine.
Companies based in Kyrgyzstan, the United Arab Emirates and Serbia are all facing penalties for helping aid Russia’s war.
"They're making their alternative web of alliances in the world," former Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried said. "With the exception of China, Russia's friends are the world's outcasts, generally speaking. Iran is certainly helping Russia. It's an alliance of convenience."
Iran has helped Russia with its war efforts by supplying drones. The two countries are also trying to ease the economic pressure that sanctions have caused and recently linked their banking systems.
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"You see the Russians beginning to pick up on some of the tactics perfected by the Iranians, as well as continue to deepen their political, economic and security ties with Tehran," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Iran has a master class in sanctions busting that it's helping to teach the Russian Federation at the moment."
Iran’s largest source of revenue is from oil exports. Since the U.S. reimposed economic sanctions, Iran has turned to illicit trafficking to maintain that revenue. Its output has hit a new high despite the additional pressure.
"While these sanctions remain on the books, the problem here is that they're not being actively enforced. This lack of active enforcement, coupled with a very public desire for diplomacy and de-escalation with Iran, is encouraging more risk tolerant actors to buy more Iranian oil," Taleblu said.
Iran disguises its ships by renaming them while at sea. It changes identification codes to evade international tracking systems. It has also conducted discrete ship-to-ship transfers to covertly deliver its oil to tankers owned by other countries, including China and Syria.
"Iran already had a diverse, illicit shipping network," Taleblu said. "Iran has also had a large illicit money laundering network in place to help bring back some of that revenue. So, it’s an adapting adversary."
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Iran’s shadow banking system has given cover to sanctioned Iranian entities to disguise business with foreign customers. The U.S. recently announced sanctions against that financial network.
"Iran continues to thumb its nose at U.S. sanctions, at our allies, and continues to work to undermine the state of Israel and abolish it," Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said.
"We need to be very unified, along with our allies, in pushing back vociferously against actions that Iran is taking, whether it is producing and disseminating petroleum or whether it is trying to undermine the sanctions that have been put in place."
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The U.S. first sanctioned Iranian oil imports in 1979 in response to the Iran hostage crisis. Since then, additional restrictions have been added and lifted as Iran has attempted to work around the next move by the U.S. and allies.
"You have to constantly tinker with it, because any time you put a rule in place, which is what a sanction is, then people try to figure out what the holes are and how to work against it," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla. "I think the sanctions on Russia with what's going on in Ukraine and the sanctions on the Iranian regime are both equally important."
Iran’s response to sanctions has been aggressive. According to the U.S. Navy, the regime has harassed, attacked or seized nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels in recent years. Its threats at sea have gone on even longer.
"These are threats almost as old as the Islamic Republic itself. Iran has long seen oil as a weapon, and it's often threatened for more than one to two decades now that if it can export oil, no other state in the region would be able to peacefully export oil," Taleblu said.
Despite the regime’s efforts to impact the oil market, sanctions are still having an impact. Inflation sits at around 40%. It also has a trade deficit of $6.5 billion for non-oil trade. The country’s currency has also weakened.
"If they weren't working, both countries wouldn't continue to ask them to disappear," Moskowitz said. "We should continue to keep up the pressure with sanctions on Iran and let it run its course."
Russia’s economy has had its own struggles. Its GDP dropped by 2.1% in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD predicts Russia’s economy will shrink another 2.5% this year.
"These sanctions are intended to apply primarily economic pressure and force behavioral change," Lawler said. "In the case of Russia, I don't think they anticipated the unified blowback that would come from their invasion of Ukraine"
Experts believe while Iran and Russia have found ways to avoid sanctions, the pressure is still mounting on their economies.
"You will never be 100% effective. That's the bad news. The good news is you don't have to be. You don't have to be airtight in your sanctions. The purpose of sanctions is to cause economic stress. You can be imperfect and still cause economic stress," Fried said. "Cheating doesn't mean the sanctions don't work."
Brazilian petrochemical giant reaches $356M settlement with city where mining destroyed neighborhoods
Brazil's petrochemical giant Braskem said Friday it had reached a $356 million settlement with a coastal city where four decades of the company's rock salt mining destroyed five urban neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people.
Around 200,000 people in the Alagoas state’s capital of Maceio were affected by the excessive extraction of rock salt, according to the Brazil Senate’s website. In recent years, several Maceio communities became ghost towns as residents accepted Braskem's payouts to relocate.
The settlement — about 1.7 billion Brazilian reais — between Braskem and Maceio will be used for structural works in the city and for a residents’ support fund, the municipality said in a statement. The agreement does not invalidate negotiations between Braskem and the residents of the affected areas, it added.
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The company has so far paid over 3.7 billion reais ($775 million) in various compensations, including financial aid, Braskem said earlier this month. It said that Friday's settlement "represents yet another important advance" in the issue of Alagoas.
According to Braskem, over 17,000 residents — or over 90% of all residents that the company plans to compensate — and over 5,000 businesses had received compensation by the end of June.
Local activists were less enthusiastic following Friday's announcement.
Pastor Wellington Santos at the Baptist church in Pinheiro, one of the affected neighborhoods, said he recognizes the funds will be used to "modernize the city and make it even more beautiful," but wondered whether any amount of money could compensate for the destruction.
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Alexandre Sampaio, who heads an association of the mining victims, said the full extend of the mining damage is difficult to comprehend.
"The real size of the damage caused to the health, education, social assistance, infrastructure, urban mobility, material and immaterial historical heritage is not clear," Sampaio said.
Braskem is one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the Americas, owned primarily by Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras and construction giant Novonor, formerly known as Odebrecht.
Petrobras is currently negotiating a potential sale of Braskem.
Rock salt mining is a process of extracting salt from deep underground deposits. However, brine-filled cavities left behind when the salt has been extracted can eventually collapse, causing the soil above to settle. Structures built on top of such areas can topple.
Woman critically wounded in Paris explosion dies from injuries
A woman in her 70s who worked at a design school has died as the result of an explosion in central Paris a month ago that sent a historic building crumbling down and ignited a huge fire in the Left Bank neighborhood, bringing the death toll to three, officials said Friday.
One body was found in the rubble six days after the June 21 blast, and a 59-year-old insurance agency worker later died in the hospital. A third critically injured person died on Thursday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The third victim was a woman born in 1946, the prosecutor's office said. She had worked at the Paris American Academy, a school in the collapsed building that specializes in design and arts, according to Florence Berthout, mayor of the city’s 5th district.
The blast, not far from the Luxembourg Gardens, left six people critically injured and more than 50 with lighter injuries or in psychological shock, according to the Paris prosecutor.
PARIS EXPLOSION CRUMBLES BUILDING, RESCUE WORKERS SEARCHING FOR 1 MISSING PERSON
A manslaughter investigation is underway, with a gas leak among the possible causes being examined. Prosecutors are looking into whether the explosion was caused by intentional violation of safety rules.
The French capital’s historic infrastructure has seen occasional gas explosions in the past.
Uruguayan suicide rate hits record high; country is regional outlier
The suicide rate in Uruguay increased once again last year, reaching a new record and cementing the small country’s position as an outlier in the region.
The South American country’s suicide rate reached 23.3 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022, when the number of deaths by suicide totaled 823, marking an increase from the previous record of 21.6 that had been set in 2021, according to figures from Uruguay’s Health Ministry released this week.
"Suicide rates have been on the rise since the 1990s up until the present, with some minimal declines in a few years," said Gonzalo Di Pascua, a psychologist who is a member of the Coordinator of Psychologists of Uruguay and has studied suicide extensively. "The pandemic, much like in numerous other areas of healthcare and mental health, mainly exacerbated a pre-existing trend, which was the increasing suicide rate."
NEW ESTIMATE ADDS 2 MILLION TONS TO BOLIVIA'S KNOWN LITHIUM DEPOSITS
Uruguay is by far an outlier in the Americas, where the average suicide rate was nine per 100,000 people in 2019, according to the latest available numbers by the World Health Organization.
The high suicide rate in Uruguay contrasts with the way that the country is often seen as a paragon of economic stability in the southern cone. Uruguay enjoys the highest ranking of all South American countries in the United Nations’ World Happiness Ranking, coming in at 28, compared to 49 for Brazil and 52 for Argentina.
Yet the two Uruguay neighbors have far lower suicide rates, with Argentina recording 8.4 per 100,000 people in 2019 and Brazil, 6.9.
Eduardo Katz, who leads the mental health department at Uruguay’s State Health Services Administration, says part of the disparity may be due at least in part to "underreporting in neighboring countries." Although he admits that hardly tells the full story.
"Another very important factor is that there is little adherence to religion in Uruguay" compared to neighboring countries, Katz said, noting that the view of suicide as a sin "also creates a sense of restraint and deterrence."
Experts also speculate that Uruguay’s small population – totaling some 3 million – makes it more difficult for people who are facing mental health challenges to seek out help due to fear that they will be judged by members of their community.
"We’re few and we all know each other," Katz said.
There’s also a strong stigma against asking for help.
"Uruguay continues to have the prejudice that mental health services are for the crazy," Di Pascua said. "There’s still a lot of prejudice in terms of talking about mental health, and even more so when we talk about suicide."
That is even more pronounced in rural areas, which have the highest rates of suicide, and among men, who make up almost eight-in-10 of total suicides in the country.
"A man is less likely to speak out when he feels down because he faces a social interdiction, a social prohibition due to the false machismo that exists of saying ‘I’m sad,’ ‘I feel bad’," Katz said. "It’s seen as a symbol of weakness."
STUDY REVEALS HOMICIDES IN BRAZIL AT THE LOWEST LEVEL IN OVER A DECADE
Despite years of high suicide rates, Katz said only recently has Uruguay started to change its approach to tackle the scourge.
The healthcare system has not prioritized "reducing the demand, meaning working on prevention," Katz said. "That's what we're starting to do now."
Di Pascua, for his part, said Uruguay has long had a "very individual focus on the person who carries out the attempt and not in a solution that is more community-oriented."
Despite the recent change in focus, there’s little optimism that it will lead to immediate changes in the country’s high rates of suicide.
"Obviously there’s no magic wand that can reverse this type of trend overnight. This will take quite some time," Katz said. "It’s very challenging to reverse a trend, but I have faith that we’ll achieve it."
Guatemalan authorities raid leftist presidential candidate's party offices
Guatemalan agents and police raided the offices of the Seed Movement of presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo on Friday as part of an investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the party’s formation.
Andrea Reyes, a lawyer and party member, confirmed that the agents and police had come to search for documents. The Attorney General's Office also confirmed the search.
In an audio recording shared with journalists, Arévalo denounced the raid as illegal and said it "is part of the political persecution that the corrupt minority that knows it is losing power day by day is carrying out to try to intimidate us, to try to derail the electoral process ... to try to topple democracy."
PARTIES, COURTS INTERFERED IN GUATEMALAN ELECTIONS, OBSERVERS' REPORT STATES
The raid followed allegations earlier Friday by Guatemalan electoral authorities that a number of state actors were attempting to interfere with the country's presidential election. The electoral authorities sought an order from the country’s highest court to protect the electoral process.
The country’s political system has been in disarray since the progressive Arévalo placed a surprising second in an initial round of voting June 25 — setting him on course to face conservative former first lady Sandra Torres in a runoff in August.
STATE DEPARTMENT SANCTIONS 2 FORMER PRESIDENTS OF EL SALVADOR
Certification of last month's results were delayed for two weeks and the Attorney General’s Office announced an investigation into how the party had gathered the necessary signatures several years earlier to form. Prosecutors initially won a suspension of the party's legal status from a judge, but the Constitutional Court granted a preliminary injunction blocking it.
As part of that investigation, agents searched the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for a second time on Thursday. That led the tribunal to seek an injunction from the Constitutional Court on Friday to protect the electoral process.
Arévalo is scheduled to Torres, the first round's leading vote-getter, in a runoff election Aug. 20 to succeed President Alejandro Giammattei.
Report criticizes London police's misuse of counter-terrorism powers during detention of French publisher
London police should not have used counter-terrorism powers to question and detain a French publisher at a train station in April on suspicion he might have been involved in violent protests, a report released Friday concluded.
Ernest Moret was on his way to the London Book Fair on April 17 when he was stopped by counter-terror border officers at St. Pancras Station, questioned for nearly five hours and then arrested and held overnight for refusing to provide the passcode to his phone — even though officers concluded he posed no threat to national security.
Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said officers should not have used Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which gives them exceptional powers to root out terrorists, to determine if Moret had been involved in the turbulent pension reform demonstrations that had roiled France for months.
"The problem with exercising counterterrorism powers to investigate whether an individual is a peaceful protestor or a violent protestor is that it is using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut," Hall said.
Moret's lawyer said the Metropolitan Police needs to apologize and pay his client for jailing him and damaging his reputation.
"The report is a complete vindication of our client’s stance, citing his right to privacy, in refusing to supply his personal data to police," attorney Richard Parry said. "The police demand was totally unjustified."
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement it would refer the matter to the Independent Office of Police Conduct that investigates misconduct complaints and would review the findings.
"Schedule 7 is an important power in protecting the borders of the U.K. and remains a vital tool in our efforts to counter the terrorist threat," Commander Dominic Murphy said. "But the public rightly expects that the use of such powers is always carefully considered, and as (the report) states: that there is constant vigilance and attention to safeguards to ensure it is not used in a way that is contrary to individual rights and the wider public interest."
Moret's arrest sparked outrage from publishers and free speech advocates at the time and the Metropolitan Police released no information about why they stopped him.
His employer and Verso Books, a radical London publishing house, complained that officers had justified their questioning by claiming Moret participated in the stormy protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the age of retirement from 62 to 64. They said he also was asked to name anti-government authors the publisher worked with.
Hall said Moret was asked about people he associated with and his political views.
"This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used," Hall said. "The rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent."
Hall said in listening to recordings of the interrogation it was hard not to sympathize with Moret, who he said "showed dignified composure and good humour throughout, despite the inevitable impact on him of being told he was subject to counter-terrorism powers." Moret told officers that the decision to detain him and seize his devices was "crazy" and "not normal" in a democracy, Hall said.
The publishers had said French authorities were complicit and had "whispered" questions to British authorities. Hall said there was no indication the counter-terror law had been used at the behest of any foreign country.
Hall noted that officers concluded that they did not think Moret was a threat to national security or would use violence for political means. Nonetheless, he had to provide a DNA sample and his phone and laptop were seized and he spent about 17 hours in custody.
British prosecutors decided last month not to charge Moret.
Hall recommended that officers’ Code of Practice be amended to specify that Schedule 7 powers not be used for public order policing and that officers should receive training to that effect.
Repatriation of tragic shipwreck victims: Bodies of 4 Pakistani migrants returned home after disaster
The bodies of four Pakistanis who were among the hundreds who perished when a migrant vessel sank last month in one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean Sea were brought home on Friday, officials said.
The four were the first Pakistani casualties to be identified through DNA testing from the June 14 sinking off the coast of Greece. The vessel was carrying an estimated 700 migrants, including about 350 Pakistanis. Only 104 people, including 12 Pakistanis, were rescued.
Wooden caskets carrying the remains of the four were taken off two flights at the airport in the Pakistani capital on Friday and handed over to their families in Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters.
She said more remains of Pakistanis are expected to follow soon.
MYANMAR'S MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNVEILS GIANT SITTING BUDDHA STATUE AMID ONGOING CIVIL WAR AND TURMOIL
The tragedy stunned Pakistan, and families and relatives of those who died have since been waiting to receive their bodies to bury them at home.
The government has also launched a crackdown on the human traffickers who arranged travel for the Pakistanis on the fishing boat, many of whom were seeking jobs in Europe. So far, Pakistani police have arrested at least 17 suspected traffickers in connection with the case.
Officials say the victims paid the smugglers between $5,000 and $8,000 for the voyage.
Greece has been widely criticized for not trying to save the migrants before the sinking in international waters. Officials in Athens say the passengers refused any help and insisted on proceeding to Italy.
Local World Food Program head shot, killed in Yemen
Gunmen shot and killed the head of one of the World Food Program's offices in Yemen on Friday, the humanitarian organization said.
In a statement, the program said that Moayad Hameidi, a Jordanian, was shot by gunmen not long after he arrived in the country to assume the role as head of its office in the city of Taiz. It added he died not long after reaching a hospital.
YEMEN'S WARRING SIDES, HOUTHI REBELS, SAUDI ARABIA, EXCHANGE 64 FALLEN TROOPS
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also known by its acronym AQAP, is active in several regions in Yemen. It is believed to be one of the more dangerous branches of the al-Qaida terror network. Years of conflict have allowed the group to maintain a presence in several areas around the country.
UN ENVOY CLAIMS DIPLOMATIC EFFORT TO END YEMEN WAR UNDERWAY
Taiz, the country’s third-largest city, has been under a siege by the Houthi rebels since 2016, as part of the country's brutal civil war. The blockade has severely restricted freedom of movement and impeded the flow of essential goods, medicine and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents.
The war began in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and over the years turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. More than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, have been killed.
Retired Canadian Mountie accused of helping China to identify, intimidate target
A former member of Canada's national police force has been charged with conspiracy over allegations that he helped China's government intimidate a person, police said Friday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a news release that retired Mountie William Majcher is accused of helping the Chinese government identify the person targeted in the intimidation. They said that Majcher, 60, used his network of Canadian contacts to get intelligence or services that benefited China.
2 NY RESIDENTS ALLEGEDLY RAN SECRET CHINESE POLICE STATION: 'SIGNIFICANT NATIONAL SECURITY MATTER'
RCMP Corporal Tasha Adams said Majcher has been living in Hong Kong and works for a firm that specializes in asset recovery. She said he was arrested Thursday night in Vancouver.
Police have not said who was the target of Beijing’s alleged intimidation campaign.
Majcher is charged with conspiracy and preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity, police said.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
Earlier this year the Canadian government expelled a Chinese diplomat whom Canada’s spy agency alleged was involved in a plot to intimidate an opposition lawmaker and his relatives in Hong Kong.
Burma's military government unveils giant sitting Buddha statue amid ongoing civil war and turmoil
The military-controlled government of strife-torn Myanmar on Friday showed off a new giant statue of a sitting Buddha that is scheduled to be consecrated on Aug. 1, a powerful symbol of nationalism in a very devout nation.
Journalists were given a preview of the 228-acre site in the capital, Naypyitaw, which includes small pagodas, ordination halls, rest houses, water fountains, lakes and a park.
The military government’s head, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who is also the project’s patron, supervised installation of various parts of the project, even as a civil war has raged, killing thousands, uprooting millions and causing vast destruction, including to Buddhist monasteries, Christian churches and Islamic mosques.
Min Aung Hlaing has been repeatedly quoted in state media as saying it will be tallest sitting marble Buddha statue in the world, a claim that is difficult to verify.
He also said the building of the Buddha image aimed "to show the flourishing of Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar, to be Myanmar as a focal point of Theravada Buddhism, ensure prosperity of the country and contribute to peace and stability of the world."
MOTHER ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY STARVING, ABUSING HER DAUGHTER TO COLLECT INSURANCE MONEY: REPORT
The generals who seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Ky i are engaged in battles covering much of the country, with the army’s vast advantage in manpower and weapons unable to subdue the pro-democracy resistance forces.
The army’s fierce attacks, especially in the countryside, including burning down villages and displacing their inhabitants, make its efforts to win hearts and minds urgent, if also difficult.
The construction of the giant Buddha statues is common in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Generals who view themselves as the protectors and patrons of Buddhism have stepped up building pagodas and presenting offerings to highly-respected monks, which they believe will bring them religious merit as well as popular support. It also helps cement a long-standing alliance with right-wing monks who share their ultranationalist views and have their own followings, who can be mobilized for political action.
In 2009, under a previous military government, then military ruler Gen. Than Shwe consecrated the Uppatasanti Pagoda, a replica in Naypyitaw of the country’s famous Shwedagon pagoda, which sits in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. He also had a 37.7-foot-high sitting marble Buddha statue built in Yangon in 2001.
Thein Sein, the general-turned-president who headed a semi-democratic military-backed government, had a 32-foot-tall standing marble Buddha statue built in Naypyitaw in 2015.
The new sitting Buddha, including its its throne, is roughly about 24.7 meters (81 feet) high and weighs more than 5,000 tons, according to reports in state-run media. It is carved in the traditional cultural style of the Yadanabon dynasty of the 18th to 19th centuries, the last before the country was colonized by the British.
Reporting on the project’s progress last month to officials and big business backers, Min Aung Hlaing revealed that the plan to build the statue originated when Than Shwe handed over to the military in 2017 a giant piece of raw marble rock that was given him by a mining company.
Myanmar's military government unveils giant sitting Buddha statue amid ongoing civil war and turmoil
The military-controlled government of strife-torn Myanmar on Friday showed off a new giant statue of a sitting Buddha that is scheduled to be consecrated on Aug. 1, a powerful symbol of nationalism in a very devout nation.
Journalists were given a preview of the 228-acre site in the capital, Naypyitaw, which includes small pagodas, ordination halls, rest houses, water fountains, lakes and a park.
The military government’s head, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who is also the project’s patron, supervised installation of various parts of the project, even as a civil war has raged, killing thousands, uprooting millions and causing vast destruction, including to Buddhist monasteries, Christian churches and Islamic mosques.
Min Aung Hlaing has been repeatedly quoted in state media as saying it will be tallest sitting marble Buddha statue in the world, a claim that is difficult to verify.
He also said the building of the Buddha image aimed "to show the flourishing of Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar, to be Myanmar as a focal point of Theravada Buddhism, ensure prosperity of the country and contribute to peace and stability of the world."
MOTHER ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY STARVING, ABUSING HER DAUGHTER TO COLLECT INSURANCE MONEY: REPORT
The generals who seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Ky i are engaged in battles covering much of the country, with the army’s vast advantage in manpower and weapons unable to subdue the pro-democracy resistance forces.
The army’s fierce attacks, especially in the countryside, including burning down villages and displacing their inhabitants, make its efforts to win hearts and minds urgent, if also difficult.
The construction of the giant Buddha statues is common in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Generals who view themselves as the protectors and patrons of Buddhism have stepped up building pagodas and presenting offerings to highly-respected monks, which they believe will bring them religious merit as well as popular support. It also helps cement a long-standing alliance with right-wing monks who share their ultranationalist views and have their own followings, who can be mobilized for political action.
In 2009, under a previous military government, then military ruler Gen. Than Shwe consecrated the Uppatasanti Pagoda, a replica in Naypyitaw of the country’s famous Shwedagon pagoda, which sits in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. He also had a 37.7-foot-high sitting marble Buddha statue built in Yangon in 2001.
Thein Sein, the general-turned-president who headed a semi-democratic military-backed government, had a 32-foot-tall standing marble Buddha statue built in Naypyitaw in 2015.
The new sitting Buddha, including its its throne, is roughly about 24.7 meters (81 feet) high and weighs more than 5,000 tons, according to reports in state-run media. It is carved in the traditional cultural style of the Yadanabon dynasty of the 18th to 19th centuries, the last before the country was colonized by the British.
Reporting on the project’s progress last month to officials and big business backers, Min Aung Hlaing revealed that the plan to build the statue originated when Than Shwe handed over to the military in 2017 a giant piece of raw marble rock that was given him by a mining company.
Putin biding time for revenge on mercenary warlord, CIA chief says: 'ultimate apostle of payback'
CIA Director William J. Burns warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely has more business with Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin after Prigozhin's attempted rebellion.
"I think … what we're seeing is a very complicated dance between Prigozhin and Putin," Burns told the Aspen Security forum Thursday. "I think Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold."
Burns speculated Putin would continue looking for an angle to deal with Prigozhin despite resolving the attempted rebellion by agreeing to send the Wagner chief into exile in Belarus, saying Putin is "the ultimate apostle of payback."
"I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this," Burns stressed. "In that sense … if I were Prigozhin, I wouldn't fire my food taster."
PRIGOZHIN APPEARS PUBLICLY FOR FIRST TIME SINCE MUTINY, SUGGESTS MERCENARIES WON'T FIGHT IN UKRAINE
Prigozhin, self-proclaimed founder and leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, marched his troops toward Moscow after claiming the Kremlin authorized an attack on his forces. The march brought his troops within 125 miles of Moscow before Prigozhin ordered them to turn around and return to base while he departed for Belarus.
Media and experts labeled the march as one of the most significant challenges to Putin's regime in his 23 years in power.
Prigozhin has returned to Russia since his exile began, with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirming earlier this month that Prigozhin had visited St. Petersburg and Russian outlet Fontanka, reporting the visit was to reclaim weapons confiscated by authorities during searches.
Putin’s position remains difficult, according to Burns. The Russian president doesn’t want to give the appearance of "overreacting to things," but he most likely wants to try and separate Prigozhin from his forces, which remain "useful" to Putin due to their involvement in various global enterprises in Africa, Libya and Syria.
"I think what he’s going to do is separate Prigozhin and undercut him but preserve what’s of value to him," Burns said.
Putin said the Wagner troops involved in the march had "betrayed" Russia, but he offered contracts with the Ministry of Defense to any troop who did not support or take part in the attempted rebellion.
Burns also revealed the CIA had noted significant attention to a video the organization had posted on Telegram instructing dissatisfied Russians how they can safely contact the CIA.
"We’ve had two and a half million views of that telegram video in the first week it was on, so the truth is there’s a lot of disaffection in Russia, in the elite and outside it in Russia right now, and we’re not wasting the opportunity as an intelligence service to try and take advantage of it," he revealed.
MULTIPLE CASUALTIES REPORTED AS RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT OF UKRAINE CONTINUES FOR 3RD CONSECUTIVE EVENING
"I think Putin is already a little bit uneasy as he looks over his shoulder … and the debate that goes on within the Russian elite right now," Burns added. "It would be crazy for us not to take advantage of what is, in effect, a once-in-a-generation opportunity as a human intelligence service."
Opposition to Putin has remained scarce due to a number of high-profile accidents that have led to the disappearance or deaths of several men who had formerly counted themselves close allies of Putin. Nearly a dozen men died after they had criticized the invasion, Euro News reported.
Ivan Pechorin, a managing director for the aviation industry at the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and Arctic, died Sept. 12, 2022, after reportedly falling from a speeding boat off the coast of Vladivostok.
Ravil Maganov, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died after reportedly falling from the sixth-floor window of a Moscow hospital on Sept. 1, 2022. He and his company had urged Putin to end the invasion, calling it a "tragedy." Lukoil claimed Maganov "passed away after a severe illness."
RUSSIA TESTING BIDEN RESOLVE IN SYRIA AMID STRING OF ‘UNPROFESSIONAL’ INCIDENTS
Aleksandr Subbotin, a former top manager of Lukoil, was found dead in the basement of a Moscow home in May after he reportedly visited a healer to cure him of hangover symptoms but instead suffered heart failure.
But the war has proven difficult for Putin, and Ukraine’s counteroffensive has not helped matters, though Burns acknowledged the effort has been "a hard slog" and will "take time" to make progress.
"I am, however, an optimist … that the Ukrainians will be able to make advances," Burns noted.
"I think the thing sometimes that it's easy to forget is that behind those considerable fixed defenses that the Russians have built in southern Ukraine, there are … some pretty significant structural weaknesses, poor morale and even general shape, to put it mildly, on the Russian side," he explained. Burns also noted the "disarray" in the political and very senior military leadership.
"So, I think it is going to be a tough slog, but we're going to do everything we can as an intelligence agency to provide the kind of intelligence support and sharing that's going to help the Ukrainians to make progress," he said.
Israeli forces fatally shoot 17-year-old Palestinian in occupied West Bank amid ongoing cycle of violence
Israeli forces shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank Friday, Palestinian health officials said, the latest bloodshed in a more than year-long cycle of violence that has gripped the region.
The boy — whom Palestinian health officials identified as Muhammad Fouad Atta al-Bayed — was shot in the head by Israeli forces during unrest in the village of Umm Safa, north of Ramallah. The village has been a target of attacks by Jewish settlers in recent weeks.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces had fired live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades during confrontations with local residents. The Health Ministry confirmed at least one other person was shot in the chest.
The Israeli army said that a member of the paramilitary border police unit opened fire after masked suspects threw stones and rocks at Israeli forces. It confirmed that a person was hit by gunfire, but gave no further details.
Earlier in the day, Palestinians and Israelis clashed in the village of Beit Umar, north of Hebron in the southern West Bank. The army said three members of the Israeli forces were lightly wounded, including an officer who was struck by shrapnel in an explosion.
ISRAELI EX-SECURITY CZAR BACKS RESERVIST PROTEST AGAINST NETANYAHU JUDICIAL REFORM PLAN
It said that soldiers opened fire in response to stone throwing and explosives, hitting one suspect who allegedly had thrown a bomb. There were no immediate details from Palestinian officials.
Earlier this month in Umm Safa, Palestinian health officials said a man was fatally shot in the chest by Israeli forces during a demonstration.
It's part of a year-long spiral of violence that shows no signs of abating, one of the worst between Israelis and Palestinians in years. More than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of 2023 in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank intensified early last year when Israel expanded near-nightly raids into Palestinian areas in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
Israeli says most of those killed have been militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting army raids and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Armed men attack Doctors Without Borders team at vital hospital in war-torn Khartoum, Sudan
Armed men attacked an 18-member team of Doctors Without Borders working at a key hospital in Sudan's war-torn capital of Khartoum, the aid group said Friday.
The MSF medical team was stopped on the road on Thursday while transporting supplies to the Turkish Hospital, located in the district of South Khartoum, the aid group said. The armed men first questioned the MSF team about why it was in Sudan, then started beating some of them.
"After arguing about the reasons for MSF’s presence, the armed men aggressively assaulted our team, physically beating and whipping them," the group said on its website.
One of the drivers was briefly detained, MSF added. The group did not say whether the attackers were in uniform or provide other details.
Sudan has been rocked by violence since mid-April, when tensions between the country's military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamden Dagalo, burst into open fighting.
87 BODIES UNCOVERED IN WEST DARFUR OF SUDAN IN SHALLOW MASS GRAVE, UN SAYS
The conflict has since spread to several parts of the country, reducing Khartoum to an urban battlefield, and has also fueled ethnic violence in Sudan's western Darfur region.
The clashes have killed more than 3,000 people and wounded more than 6,000 others, according to June figures from the Sudanese government. However, the real toll is likely much higher, doctors and activists say. Over 3 million people have been displaced within Sudan or have fled the country to escape the violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Thursday's attack has prompted MSF to consider whether it can stay on at the Turkish Hospital, which has served as a base for the group's aid efforts in Sudan. According to MSF, it is also one of the only two hospitals still functioning in the Sudanese capital.
"The MSF is becoming seriously concerned that our presence in the Turkish Hospital will soon no longer be tenable," MSF said, in a post on twitter.
On streets of Khartoum, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces appears to have the upper hand. Over the past three months, its forces have occupied people’s houses and other civilian properties, according to residents and activists, and turned them into operational bases.
The Sudanese army has responded with airstrikes and shelling of densely populated civilian areas.
There have also been reports of widespread destruction and looting across Khartoum and the nearby city of Omdurman. Humanitarian facilities have often been targeted. At least two World Food Program sites have been looted, the U.N. agency said, one in Khartoum and the other in the central city of El Obeid.
Israel's Netanyahu faces crisis as some military reservists suspend service amid judicial reform protests
JERUSALEM - On Friday, more than 1,100 Israeli air force pilots and aircrew announced they would suspend their voluntary reserve duty if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed judicial overhaul continues.
In all, 235 fighter pilots, 98 transport pilots, 89 helicopter pilots, 91 pilots serving in the flight school, 165 elite air force commandos, and rescuers signed the letter addressed to Israeli parliament members, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi and IAF Commander Tomer Bar.
"Legislation that enables the government to act in such an extremely unreasonable way would hurt the security of the State of Israel, would lead to a deep mistrust and jeopardize my ability to continue and risk my life - therefore, with great sadness, and without any other options, I am suspending my voluntary reserve duty," the letter stated.
"It breaks my heart," said one of them to Fox News Digital. "I never thought I would end more than 20 years of service to my country like this," said the pilot who asked to remain anonymous.
ISRAELI EX-SECURITY CZAR BACKS RESERVIST PROTEST AGAINST NETANYAHU JUDICIAL REFORM PLAN
Reservists, whose service is voluntary, make up the backbone of Israel's military, and their actions might hamper Israel's army readiness.
Israel is facing one of its most critical weeks. The Israeli Parliament is expected to vote Monday on a bill that would limit, if not revoke, the Supreme Court's oversight powers by limiting its ability to strike down decisions it deems "unreasonable."
Thousands of Israelis are marching to Jerusalem in protest of the proposed judicial overhaul, and former lawmakers and senior security officials held emergency meetings and pressers, calling on Netanyahu to suspend the legislation.
On Thursday night, amid the wide public outcry, Netanyahu said in a televised statement that while he hopes for a broad consensus for the proposed judicial reform, his coalition would continue with the legislation.
He then criticized the people who oppose the reform, calling their observations absurd. "Citizens of Israel, all of the remarks about the destruction of democracy are simply absurd. This is an attempt to mislead you over something that has no basis in reality."
In the past few days, thousands of reservists have sent letters asking to suspend their volunteer from reserve duty.
On Wednesday, hundreds of reservists from various units joined a rally in Tel Aviv, declaring they would not report for duty anymore.
Netanyahu shot back at the protesters, "What does endanger democracy is a refusal to serve. Refusal to serve endangers the security of us all, of every citizen of Israel. In a democracy, the military is subordinate to the government – it does not compel the government."
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli leaders and military commanders expressed growing alarm, saying the refusals to serve could hurt the country's security. However, they also supported their decision, saying the new legislation would endanger IDF officers and soldiers and expose them to lawsuits at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The former head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency, Nadav Argaman, voiced support for the reservists. "We need to stop this legislation by any means," he told Army Radio, saying the reservists "are very concerned and fearful for the security of the state of Israel."
At the press conference of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and Paratroopers for Democracy, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon, former commander of the IDF's northern formation, said, "You don't go to war without national unity. Our nation is completely torn today, and all of this is because of the regime coup."
The former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, warned of the consequences of the upcoming legislation. "Several years ago, there was a discussion about a change in the rules of engagement. After this legislation is passed, a discussion will no longer be needed. Every soldier will be afraid of being prosecuted and second-guessing himself far beyond what is required, thus putting himself in dangerous situations."
"This is a tangible and immediate danger to the safety and security of IDF soldiers, and the government is progressing towards this with eyes wide open," he said.
Later Thursday, Pardo told local Channel 12 news that Prime Minister Netanyahu should be put on trial for carrying out a "coup" with his judicial overhaul legislation.
More demonstrations are scheduled for Saturday, for the 29th week in a row.
Fox News' Peter Petroff contributed to this report.
German authorities call off hunt for mysterious animal thought to be a lion
Authorities determined on Friday that there is "no acute danger" to people in an area on the edge of Berlin where a potentially dangerous animal was spotted, saying they no longer believe that a lioness is at large and calling off the hunt.
A search turned up no sign of such a predator and experts who analyzed a video have concluded that it was likely a wild boar, they said.
Police were first alerted to the animal in Kleinmachnow, just outside Berlin’s city limits, around midnight on Wednesday when people reported what appeared to be a big cat chasing a wild boar. The informants also provided the video.
Based on that and a subsequent sighting of their own, police initially concluded that the animal was apparently a lioness. But it proved elusive in searches Thursday and Friday in the flat, wooded area on the boundary between Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg. Several reported sightings went unconfirmed; in one case on Friday, police only found a family of wild boars.
GERMAN AUTHORITIES SEARCH FOR LION SUSPECTED OF BEING ON THE LOOSE AROUND BERLIN
On Friday, police thoroughly combed woodland on both sides of the state boundary and found no indication at all of a lioness, any wild animal other than wild boars — which are common in the area — or an animal that had been killed, Kleinmachnow Mayor Michael Grubert told reporters.
Officials also had experts analyze the video and compare the animal that was depicted with the body structure of a lioness, Grubert added.
Two experts concluded independently of each other that "this isn't a lioness or a wild animal" and that the creature "tends toward a wild boar," he said, adding that the rounded back and thick legs of the animal shown in the poorly lit video did not fit with it being a lioness.
AFRICAN LION DIES AFTER 14 YEARS AT CALIFORNIA'S SACRAMENTO ZOO
"We will return to the usual vigilant program and we think there is no acute danger for Kleinmachnow or for the south of Berlin," the mayor said, adding that police would be able to step back up straight away if the situation changes.
Grubert defended the large, 36-hour deployment, in which helicopters, drones and infrared cameras were used and vets and hunters participated, as "appropriate."
"The danger of a wild animal in Kleinmachnow justifies the deployment," he said, adding that he would act the same way "if I were in the situation today."
There was no immediate word on the cost of the operation.
Death toll caused by western India landslide climbs to 21
Rescuers found five more bodies Friday in India’s western Maharashtra state, raising the death toll from a landslide triggered by torrential rains to at least 21 with many others feared trapped under the debris, officials said.
Scores of rescuers and trekkers have been deployed to search for people trapped by the landslide, which occurred late Wednesday night, the state's deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, tweeted. Harsh weather conditions have hampered rescue efforts and authorities have sent in medical teams to help the injured, he said.
Search operations were suspended Thursday night due to heavy rainfall plus the threat of further landslides in the dark, the National Disaster Response Force said.
It said rescuers resumed search operations on Friday and found five bodies, raising the confirmed death toll to 21.
Ten other rescued people have been hospitalized, it said. It didn't say how many people were feared trapped under the rubble.
An official told the Press Trust of India news agency that 75 people have been rescued and many others remain trapped.
The landslide hit Irshalwadi village in Raigad district and buried 17 of the 50 houses there.
The hilly terrain has made the task of rescuers difficult because heavy equipment to remove the rubble can't be moved easily. From the base of the hill, it takes about 90 minutes to reach Irshalwadi due to a lack of paved roads.
India's weather department placed Maharashtra under alert as the state was lashed by incessant rains this week. The downpours have disrupted life for many in the state, including in the capital, Mumbai, where authorities shut schools on Thursday.
FLOODING IN INDIA CAUSES RIVER TO LAP WALLS OF TAJ MAHAL, PROMPTING CONCERNS OF DAMAGE
Local train service has been disrupted, with water flowing inside stations and over tracks, local media reported.
Record monsoon rains killed more than 100 people in northern India over the last two weeks, officials said, as the downpours caused roads to cave in and homes to collapse.
Monsoon rains across the country have already brought about 2% more rainfall this year than normal, the weather agency said.
India regularly experiences severe floods during the monsoon season, which runs between June and September and brings most of South Asia’s annual rainfall. The rains are crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season but often cause extensive damage.
Scientists say monsoons are becoming more erratic because of climate change, leading to frequent landslides and flash floods in India’s Himalayan north.
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