Category: World

SEAN “Diddy” Combs will have an easy time serving the remainder of his sentence at a relaxed college dormitory-style prison, but must undergo rigorous visitation protocols, including strip-searches, an ex-inmate said.

Combs, who is serving a 50-month sentence after being convicted of two prostitution-related offenses, was transferred from the notoriously neglected Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey on Thursday.

The fallen Bad Boy Records producer, 55, got his way after the Federal Bureau of Prisons granted his request to serve out his sentence at the low-security federal prison.

Bill Boyle, a former inmate who spent 14 months at Fort Dix, said if Combs survived the MDC for over a year, the New Jersey lockup is “going to be a breeze for him.”

Boyle described the living situation at Fort Dix as similar to a college or military barracks, “You have 12 men in a cell and it’s not a true cell. It’s basically a dorm,” he told The U.S. Sun.

“You have three sets of bunk beds on one side of the wall, three sets on the other. The door to your cell they don’t lock, so you’re not necessarily really locked in because there’s no bathroom in those cells.

“So, you have to have access to a bathroom. None of the doors lock. The front door locks and they lock you in but that’s the front door to get in and out of there.”

However, despite the lenient housing regulations, Boyle, the founder of Federal Prison Consultants, said the facility’s infrastructure is just as brutal as in the MDC.

“At Fort Dix, there’s three levels, three floors to these units, and you’re in the shower and you’re getting the discarded shower water from the shower above the third floor running down hitting you,” Boyle said.

“That’s disgusting. Then, some days the shower water would come out scolding hot or it would just literally burn your skin.

“Some days it was cold, ice cold like a Mountain Creek. You had a bath but it was very, very hard.

“Some days the water would come out and hit you like a fire hose.

“You couldn’t even stand under it, it was so fast, and other times come out like a trickle like someone was pouring a tiny glass of water on you.”

“So, the daily living conditions are brutal. The food once again horrific. They don’t feed you enough.”

Boyle, who is releasing a book, My Journey Through Hell While I’m Alive, in early 2026 about his experience behind bars, said he was housed in the west compound of the prison, which he heard from other inmates was the best out of the three sections.

“They got the east side, the west side, and the camp. I was in the west, which believe or not, they said was the better of the two because the east, the buildings were even more dilapidated, and I couldn’t imagine that,” he added.

RIGOROUS VISITATION RULES

Combs’ legal team requested that the music mogul be housed at Fort Dix because of the facility’s drug rehabilitation program and to maximize family visitation.

But Boyle said that despite Combs’ superstar status, he’ll have to be strip-searched before and after every visitation.

“That’s probably the hardest part,” Boyle, who was sentenced to 78 months after being convicted of federal mail and wire fraud charges, said of the visitation procedure at Fort Dix.

“Families go through rigorous screening protocol. For Diddy when he goes, he’ll come down, he’ll walk into a little cement block cubicle, and if it’s a cold day he’ll be freezing his nuts off, and you strip naked as the inmate.

“Completely naked. You got to show under your tongue, you got to run your hands through your hair, lift up your ball sack, you got to bend over and cough.

“That’s on the way into the visiting room and then you do the same exact thing on the way out of the visit.

“I hated to put my kids and my family through coming to see me in terms of getting through security because it’s very demoralizing for them as well.

“The visits, they’re very, very, very strict. You can give a hug when they first walk in, a quick peck, but there’s no intimacy because you’re sitting on hard plastic chairs in the visiting room and you’re lined up side by side.”

Boyle added, “You’re not even facing each other. You got to turn your body a little bit.

“So, it’s just rows and rows of plastic chairs, basically if I’m sitting on one chair and my kids sitting at the next chair there’s another inmate sitting next to his loved one.

“So there’s not really a time for real private conversation.

“But if he survived MDC for a little over a year and a half, Fort Dix is going to be a breeze for him, whether it’s the camp or the low, but he’s still somebody worth millions of dollars used to flying private, living in the best places.”

Combs was reportedly assigned laundry duties as his first job in Fort Dix, washing and drying dirty laundry, according to TMZ.

The disgraced hitmaker is scheduled to be released on May 8, 2028, but could be released sooner for good behavior.

Members of Combs’ team have reportedly approached White House officials in the Trump administration about a potential pardon.

President Donald Trump acknowledged the request, telling reporters in the Oval Office in early October, “A lot of people have asked me for pardons.

“I call him Puff Daddy; he has asked me for a pardon.”

DIDDY’S PUNISHMENT

Combs’ sensational eight-week trial concluded over the summer when a 12-person jury acquitted him of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking but convicted him of two prostitution charges.

During the trial, jurors heard excruciating testimony from two of Combs’ ex-girlfriends, including singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, about the years-long abuse they suffered at the hands of the rap heavy-hitter.

Ventura and another woman, identified in court only as Jane, testified about the depraved drug-fueled sex marathons, “freak-offs,” they were allegedly coerced into with male escorts.

At his sentencing, Combs addressed the court for the first time since his legal troubles began in November 2023, begging the judge for mercy in his 12-minute speech.

In his remarks, Combs apologized to Ventura and Jane before turning to his family and telling his mother, Janice, “I failed you as a son and I’m sorry.”

He acknowledged the disturbing hotel surveillance footage of his assault on Ventura and apologized to all victims of domestic violence.

“I know that the disgusting video triggered people. I was sick. Sick from the drugs. I needed help. But I didn’t get the help,” Combs said in a shaky voice.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15426100/diddys-new-prison-conditions-fort-dix-ex-inmate/

The former reality star has been scrutinized over her parenting after the teen has made numerous changes to her appearance

TEEN Mom Farrah Abraham’s teenage daughter, Sophia, has showcased her drastic transformation, including lip piercings and permanent fangs, in a new video.

The mother-daughter duo filmed themselves in the bathroom while flaunting their Halloween costumes.

In the clip posted earlier this week on Sophia’s Instagram page, the pair participated in a silly TikTok trend where they commented on the teen’s dark look.

“Check it, I’m a scary black cat,” Sophia mouthed to the camera while sporting a skintight black leather corset, a miniskirt, and heavy black makeup.

She completed the ensemble with black stockings and a big furry hat with gloves attached, mimicking cat paws.

Farrah, 34, stood beside her daughter, rocking a white, knee-high dress, a black leather jacket, a wedding veil, and dark makeup, seemingly channeling the character Tiffany from the 1998 horror film The Bride of Chucky.

“The only person that costume scares is me. Go change it,” the young mom mouthed over the track.

It was only recently that Sophia added to her dramatic makeover with permanent fang teeth and a giant stomach tattoo.

Before that, the 16-year-old received multiple lip and body piercings, which had fans divided over whether the behavior was appropriate for her age.

Most critics slammed Farrah for her seemingly loose parenting style and for allowing Sophia to make such significant changes to her appearance.

Teen Mom fans first met Farrah when she starred on MTV‘s 16 & Pregnant in 2009.

At the time, she was preparing for single motherhood following her baby daddy, Derek Underwood’s death, before Sophia was born.

Farrah went on to star in the spinoff series Teen Mom OG until she was fired in 2017 for her work in the adult entertainment industry.

Since her departure, Farrah has had a strained relationship with many of her former co-stars.

Most recently, the ex-TV personality was involved in a heated feud with Jenelle Evans, 33, who was axed from the franchise in 2019 after her then-husband, David Eason, shot and killed the family dog.

Farrah accused Jenelle of being a “horrible mom” regarding her parenting choices of her four kids, particularly her oldest son, Jace, which has been heavily discussed in the media.

The MTV alum also took a personal jab at Jenelle, calling her a “copycat” for allegedly trying to replicate her career outside of the show.

Farrah has focused much of her efforts on her OnlyFans, public appearances, and social media presence.

She’s been photographed numerous times in recent months wearing revealing outfits.

In July, Farrah posted photos of her posing in sexy white lingerie, and last month, she drew attention while frolicking on the beach in Miami donning multiple revealing swimsuits.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15426366/teen-mom-farrah-abraham-daughter-sophia-fangs-piercings-goth/

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is traveling to Egypt, Ghana and Angola, accompanied by German business leaders. The goal is to boost economic partnerships through investment in infrastructure and renewable energy.

To start his weeklong tour of Africa, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will attend the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt , on Saturday . After marveling at the important archaeological museum, which houses more than 100,000 artifacts and will display the complete Tutankhamun tomb collection for the first time, Steinmeier will get down to business.

Steinmeier’s focus during his planned visits, including stops in Ghana and Angola, will be on strengthening economic cooperation with African governments. A business delegation will accompany Steinmeier on his trip.

Egypt is attractive for German entrepreneurs

Khadi Camara, deputy head of countries and markets at the German-African Business Association, told DW that Egypt is very promising for German companies. “The country is one of the few markets in which Germany is implementing large-scale projects on a broad basis and in various sectors,” she told DW, referring to infrastructure and rail projects, digitization, and industry. More and more companies are choosing Egypt as an investment location, she added.

The security situation in the region and the future of Gaza will be on the agenda for Steinmeier’s meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

In September 2024, Steinmeier visited Egypt and praised its efforts to mediate in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Egypt and Ghana, the second stop on the German president’s trip, are partners in the G20 Compact with Africa (CwA) initiative. It was launched under the German G20 presidency in 2017 to create investment for sustainable economic growth in reform-oriented African countries. 13 African countries are members of the CwA.

“The Compact with Africa has led to the German government’s export credit guarantees for these countries being assigned a better risk category,” Camara said. Germany seeks to maintain this partnership by making it relevant. The framework conditions for trade are not yet what they should be, and obstacles must continue to be removed.

Steinmeier will meet with Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama in Accra on Monday. Mahama has been in office since January; he won the election in December with the promise of a modern 24-hour economy . Gold mining and the construction sector, in particular, are expected to drive growth.

With a population of just under 35 million, Ghana is a relatively small economy. The country mainly supplies cocoa to Germany. Other important exports include fruit, rubber, and ores.

Ghana: A center for vaccine production

Another building block for expanding cooperation is vaccine research. Germany and the European Union (EU) are supporting Ghana in positioning itself asa West African center for the production of vaccines and medicines. This will create more jobs and improve health care.

Ghana also has a thriving startup scene. Steinmeier’s agenda also includes a meeting with the founders to discuss innovations.

Anna Lena Wasserfall, the resident representative of the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the capital, Accra, said Ghana, was a priority country for Germany’s development cooperation. This applies in particular to the field of renewable energies, but also to good governance and the fight against corruption. “Certainly against the backdrop that Germany has an interest in Ghana remaining a stable partner in the region,” Wasserfall told DW.

Wasserfall points to the military coups in West Africa in recent years. In some countries, she says, governments are in power that are skeptical or even hostile toward cooperation with Western partners.

The strategic realignment of the partnership between the countries includes banking reforms designed to stabilize the financial sector and new laws intended to simplify the process of setting up businesses in Ghana. “Overall, it can be said that the measures implemented under the CwA have strengthened Ghana structurally, but have not triggered any profound investment momentum in the country,” Wasserfall added.

Improving the CwA

Wasserfall said the lack of investment in Ghana was not a sign of a lack of attractiveness, but rather an expression of structural weaknesses and uncertainties that make long-term commitments appear risky.

“These are factors such as high public debt and deficits, which undermine confidence in fiscal stability, compounded by high currency volatility,” Wasserfall said. Bureaucracy, corruption and weak law enforcement are also challenges. To improve economic conditions, Germany and the World Bank in Washington have launched the new G20 Compact with Africa Trust Fund. The aim is to generate more growth and good job prospects through increased investment in sustainable development, infrastructure projects, and well-trained skilled workers.

Angola’s ambition to join the CwA initiative

The oil-producing nation of Angola is interested in joining the CwA. As the first German president to visit Angola, Steinmeier will explore closer economic cooperation with the government from November 5 to 7.

Angola, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence and is currently holding the rotating presidency of the African Union, could be a candidate for the next round of the CwA, Camara said.

“The government has strongly promoted the diversification of the economy. For example, German companies are also active in the hydrogen sector. Large hydroelectric power plants are being installed there, and there are also German projects in the infrastructure, health, and agricultural sectors,” she said.

Steinmeier plans to meet with President Joao Lourenco in the capital, Luanda. Lourenco’s word carries weight within Africa. For example, he has been mediating for years between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda on the deadlocked situation in eastern Congo.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/german-president-steinmeier-africa-tour-eyes-business-growth/a-74488873

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the Russians are trying to capture the embattled city of Pokrovsk. It could enable further Russian advances in the Donetsk region, which it aims to occupy fully.

A year after 16 people were killed when a canopy at Novi Sad railway station collapsed, the Serbian government and the student movement remain locked in a war of attrition. A commemoration event is planned for Saturday.

Under normal circumstances, Novi Sad student Boris Kojcinovic would currently be scouring guides to master’s programs abroad.

But circumstances for students in Serbia are far from normal due to student-led university blockades that have been going on for almost a year now.

So instead, he divides his time between reading literature for his thesis and checking lists of volunteers for an event that will mark the first anniversary of the collapse of the concrete canopy at the entrance to Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people on November 1, 2024.

Kojcinovic is one of the faces of the student protest movement that, as his fellow activists say, has laid bare what they see as an obvious truth, namely that corruption and systemic negligence led to the canopy collapse almost a year ago.

The student movement is organizing a gathering in the city on Saturday to commemorate those who died at the station. The event will mark the anniversary of a tragedy that has also had a profound impact on Serbian politics and society.

The growth of a movement

“Our victory is that people have realized that something isn’t working and that we need a just society with institutions that function,” Kojcinovic told DW.

Using the slogan “You’ve got blood on your hands” and flooding both online and offline spaces with images of red palmprints (the symbol of the protest), the Serbian student protest movement that emerged after the Novi Sad tragedy has over the past 12 months grown into a considerable network with supporters across the country and in the Serbian diaspora.

To make sure their call for justice is heard by as many people as possible, students have crisscrossed the country on foot, talked to people and organized countless demonstrations and protest events nationwide.

Groups of students have even cycled to Strasbourg and run to Brussels to take their message to the European Union.

Enduring student protests

Over the past year, the students have learned to plan, negotiate and endure on a major scale.

But they haven’t succeeded in forcing those in power to take responsibility.

The authorities, for their part, have adopted a multi-pronged approach, seeking to “soften up” students and lecturers by offering them cheap housing loans and higher salaries respectively, while using smear campaigns, physical attacks and heavy-handed police interventions to intimidate protesting citizens.

None of these tactics have worked.

A war of attrition

Political scientist Zoran Stojiljkovic described the situation to DW in August as “a balance of powerlessness” — an assessment that Bojan Klacar, executive director of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID), says still holds true.

“We are in a political crisis that has not been fully resolved and for which no final outcome is in sight in the short term,” Klacar told DW.

The ruling coalition still lacks full control of the situation and has lost its old dominance, but at least it is more consolidated than it was six months ago, when the protests were at their peak.

“The [ruling Serbian Progressive Party] SNS was mostly on the defensive until the end of April. Today it can set the agenda — and it does,” said Klacar.

The students are not in a better position either. Klacar says that the movement has considerably changed the social climate, but not political relations, in the country.

“They are not — in terms of infrastructure, program, ideology or the level of energy that exists at this moment — ready to turn the process in their favor. So, the two blocs are engaged in a game of patience, a battle of nerves and a certain kind of attrition,” he said.

Elections will be key

What students want are elections. The authorities, however, rarely mention the subject.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has only said that elections will be held next year, without specifying when.

Klacar considers the timing of the election to be the SNS’s trump card. Choosing the date of the election will allow it to stay one step ahead of its opponents.

“It suits the SNS most for the elections to be held in about a year or somewhat later,” he said.

But for a late election to work in the government’s favor, the government would have to deliver more “good news” and resolve a number of accumulated problems — from US sanctions on the Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS to possible difficulties in gas supplies.

“Without resolving those issues and without ensuring the stability preferred by SNS voters, I’m not sure the party will be fully ready for elections,” said Klacar.

Students insist they’ll be ready

For the students, on the other hand, two conditions are decisive: maintaining high protest energy and creating a referendum-like atmosphere, where people would see an election as a poll on Vucic and the SNS.

The students are adamant they will be ready no matter when elections are called because they are already preparing for an election at “full steam.”

In addition to organizing protests, they are building an electoral infrastructure that includes teams, observers and a political program.

The students’ list of candidates is almost complete but remains shrouded in secrecy.

This has drawn both criticism and praise: While some say voters should know who will be standing for election as soon as possible, others argue that it is wiser to wait to avoid candidates being discredited by the ruling party and aligned media at an early stage.

“The student list resembles the student movement itself,” says student Boris Kojcinovic. “It is diverse in education, origin and even political orientation.”

“The idea,” he adds, “is that we don’t think about whether we are conservative or liberal, left or right, whether we are believers or not; we want something in common — and that common goal is a better, properly run, just society with institutions that function.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/serbia-novi-sad-tragedy-one-year-anniversary-explained/a-74529170                                                                                     

In a testament to Kim Kardashian’s power to grab the spotlight, the head of NASA felt compelled this week to set the record straight when the reality TV queen said she believed a well-worn conspiracy theory that the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was a fake.

In a new episode of Hulu’s long-running family saga “The Kardashians,” the show’s star said she thinks the lunar landing by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was a fiction.

What convinced her, she said during the segment, was a video she saw online of an Aldrin interview. She said she interpreted his comments in that interview to mean the moon landing never occurred.

Since the 1970s, skeptics have floated the notion that the mission – viewed live by tens of millions of people around the world – was actually staged.

That theory has waxed and waned over the years, but Sean Duffy, U.S. Transportation Secretary and NASA’s acting administrator, wasted no time in shooting it down after Kardashian told her 4 million viewers that she was embracing the idea.

“Yes, @KimKardashian, we’ve been to the Moon before … 6 times!” Duffy wrote on Thursday on the X social media platform.

In fact, he said, the U.S. was going back to the moon under the leadership of President Donald Trump. In 2026, the Artemis II mission is scheduled to send astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon, ahead of a planned moon landing in 2027.

“We won the last space race and we will win this one too,” Duffy wrote.

Kardashian referenced a video in which Aldrin, now 95, was asked what was the “scariest moment” during the Apollo mission. Reading from her phone, Kardashian quoted Aldrin as saying: “There was no scary moment, because it didn’t happen.”

The reality star then said: “So I think it didn’t happen.”

Aldrin’s remarks appear to have been taken out of context from a 2015 onstage appearance at Britain’s Oxford Union debating society.

During the event, Aldrin was asked by someone in the audience, “What was the scariest moment of the journey?”

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/lawrence-wong-apec-2025-trump-xi-5438131

China has plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade.

A crew of three Chinese astronauts, including the country’s youngest, docked early Saturday (Nov 1) at the Tiangong space station, accompanied by four lab mice.

The Shenzhou-21 spaceship docked at 3.22am (7.22pm GMT Friday), China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.

That was about three-and-a-half hours after the spaceship departed from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, powered aloft by a Long March-2F rocket.

The Tiangong space station – crewed by teams of three astronauts that are exchanged every six months – is the crown jewel of China’s space programme, into which billions of dollars have been poured in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia.

China has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually to build a base on the lunar surface.

Mission commander and veteran space pilot Zhang Lu is accompanied by 32-year-old flight engineer Wu Fei, China’s youngest astronaut to undertake a space mission, and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang, 39.

The three astronauts waved goodbye to colleagues and family members at the remote launch base in the Gobi Desert as a band played a patriotic song.

Zhang Lu told reporters on Thursday he was confident his team would “report back to our motherland and its people with complete success”.

Space first-timer Wu told a news conference Thursday that he felt “incomparably lucky”.

Four mice – two male and two female – join them as the subjects of China’s first in-orbit experiments on rodents.

“SPACE DREAM”

Beijing’s space programme is the third to put humans in orbit, after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

China has ramped up plans to achieve its “space dream” under President Xi Jinping, successfully landing its Chang’e-4 probe on the far side of the Moon in 2019, the first spacecraft to do so.

It then landed a small robot on Mars in 2021.

On Thursday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) outlined a series of “crucial upcoming tests” it was undertaking in preparation for its 2030 Moon goal.

In addition to advancing scientific research, the Shenzhou-21 crew is expected to go on spacewalks and install anti-debris shields on Tiangong’s exterior.

The astronauts are also expected to conduct “popular science education”, the CMSA said, as Beijing searches for future space talent both domestically and internationally.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-launches-shenzhou-21-mission-tiangong-space-station-5438716

There’s nothing “Hot N Cold” about their relationship.

Katy Perry confirmed her romance with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during her Prague concert after a fan in the crowd asked the singer to marry him with a sign.

“This guy is trying to get me to marry him and he has a ring in his hand,” Perry said on Thursday, per a TikTok video of the interaction.

“No! I am dating someone else for crying out f–king loud,” she told the crowd.

@cookie.grafie
i can‘t with this woman 😂😂😂 @Katy Perry #katyperry #lifetimestour #prague #concert #katycats

♬ Silencio Blanco Es Asesinato Piano-JP – Thirst Follow

The announcement comes shortly after the pair made their first public appearance together at Paris’ Crazy Horse cabaret as they celebrated Perry’s 41st birthday earlier this week.

A source told Page Six earlier this week that Trudeau, 53, is on cloud nine dating the pop star.

“He is crazy about her and thinks she is the perfect woman,” the insider described. “They are simpatico on everything including politics, kids and French food.”

“They both have a sparkle for each other,” the source added.

The duo first sparked romance rumors in July when they were seen having dinner at chic Le Violon restaurant in Montreal.

A few days later, Trudeau was spotted watching Perry take the stage at her “Lifetimes” tour stop at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

They were since spotted getting hot and heavy on a yacht date earlier this month while they sailed off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif.

But, while Trudeau is a fan of the romance, other sources previously told Page Six that the relationship is the former politician’s version of a “midlife crisis.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/31/celebrity-news/katy-perry-confirms-justin-trudeau-romance-while-rejecting-fans-marriage-proposal/

President Trump on Friday unveiled the latest in his series of White House makeovers — a gleaming, all-marble renovation of the historic Lincoln Bathroom — and, in true Trump fashion, he did it with fanfare and plenty of polish.

Posting photos on his Truth Social platform, Trump bragged that he had replaced what he called the “inappropriate” 1940s-era art deco green tile design with “black and white polished Statuary marble,” accented with gold fixtures.

“I renovated the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House,” the president wrote, sharing before-and-after images of the small but storied space near the Lincoln Bedroom.

“It was renovated in the 1940s in an art deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era.”

He wrote in another post that he used “highly polished, statuary marble.

“I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble,” Trump wrote.

“This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!” Trump quipped in a follow-up post on Truth Social.

The glossy makeover — complete with gilded mirrors and ornate trim — fits neatly into Trump’s long-standing taste for glitz, grandeur and marble.

It also comes amid controversy over his larger move demolishing the East Wing of the White House to build a sprawling 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom.

The project, which Trump says will be paid for entirely by private donors, has drawn widespread criticism.

A new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 56% of Americans oppose the project tearing down the East Wing, including 45% who “strongly” oppose it.

Just 28% support the construction of the ballroom, which Trump has described as “the most beautiful, most luxurious event space in Washington.”

Critics have blasted the ballroom construction as a vanity project that disrespects White House history, while supporters say Trump is restoring elegance to a building that has seen decades of wear and modernization.

Earlier this month, Trump slammed President Harry Truman’s postwar redesign of the Lincoln Bedroom and adjoining bathroom, calling the mid-century makeover “a style that is not good.

“It is actually art deco and art deco doesn’t go with 1850 and civil wars,” Trump said at the time, insisting that his update was truer to Lincoln’s legacy.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/31/us-news/trump-unveils-lincoln-bathroom-renovation-complete-with-gold-accents/

Erika Kirk fights back tears in her first interview since the assassination of her husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, during a preview aired Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

In the clip, Watters played a video of Charlie discussing Turning Point USA, the organization he founded to promote conservative student activism.

“Wow, he looks so good,” Erika said as she watched. “Sorry, guys, just give me a second. It’s the longest video I’ve watched of him.”

Watters, who also grew teary during the segment, told her that Charlie “was on a mission to save Western civilization” and asked whether she knew that was “what you signed up for.”

“You know, well, no, I didn’t sign up for anything,” Erika replied. “I just married the love of my life.”

The interview marks Erika Kirk’s first televised sit-down since her 31-year-old husband was fatally shot at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.

Tyler Robinson, 22, of Utah, has been charged with first-degree murder in the killing.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and became a key figure in the MAGA movement, hosting a popular podcast and speaking at Republican events nationwide.

The emotional sit-down with host Jesse Watters will air in full on Wednesday, followed by an extended multi-part docuseries on Fox Nation two days later.

Fox News announced the interview earlier this week, saying that it would cover “the impactful legacy that Charlie left on the nation, the power of faith in their lives, the timeline of what happened the day he was killed, and the future of Turning Point USA.”

Fox News is owned by Fox Corp, sister company to The Post’s corporate parent News Corp.

The segment will be followed by a Fox Nation documentary series, “This Is the Turning Point,” featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Erika Kirk as she assumed leadership of her husband’s student movement.

The grieving widow appeared on stage at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) on Wednesday night before a sold-out crowd that came out to see her first Turning Point USA campus appearance since her husband’s murder.

The event was marked by a video tribute to Charlie Kirk, which naturally elicited an emotional reaction from Erika before she took the microphone.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/31/us-news/erika-kirk-calls-charlie-kirk-the-love-of-her-life-in-preview-of-first-interview-since-his-assassination/

Babar Azam broke Rohit Sharma’s record for most runs in men’s Twenty20s as Pakistan hammered South Africa by nine wickets and leveled their series on Friday.

Babar Azam broke Rohit Sharma’s record for most runs in men’s Twenty20s as Pakistan hammered South Africa by nine wickets and leveled their series on Friday. Saim Ayub returned to form with a belligerent unbeaten 71 off 38 balls as Pakistan raced to 112-1 in just 13.1 overs after bowling out South Africa for 110. Fast bowlers Salman Mirza and Faheem Ashraf shared seven wickets. The third and deciding T20 is on Saturday. Babar needed nine runs to pass Sharma’s record of 4,231 runs and finished 11 not out. He overtook the Indian batter’s record when he drove spinner Donovan Ferreira for a single to long-off.

Pakistan recalled Babar for his first T20s in almost a year after Fakhar Zaman was rested. Babar missed the chance in the first match to set the record when he was dismissed for a two-ball duck at Rawalpindi on Tuesday.

Source : https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/babar-azam-breaks-rohit-sharmas-world-record-in-pakistans-big-win-against-south-africa-9554450

The White House has restricted reporters’ access to West Wing communications offices, citing security concerns after some were allegedly caught secretly recording videos and audio. The White House Correspondents’ Association condemned the move, calling it a blow to transparency and press freedom.

The White House has imposed new restrictions on journalists’ access to the West Wing, limiting movement in and out of the communications staff offices, a space that reporters have long been able to freely enter while covering the administration.
According to a memo released Friday by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Communications Director Steven Cheung, reporters will now need an appointment to visit the offices of senior communications aides. The White House cited “recent structural changes” as the official reason, noting that communications staff are now working more closely with the National Security Council and routinely handle “sensitive material.”
However, the move also follows growing tensions between the Trump administration and the press. Cheung claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that “some reporters have been caught secretly recording video and audio of our offices, along with pictures of sensitive info, without permission.” He added that journalists had wandered into restricted areas, eavesdropped on private meetings, and even ambushed Cabinet secretaries as they entered or exited offices near the Oval Office.

“Press still has access to the lower press area where our team can answer all inquiries,” Cheung wrote. “Reporters can make appointments to see us in our offices.”

The new rules come amid a broader pattern of media restrictions under President Donald Trump’s administration. Certain outlets have been excluded from closed-door briefings, and new Pentagon access rules have forced many reporters to cover the military from outside its headquarters. Trump has also suggested moving the White House press corps “across the street” from the main building.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/new-mexico-explosion-reported-at-artesias-navajo-oil-refinery-no-word-yet-on-casualties-article-153083403

Vice President JD Vance dressed up as his own viral meme for Halloween, complete with a curly wig, leaving social media in splits. Users on X called him a “legend” and joked that it was the “best costume of the year.”

US Vice President JD Vance turned heads this Halloween after dressing up as his own viral meme. He also extended Halloween wishes saying, “Happy Halloween everyone, remember to say thank you while you trick or treat!”

Wearing a curly wig and mimicking the look that once made him an internet sensation, photos of Vance’s costume went viral online, sparking a wave of amused reactions from social media users.

In an irate post on X, Vance called the backlash “disgusting” and said that although he acknowledged the question about his interfaith marriage as a personal one, he was not going to avoid it being a “public figure”.

US Vice President JD Vance addressed criticism over his comments on wife Usha’s religion, and said that she is not a Christian and does not plan to convert. In an irate post on X, Vance called the backlash “disgusting” and said that although he acknowledged the question about his interfaith marriage as a personal one, he was not going to avoid it being a “public figure”.

The clarification comes after the Republican leader was condemned for saying that he would like if his Indian-origin, Hindu-raised wife could convert to Christianity. He also said that she joins him and their children at church, as they are being raised as Christians.

One of the posts on X said, ‘It’s weird to throw your wife’s religion under the bus, in public, for a moment’s acceptance by groypers.” Replying to this specific post, Vance explained himself in the social media post through three pointers.

“First off, the question was from a person seemingly to my left, about my interfaith marriage. I’m a public figure, and people are curious, and I wasn’t going to avoid the question”, he wrote.

In the second part of his post, Vance said that it is through Christianity that he knows the Gospel is good for human beings. He clarified that it was his wife who encouraged him to “reengage” with his faith years ago.

“She is not a Christian and has no plans to convert, but like many people in an interfaith marriage–or any interfaith relationship–I hope she may one day see things as I do”, he said.

He condemned the post and wrote that it wreaked of “anti-Christian bigotry”.

“Yes, Christians have beliefs. And yes, those beliefs have many consequences, one of which is that we want to share them with other people. That is a completely normal thing, and anyone who’s telling you otherwise has an agenda,” he added.

What JD Vance Said At Turning Point USA Event

At a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi on Wednesday, Vance said, “Now, most Sundays, Usha will come with me to church. As I’ve told her, and as I’ve said publicly, and as I’ll say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends — do I hope, eventually, that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian gospel and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way”.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/she-is-not-a-christian-has-no-plans-to-convert-jd-vance-on-wife-amid-row-9553617

Hurricane Melissa’s confirmed death toll climbed to 49 on Thursday, according to official reports, after wreaking destruction across much of the northern Caribbean and picking up speed as it headed past Bermuda in the North Atlantic.
Authorities in Haiti, which was not directly hit but nevertheless suffered days of torrential rains from the slow-moving storm, reported at least 30 deaths and 20 more missing.

At least 23 people, including 10 children, died in Haiti’s southern town of Petit-Goave when a river burst its banks. Roads, houses and farmlands were also damaged by the rains.
Jamaica’s information minister confirmed at least 19 deaths, but said authorities were continuing search and rescue efforts. The storm left hundreds of thousands without power, ripped roofs of buildings and scattered fields with rubble.
Jamaica’s military has called on reserve personnel to report for duty to help with relief and rescue operations.
Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica on Tuesday as a powerful Category 5 hurricane, the Caribbean nation’s strongest-ever storm to directly hit its shores, and the first major hurricane to do so since 1988.

Windspeeds were well above the minimum level for the strongest hurricane classification. Forecasters at AccuWeather said it tied in second place for strongest-ever Atlantic hurricane on record in terms of windspeed when in struck land.
The forecaster estimated $48 billion to $52 billion in damage and economic loss across the western Caribbean.
Melissa also hit eastern Cuba, where some 735,000 evacuated, but as of Thursday, no deaths were reported there, despite extensive damage to homes and crops.
At 11:00 p.m. (0300 GMT), Melissa was a Category 2 storm 264 km (164 miles) west of the North Atlantic British island territory of Bermuda, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, packing maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (161 kph).
Residents in Bermuda had remained calm as the storm was expected to give the island a relatively wide berth. Authorities said they would close its causeway Thursday night and shut schools and ferries on Friday “out of an abundance of caution.”

In the Bahamas, which Melissa cut through Wednesday night, authorities lifted storm warnings but did not give the “all clear”. An official said authorities expected to decide by Saturday whether it was safe for the hundreds of people who evacuated off affected islands to return to their homes.

WADING BAREFOOT THROUGH MUD

The front page of Thursday’s Jamaica Observer newspaper read: “DEVASTATION.”
Densely populated Kingston was spared the worst damage. Its main airport was set to reopen on Thursday, as was the capital’s port. Relief flights and aid had begun to flow into Jamaica’s airports, authorities said.
But across the country, more than 130 roads remained blocked by trees, debris and electric lines, authorities said, forcing the military to clear roadways on foot into isolated areas, with ambulances following close behind.
Satellite imagery showed swaths of trees and homes devastated in the hardest-hit areas of Jamaica, sparse remaining greenery defoliated and most structures destroyed.
In a neighbourhood of the island’s Montego Bay, 77-year-old Alfred Hines waded barefoot through thick mud and debris as he described his narrow escape from the rising floodwaters.
“At one stage, I see the water at my waist and (after) about 10 minutes time, I see it around my neck here and I make my escape,” he told Reuters on Wednesday.
“I just want to forget it and things come back to normal.”
In western parts of the island, people crowded by supermarkets and gas stations to fill up on supplies.
“Montego Bay hasn’t got any petrol. Most of the petrol stations are down,” British tourist Chevelle Fitzgerald told Reuters, adding it took her at least six hours to cross the 174 km (108 miles) to Jamaica’s capital.
“The highway was closed. You had some blockage on the road and trees falling down,” she said.
Over 70% of electrical customers in Jamaica remained without power as of Thursday morning, said Energy Minister Daryl Vaz, with power lines felled across the island’s roadways.
Many schools remained without power or water, officials in the capital Kingston said.

IMMEDIATE HUMANITARIAN AID

Scientists say hurricanes are intensifying faster with greater frequency as a result of warming ocean waters caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Many Caribbean leaders have called on wealthy, heavy-polluting nations to provide reparations in the form of aid or debt relief.
Despite the U.N. setting up a fund for developing nations to quickly access reliable financing for more extreme weather events in 2023, donations have not met targets.
U.S. forecaster AccuWeather said Melissa was the third most-intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean, as well as its slowest-moving, compounding damages for affected areas.
U.S. search and rescue teams were headed for Jamaica on Thursday to assist in recovery efforts, Jamaican authorities said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was prepared to offer “immediate humanitarian aid” to the people of Cuba, a long-time U.S. foe.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/hurricane-melissa-smashes-through-caribbean-accelerates-towards-bermuda-2025-10-30/

Tom Cruise was “not very happy” with Colin Farrell while filming their 2002 movie, “Minority Report.”

Farrell, 49, recalled what it was like to work with the “Mission Impossible” actor on the blockbuster film during Wednesday’s episode of the “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“It was a total headf–k, because I grew up watching those lads. I grew up watching Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’ and […] ‘Risky Business,’” he told Stephen Colbert, also referring to director Steven Spielberg.

However, his experience with Cruise soured during “one of the worst days” of his career.

Farrell told Colbert that he had “begged” production not to make him work the day after his birthday, because he “got up to all sorts of nonsense” the night before. Despite saying they would “see what [they could] do,” they made him show up to set at 6 a.m.

“I got to the trailer and, God bless them, and the third assistant director … said ‘You can’t go to set like this,’” he said.

To get through his hangover, he asked for a Hare of the Dog — a tactic he warned the audience against — and a 20-pack of cigarettes.

“It worked in the moment,” he laughed. However, it still took him “46 takes” to get through one line.

“Tom wasn’t very happy with me,” Farrell noted.

The “Penguin” star — who has been sober for 18 years — previously spoke about this experience, explaining that his sister was also on set visiting him.

He recalled in a 2019 interview with the UK Mirror that she left the set because watching him act like a drunken “disaster” upset her.

Three years after the film’s release, Farrell admitted that he’d “basically been drunk or high” since he was 14 and checked himself into rehab. His most recent stint was in 2018 for a “tune-up and a reset.”

The Irish actor credits his 22-year-old son, James, who has Angelman syndrome, for inspiring him to get sober.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/30/entertainment/why-tom-cruise-was-not-very-happy-with-colin-farrell-during-one-of-the-worst-days-on-minority-report-set/

There was a time when Nvidia was a company responsible for making video games look better. Those carefree days are over, says Dave Lee of Bloomberg Opinion.

just 112 days after becoming the first US$4 trillion company, Nvidia became the first US$5 trillion company.

It’s worth is more than 8 per cent of the S&P 500, but that’s just the start of it – the AI boost to the markets is built almost entirely off the back of use cases developed on Nvidia chips. The AI strategies of the biggest tech companies, like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and others, rest on their ability to hurriedly acquire and deploy Nvidia’s hardware in their data centres. While some rivals are trying to develop their own alternatives, notes analyst group Wedbush, “there is only one chip in the world fuelling this AI Revolution … and it’s Nvidia.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the man they call the Godfather of AI, has spent this week reassuring the world he is not creating a bubble. On his balance sheet, at least, the money is becoming very real: half a trillion dollars expected in revenue over the next five quarters from bookings for its latest chips.

“This is quite extraordinary,” Huang said of the moment as he sought to emphasise the diversity of businesses Nvidia is powering. These go well beyond the humble chatbot. Its presentations this week have spanned self-driving cars with Uber and Lucid Motors, AI-enhanced cybersecurity with CrowdStrike; pharmaceutical research with Eli Lilly, and an expansion into the nascent but promising realm of quantum computing.

FEW ARE FINDING REASON TO BE CAUTIOUS

The only blip along the way, if it could even be called that, were fears in September 2024 about the production delays of its latest chip, Blackwell, which triggered a sharp 13 per cent selloff. Then there was the worry that China’s DeepSeek would upend US tech sector spending on hardware. It didn’t, and those fears are long forgotten.

Huang says the company projects it will sell 20 million of its latest chips, more than five times the volume of the previous generation. This doesn’t take into account the possibility that talks on Thursday between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China might pave the way for Nvidia’s most sophisticated chips to be sold to China.

The country’s AI companies are eager for better hardware than what its homegrown chipmakers can offer. Current restrictions, which allow only for the sale of older generations of technology, represent the only meek regulatory constraint on Nvidia’s unstoppable rise.

Few are finding reason to be cautious. Concerns about circular financing, in which Nvidia invests in its own customers, do not appear to have altered investment theses. Nor has it dampened Nvidia’s appetite for a deal – the latest being a US$1 billion investment in Nokia, announced this week.

If Wall Street wanted to look for potential headwinds to Nvidia’s progress, they would start with its reliance on Taiwan – where most of the latest chips are produced – or in the lingering (though not yet pressing) risk that regulators scrutinise more closely the lock-in between Nvidia’s hardware and its proprietary software for AI development. The overly rash reaction to Blackwell production mishaps last year demonstrated how touchy investors are to any sign of turbulence in Nvidia’s supply chain and logistics.

RISKS AND DANGERS

More broadly, Nvidia needs the downstream rollout of AI – putting it in the hands of consumers and businesses – to start paying off, otherwise the wild capital expenditures might start getting pulled back. Nvidia is relying on others to actually reach the goal of human-level artificial intelligence that will, some say, make all the investment worthwhile.

There was a time when Nvidia was a company responsible for making video games look better. Those carefree days are over.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/nvidia-5-trillion-valuation-big-tech-chips-ai-5434566

For decades, APEC has helped integrate economies along the Pacific Rim. But on-again, off-again tariff escalation between the world’s largest economies means more uncertainty and less room for cooperation.

Donald Trump’s whirlwind tour of Asia this week culminated in a much-anticipated sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit hosted this year by South Korea.

So far, details of the meeting have yielded no big surprises. The US will lower tariffs in exchange for China cracking down on chemicals used to make fentanyl. Trump said China would buy “tremendous amounts” of soybeans from the US, after Beijing had cut off purchases amid an escalating trade war.

An “amazing meeting” with Xi concluded, Trump left town before the APEC summit’s main event: the leaders’ meeting on Friday, which Xi is expected to attend. South Korea has planned days of talks around the summit’s theme “building a sustainable tomorrow.”

Whether the latest truce between the US and China will be sustainable remains a question mark.

“US-China relations will remain intensely competitive, and even if a few small deals are reached and the temperature is lowered for a while, countries need to be prepared for renewed friction that could have consequences for their interests,” Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshal Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program, told DW.

A US-China truce, for now

Trump began his second term in office by imposing what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every country in the world, allies and competitors alike. The tariff rates presented on “Liberation Day” in April defied economic logic, leaving countries wondering how to respond. Since then, many of the tariffs have ended up exempted, rolled back or delayed, complicating long-term planning on sourcing and supply chains.

Competition with China has been at the forefront of US trade policy since Trump’s first term. The scattershot tariffs in April were surprising, partly because they went far beyond what had been expected, namely that Trump would limit aggressive trade policy to China.

However, since Trump’s first term, Beijing has learned to push back. At one point, both sides had threatened tariffs well over 100% before de-escalating. The latest flare-up in October saw Trump renew threats of 100% tariffs after Beijing threatened to restrict the export of high-tech critical rare-earth minerals, a market it dominates.

The commotion almost scuttled plans for the Trump-Xi talks in South Korea, before both sides cooled down.

But despite the current detente, which is said to include a “one-year truce,” the overall economic landscape remains volatile. Trump is known for his unpredictability, such as slapping a 10% tariff on Canada last week over an unflattering TV ad.

“Washington’s tumultuous trade negotiations — from China to India to Korea — have left many of its Asian allies questioning whether the United States still sees economic integration as a strategic asset or a bargaining chip,” Alison Szalwinski, vice president and a China adviser at The Asia Group, a public policy and strategy consultancy, told DW.

Amid this tense geopolitical landscape, forums like APEC will find it more difficult to achieve multilateral outcomes under the current geopolitical climate, Andrew Yeo, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, wrote ahead of Trump’s Asia tour.

This has “contributed to the steady marginalization of summits in favor of using large gatherings like APEC to schedule smaller meetings on the sidelines,” Yeo said.

How APEC helped open up China to the world

The US was a founding member of APEC, launched in 1989 to promote open trade and economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific. The results have been overall lower average tariffs in the region, along with more integrated supply chains and cross-border investment.

China joined APEC in 1991, in its first entry into a multilateral economic organization as part of Beijing’s “reform and opening up” policy launched by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s.

Participation in APEC discussions pushed China toward market-oriented reforms, transparency and regulatory modernization, and encouraged liberalized trade and investment policies.

This preceded China’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which helped spark the growth of China’s export machine.

Flash forward to 2025, and APEC host South Korea has listed expected deliverables from the summit to include cooperation on harnessing artificial intelligence among APEC economies in an “inclusive and sustainable manner,” and responding to demographic changes like aging populations and labor shortages.

Big deals on the sidelines

But with the Trump-Xi talks wrapped up and big-ticket deals with Japan and South Korea inked earlier in the week, the summit has already lost some of its luster, with the leader of its largest economy heading home on a plane before the event had even kicked off.

After Trump’s nudging this week during talks with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, both countries agreed to what amounts to a $900 billion (€777 billion) investment in the US economy in exchange for tariff relief, with deals comprising energy, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.

Brookings Asia fellow Patricia Kim wrote that Asian middle powers like South Korea are caught between the US and China.

“They are focused on negotiating trade deals with Washington while managing economic exposure to Beijing. Across the region, governments are hedging rather than leading in an increasingly transactional landscape,” Kim said.

US Asian allies hedge amid uncertainty

And while South Korea and Japan make their own deals with Trump, there are signs both countries are hedging against an unreliable US by deepening their trade and security cooperation with other regional partners in the face of more transactional US policies.

“The share of Korean and Japanese exports heading to the US is falling, for example, despite the trade deals that both countries announced with Washington in July. Neither country, however, is looking to multilateral institutions such as the WTO or APEC to resolve its trade negotiations with the US,” Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia and China at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told DW.

Diplomatic engagement is also picking up between South Korea and Japan. Before meeting Trump for the first time in August, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung met Japan’s then-Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in Tokyo.

“Seoul used to consult with Washington before engaging with Tokyo; now the opposite is true, as relations between South Korea and Japan have improved, and both countries face similar challenges in negotiating contentious trade and investment agreements with the US without harming security ties,” Chan said.

At APEC, Lee will hold his first meeting with Japan’s new prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, a conservative who is poised to moderate formerly hawkish foreign policy views on South Korea.

“In a world in which the US is less reliable, Japan and Korea will need each other more, with shuttle diplomacy between Seoul and Tokyo likely to continue,” Chan said.

Szalwinski from The Asia Group said that countries have been hedging for some time by “doubling down on smaller, results-oriented ‘minilateral’ arrangements, oftentimes oriented around more narrow or tangible shared interests.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-china-dysfunction-overshadows-apec-summit/a-74555101

The US will cut the number of refugees allowed into the country to 7,500 next year, the White House says. White South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination” will be the only refugees admitted.

The administration of President Donald Trump plans to allow only 7,500 refugees into the United States in 2026, according to a notice published on Thursday in the US Federal Registry.

The figure represents a dramatic reduction after his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration had previously admitted 125,000 people from all over the world annually.

“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa,” Trump’s order said, along with “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.”

The statement did not elaborate on the origin countries of “other victims.”

After taking office in January, Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals, only making an exception for white South Africans.

Trump has previously claimed that Afrikaners face persecution in South Africa, based on their race. The South African government has denied the claim.

The refugee program has been around since 1980, and the authority to set the cap on admissions rests with the president.

During his first term, Trump lowered the cap each year until it reached 15,000 in the last year of his presidency.

Rights groups decry program’s ‘politization’

Advocates for refugee rights in the US and abroad criticized the Trump administration’s move, saying it undermined national security.

“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program,” said Sharif Aly, president of IRAP, a global legal aid and advocacy organization.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-to-limit-refugee-admissions-to-7500-mostly-white-south-africans/a-74561828

A WOMAN who lived with Hollywood predator David Pearce has described him as a “nightmare housemate” who was raping women in the bedroom next to her.

Former producer Pearce, 43, was sentenced to 146 years to life in Los Angeles this week following a lengthy trial.

He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2021 fentanyl overdose deaths of model Christy Giles and architect Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola.

Giles and Cabrales-Arzola died after overdosing on the date rape drug GHB and fentanyl, prosecutors said.

Pearce failed to get them help, and they were later dumped at separate hospitals in Los Angeles.

Shamed Pearce was also found guilty of the string of sex offenses that occurred between 2007 and 2020 involving seven other women.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter imposed the maximum sentence, calling Pearce “the worst kind of criminal”.

Producer Rachel Ann Mullins, a former actress and model, was among the women who gave an emotional impact statement on Wednesday.

“He came in while I was using the bathroom and tried to kiss me.”

Following the sentencing, she gave an exclusive interview to The U.S. Sun and lifted the lid about her year living with Pearce in a shared house in Beverly Hills back in 2010.

She claimed he would have a constant rotation of women he brought home who ended up inebriated before spending the night and being ushered out the next day.

Mullins believed the women were being drugged and sexually assaulted and has worked with the authorities and several victims to help bring him to justice.

Rachel said, “It took two women losing their lives for his literal, lifelong crime spree to be put to an end.

“There was no way that one individual, any of us, was going to move the needle so much as a millimeter.

“It took this many of us, plus the media, to just wail on this case over and over again, and be like, ‘We’re not going away. You can’t flush this. There’s no wiggling free because there’s more of us, there’s more and more. We’ll just keep going down the line.”

Mullins, who was 20 when she first met Pearce, described him as a well-connected party friend who offered her a room after she was burgled and needed a place to stay.

She had her own bathroom and private entrance, and said another female friend was also living in the house.

Mullins described Pearce as the “nightmare housemate” who was often in trouble but never faced any real consequences for his actions.

She claimed he would “steal anything” from cans of tuna to their housemate’s handbag, and they didn’t know how to deal with him.

“Just a never-ending barrage of crime. He would get drunk and crash his Mercedes in Beverly Hills, just constantly,” she alleged.

One of the major red flags was when Mullins said he tried to force himself on her after a night out partying at the Playboy Mansion.

They went to a club, Avalon, with DJ Paul from 36 Mafia and Justin Bobby from The Hills, who were in Pearce’s orbit but have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

“He came in while I was using the bathroom and tried to kiss me, and I put him against the door,” she said.

‘POWERLESS TO HELP’

“I had really big stripper shoes on. We had just come from the Playboy Mansion, so I was effectively towering over him, and he didn’t try any more physical stuff with me after that.

“But he was always trying to manipulate or get his way. I don’t even know what his real goal was, other than feeling like he got one over on people.”

She was concerned he may be sexually assaulting girls in the house and told a friend who was a police officer, but was told it was unlikely the case would even make it to court.

Mullins, who is now turning 37, said many people told her at the time, “That’s how guys are, that’s how LA is, that’s how Hollywood functions.”

Describing the girls she would see at the house, she said, “They were way too drunk, way too high, absolutely incoherent on drugs, alcohol, or both.

“He would never listen to anybody about anything. Even to this day, he’ll never take a single ounce of responsibility. It’s always everyone else’s fault.”

As a younger woman, Mullins didn’t know how to handle the situation.

She said, “I’d be like, ‘This is getting out of hand,’ and even my own roommate would be like, ‘Well, you know, that’s how he is. This is it.’”

Mullins reached out to friends for help to try and find a new place to live and eventually managed to move out of the apartment and cut contact with Pearce.

She admits she wasn’t shocked when she heard news of his arrest following the deaths of Giles, a model, and her friend Cabrales-Arzola, who was an architect.

“I was in Florida, working on my house, and my phone blew up,” she said.

‘NO ACCOUNTABILITY’

“People being like, ‘Didn’t you live with this dude?’ And I was like, ‘Yep, whatever he’s being accused of, I guarantee you he did it, and worse.’ I already knew.

“I got in touch with the girls’ families, sort of through the Instagram grapevine, and then they put me in touch with the head of homicide and the head of sex crimes at LAPD.”

She said her initial interview with the police was three hours long, and she continued to keep in touch with everyone throughout the trial.

Mullins came face-to-face with him again in court and was glad to finally see justice served after years of fighting.

She said, “He wouldn’t look at anyone. We spent all morning doing these statements, and he was literally doodling [with] his little pen.

“He refused to read his statement. He made his attorney read it, even though the judge urged him to read his own statement.”

She described the statement as “more classic Dave lies,” as he took no accountability and spoke of wanting to go to Congress and demand better access to fentanyl testing kits, start a non-profit, and donate to the victims’ families.

“It was absolutely wild. Again, I wish I could say that I’m shocked. I’m not.”

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15420417/hollywood-david-pearce-roommate-house-of-horrors/

There have also been issues with the brightness of the headlights on over 63,000 Cybertrucks

TESLA is recalling thousands of Cybertrucks after it emerged their headlights keep falling off.

Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer was forced to take action after discovering major problems with how the company’s mechanics were glueing on lights.

The issues stem from an optional light bar attachment which can be added onto a Cybertruck for $2,500 (£1,900).

They are designed to provide extra illumination of up to 525 yards during off-road use.

One user on social media claimed a light bar “came crashing down on our truck on the highway”.

A high-powered strip is supposed to be glued on the top of the truck’s windshield with an industrial adhesive.

But it has now emerged that Tesla mechanics had been using the wrong chemicals to apply the attachment.

Around 6,200 Cybertrucks are being recalled.

A report found that they had been using a primer meant to be used for the windshield on the bar itself.

Evidence was also found that a sealing product designed for the light bar was used on the windshield.

Tesla is offering to retrofit Cybertrucks with a physical fastener rather than an adhesive going forwards.

They told US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it had received one report of the issue and 619 warranty claims related to it.

Tesla bosses added that they are not aware of any collisions, injuries, or fatalities related to the issue.

There have also been issues with the brightness of the headlights on over 63,000 Cybertrucks.

The lights have been deemed too bright and may be a distraction to other drivers and increase the risk of a collision.

The recall is for certain Cybertrucks with a model year between 2024 and 2026, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The vehicles were made between November 13, 2023, and October 11, 2025.

Each one has operating software versions prior to 2025.38.3.

Tesla has announced it will issue a software update to solve the issue.

Dozens of top celebrities own Cybertrucks and are often seen cruising around the US in the huge powerful motors.

Kim Kardashian is often pictured stepping out of her Tesla, as are Justin and Hailey Beiber.

Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, Beyonce and Spike Lee have all also been spotted driving the luxury cars in the past.

It comes after the electric car giant was also hit by a United Nations safety warning over its controversial stylised handle mechanics.

Experts have warned the hidden handles – which sit inside and aligned with many Tesla models‘ doors – may not open following an accident if a battery-powered car loses power.

UN officials said: “In real-world crashes, retractable door handles may not open.”

Fresh concerns were raised just weeks after Elon Musk‘s firm was sued in the US over claims one of its Cybertrucks failed to open up after a November accident.

Three people died following the crash when they became trapped inside the burning vehicle.

Tesla said it was exploring different door handle redesigns in response to the recent concerning speculation.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/15420125/tesla-recalls-cybertrucks-musk-headlights-falling-off/

Despite the awkward start, the proceedings carried on as if nothing had happened

THIS is the bizarre moment a Detroit police officer appeared at a remote court hearing wearing his official uniform shirt – but no trousers.

Officer Matthew Jackson stunned the courtroom and is now under investigation when he logged into a Zoom hearing wearing only his boxer briefs below the waist.

The jaw-dropping moment took place on on October 27 and quickly went viral after the judge – clearly taken back – called him out in front of everyone.

“You got some pants on, sir?” asked Judge Sean Perkins.

“No, sir,” Jackson admitted, before hurriedly adjusting his camera to crop out his bare legs.

The bizarre exchange took place during a hearing for a woman accused of drag racing and disorderly conduct.

Despite the awkward start, the proceedings carried on as if nothing had happened.

But stunned court staff and attorneys weren’t quick to forget it.

Attorney TaTaNisha Reed, who was representing the defendant, said she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“I was trying to figure it out. Like, Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?Especially with a police officer. So it was an interesting day to say the least,” she told ABC7.

Reed even stepped in mid-hearing to point it out.

“I said, ‘Judge, he needs to alter his camera,’ and that’s when the judge said, ‘Oh,’” she recalled.

The clip has since made the rounds online, prompting an internal investigation by the Detroit Police Department.

36th District Court Chief Judge William McConico said the presiding judge was left completely shocked.

“I spoke with Judge Perkins, because I wanted to know, you know, what went through his mind with how he handled the case,” McConico told ABC7.

“He was stunned, obviously. He was shocked. Officer Jackson is a person he’s known.”

But McConico added that Perkins chose not to halt the hearing out of respect for Jackson’s usually professional demeanor.

“He wanted to stress to me that Officer Jackson is a very professional police officer, he’s always been very courteous to the citizens, and that’s why it was a little bit stunning,” he said.

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison released a statement condemning the incident and promising action.

“The Detroit Police Department requires its officers to represent themselves in a dignified and professional manner while attending court proceedings,” he said.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15421132/cop-appears-court-zoom-without-trousers/

Buckingham Palace has announced that Prince Andrew is to lose his prince title and will be leaving his Royal Lodge home in Windsor.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – as he is now to be known – gave up his other royal titles earlier this month, including the Duke of York, after more questions and allegations about his private life.

The palace said the former prince has agreed to leave Royal Lodge as his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein continue to cause controversy.

The decision was made due to serious lapses in Andrew’s judgement, it is understood, and he continues to deny the accusations against him.

It is also understood that he did not object to the King’s decision to remove his titles.

President Donald Trump has announced the US will start testing nuclear weapons in what could be a radical shift in his nation’s policy.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, as he was about to meet the Chinese president on Thursday.

“That process will begin immediately.”

The world’s nuclear-armed states – those acknowledged as belonging to the so-called nuclear club and those whose status is more ambiguous – regularly test their nuclear weapons’ delivery systems, such as a missile that would carry a nuclear warhead.

Only North Korea has actually tested a nuclear weapon since the 1990s – and it has not done so since 2017.

The White House has not issued any clarifications to the commander-in-chief’s announcement. So it remains unclear whether Trump means testing nuclear delivery systems or the destructive weapons themselves. In comments after his post, he said nuclear test sites would be determined later.

Many of the six policy experts who spoke to the BBC said that testing nuclear weapons could raise the stakes in an already dangerous moment where all signs showed the world was heading in the direction of a nuclear arms race – even though it has not yet begun.

One of the six did not agree that Trump’s comments would have a major impact – and another did not think the US was provoking a race – but all said the world faced a rising nuclear threat.

“The concern here is that, because nuclear armed states have not conducted these nuclear tests in decades – setting North Korea aside – this could create a domino effect,” said Jamie Kwong, fellow in the nuclear policy programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“We’re at a very concerning moment where the US, Russia and China are potentially entering this moment that could very well become an arms race.”

Darya Dolzikova, Senior Research Fellow for Proliferation and Nuclear Policy at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) – a London-based defence and security think tank – said she did not believe Trump’s comments would change the situation massively.

But, she added, “there are other dynamics globally that have raised the risks of nuclear exchange and further proliferation of nuclear weapons to levels higher than they have been in decades”.

Trump’s message, she said, “is a drop in a much larger bucket, and there are some legitimate concerns of that bucket overfilling”.

The experts pointed to escalating conflicts where one or more of the warring parties is a nuclear power – the war in Ukraine, for instance, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened at times that he could use nuclear weapons.

And then there were flare-ups – if not full-fledged conflicts – such as the one between Pakistan and India this year, or Israel – which has a policy of neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear weapons – attacking Iran – a country the West accuses of trying to build nuclear weapons (a charge Tehran denies).

Tensions on the Korean peninsula and China’s ambitions in Taiwan add to the overall picture.

The last existing nuclear treaty between the US and Russia that limits their amounts of deployed nuclear arsenals – warheads ready to go – is set to expire in February next year.

In his announcement, Trump said the US had more nuclear weapons than any other country – a statement that does not match figures updated regularly by another think tank that specialises in the field, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

According to Sipri, Russia has 5,459 nuclear warheads followed by the US with 5,177, and China coming a distant third with 600.

Other think tanks reported similar numbers.

Russia announced recently it had tested new nuclear weapons delivery systems – including a missile the Kremlin said could penetrate US defences and another that could go underwater to strike the US coast.

The latter claim may have led to Trump’s announcement, some of the experts suspected, even though Russia said its tests “were not nuclear”.

Meanwhile, the US has been watching China closely – with increasing concern that it will reach near-peer status, too, and posing a “two-peer nuclear risk”, experts said.

So a resumption of US nuclear testing could prompt China and Russia to do the same.

A Kremlin spokesman said that “if someone departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly”.

In its response, China said it hoped the US would fulfil its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty – which both countries have signed but not ratified – and honour its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said a US resumption of nuclear weapons testing would be “a mistake of historic international security proportions”.

He said the risk of nuclear conflict “has been steadily rising” over several years and, unless the US and Russia “negotiate some form of new constraints on their arsenals, we’re likely going to see an unconstained, dangerous, three-way arms race between the US, Russia and then China in the coming years”.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the average person should be “very concerned” because there has been an increase over the past five years in nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War.

The last US nuclear weapons test – underground in Nevada – was in 1992.

Kimball said it would take at least 36 months to get the Nevada site ready for use again.

The US currently uses computer simulations and other non-explosive means to test its nuclear weapons, and therefore does not have a practical justification to detonate them, multiple experts said.

Kwong said there were inherent risks even with underground testing, because you must ensure there is not a radioactive leak above ground and it does not affect groundwater.

While blaming Russia and China for ratcheting up the rhetoric, Robert Peters, senior research fellow of strategic deterrence at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that, while there may not be a scientific or technical reason for testing a warhead, “the primary reason is to send a political message for your opponents”.

“It may be necessary for some president, whether it’s Donald Trump or whomever, to test nuclear weapons as a demonstration of credibility”, he said, arguing it was “not an unreasonable position to hold” to be prepared to test.

While many others the BBC spoke to disagreed, all offered a fairly dire assessment of the current situation.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxn00l00r6o

A critically endangered spider, not seen in the UK for 40 years, has been rediscovered in a remote nature reserve accessible only by boat.

Aulonia albimana, which was last recorded in the UK in 1985, was uncovered at the National Trust’s Newtown nature reserve on the Isle of Wight – about 2km (1.2 miles) from the spider’s former colony.

The tiny orange-legged arachnid has informally been named the white-knuckled wolf spider by those who found it.

Mark Telfer, who carried out the search with fellow entomologist Graeme Lyons, called it “one of those unforgettable discoveries”.

“To find a species thought lost for 40 years is thrilling – and testament to how the right habitat management, combined with curiosity and collaboration, can deliver remarkable results,” he said.

Wolf spiders – of which there are about 38 species living in the UK – take their name from their agile hunting skills, which involve chasing prey along the ground before pouncing like a wolf.

But the National Trust said the Aulonia albimana’s hunting techniques remained something of a mystery, as the species was also known to spin a flimsy web.

Mr Lyons said: “I suggested calling it the white-knuckled wolf spider because this was probably the longest long shot I’ve ever taken part in.

“We had just four hours at the site where this spider was last seen 40 years ago, before our boat came to pick us up.

“I found the first one with just nine minutes to go, and the second one in the last minute.

“I’ve seen 559 species of spider in the British Isles and this one was by far the most exciting find.”

Mr Telfer said the name was also inspired by the distinctive pale “knuckles” on the small leg-like appendages at the side of the spider’s mouth.

Dr Helen Smith, conservation officer for the British Arachnological Society, said: “The remarkable discovery of this dapper little spider on the Isle of Wight is one of Britain’s epic ‘lost species’ rediscoveries of the century.

“With repeated failure to find it at its former sites, where its open habitat has been lost, it seemed increasingly likely that it had joined the country’s sad list of extinct species.”

The area where the spider was found used to be overgrown but has been restored by the National Trust with the help of a flock of Hebridean sheep.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg1y66y80ro

Everyone was left mesmerised after the world’s first-ever white Iberian Lynx was spotted in Spain. The unique big cat was spotted by a photographer. Take a look…

It seems like the phrase ‘straight out of myth’ came alive– after a photographer ended up spotting a white Iberian lynx in Spain. Yes, there exists a white Iberian lynx, which is also the world’s first! A video of the big cat calmly sitting at a distance and ‘making eye contact’ with the photographer’s lens was shared online, which went viral for obvious reasons. What made the furry one’s uniqueness manifold was that not only are Iberian lynx rare, but this one- a white Iberian lynx- is leucistic. For those not aware, leucistic is a condition that is known for causing ‘lack of pigmentation in the fur’ among animals. Originally, Iberian lynx are mostly brown or beige-white in colour. As soon as the video went viral, netizens began to call it an animal ‘straight out of mythical and fictional stories’.

Coming to the rare animal’s features, it is quite famous for its characteristic ‘beard’, which is basically some long fur around its mouth. They also have spots and ‘weigh about half as much as the Eurasian species’, as per the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The big cat has long legs and a short tail. Reportedly, the species almost went extinct in 2002, as fewer than 100 of them remained. However, after much effort, their population reached 2,000 by 2025.

Check out the viral post:

A photographer in Spain has documented the nation’s first white Iberian lynx, a rare stunning leucistic specimen.
The post was shared on X (formerly Twitter), by the handle ‘Osint613’. The post was shared yesterday and pulled more than 56K views from netizens.

Enrique Iglesias Mumbai Concert: Singer Catches Fan’s Phone Mid-Performance In Mumbai And Records Surprise Video | WATCH

During his recent concert in Mumbai, international pop icon Enrique Iglesias created a memorable moment by effortlessly catching a fan’s phone mid-performance. While clutching a microphone in one hand, he extended the other and grabbed the recording device as the fan filmed him. The 50-year-old star then looked directly into the camera, offered a grin, and proceeded to make a surprise video himself.

The incident quickly went viral online as attendees and viewers alike shared the clip. In it, Iglesias appears both confident and playful—he maintains his stage presence, seamlessly integrating this spontaneous interaction with the crowd into his performance. Fans responded with cheers and were clearly delighted by the gesture.

This playful moment happened amid a high-energy set where Iglesias delivered hits and engaged his audience across languages and cultures. By acknowledging the fan’s recording attempt and turning it into a shared moment on stage, he demonstrated a connection with his audience that went beyond the usual artist-fan divide.

Observers online pointed out how such unplanned interactions elevate the live concert experience. Rather than simply allowing the phone recording, Iglesias took active control of the moment—making it part of the show. The fan’s device, initially intended for their personal footage, became a prop in the performance itself. In doing so, Iglesias not only entertained his concert-goers but also generated fresh viral content that expanded the reach of the event well beyond the venue.

Source: https://www.spotboye.com/trending/trending-news/enrique-iglesias-mumbai-concert-singer-catches-fan-s-phone-mid-performance-in-mumbai-and-records-surprise-video-watch/69032c80c95eb142d3289e05

The Trump administration has abruptly ended automatic EAD renewals for certain migrants, effective October 30. Immigration experts warn the move will hit Indian H‑1B holders’ spouses and OPT students hardest, and might cause job losses due to 7–10 month processing time. Businesses relying on skilled workers might also face disruption as fresh vetting is now mandatory.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has abruptly ended the automatic renewal of Employment Authorisation Documents (EADs) for certain migrant groups, triggering widespread concern and criticism from immigrant communities, legal experts, and advocacy groups. Immigration experts have warned the change could disrupt the US workforce, with some highlighting the risk of job loss due to lengthy renewal processing times. The new rule, effective Thursday (October 30, US time), removes the long-standing provision that allowed certain migrant workers to continue employment while their renewal applications were pending.

The change is likely to affect Indian workers disproportionately, as they constitute the largest group of H-1B visa holders and international students under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme. Notably, H-1B visa holders’ spouses need EADs, who will be affected by the latest move.

Asylum seekers with pending cases will also be impacted. However, green card holders, H-1B principal workers, L-1 intracompany transferees, and O-1 individuals of extraordinary ability will not be affected, as they do not need EADs.

Under the policy change, migrants who file to renew their EAD on or after October 30 will no longer receive automatic extensions. Instead, each renewal will now involve new vetting before the permit is extended.

DHS said this measure is aimed at strengthening screening and detecting individuals with potentially harmful intent.

Immigration advocates and legal experts argued that the abrupt shift—announced with minimal warning and without prior notice—has left many highly skilled migrants and their employers in limbo.

David J Bier, immigration expert at the Cato Institute, slammed the government for the overnight rule change.

“Another rule imposed immediately without notice and public comment periods because it is somehow an emergency to stop people from working solely because of government ineptitude,” Bier said in a post on X.

Another immigration expert warned the rule could disrupt the US workforce, harm businesses and workers.

“This will take away current employees from American employers, which in turn will hurt American businesses and workers. This is a self-inflicted wound with no factual justification, a South Carolina-based immigration attorney, Banias Law, wrote on X.

LONG PROCESSING TIME RAISING CONCERNS OVER POTENTIAL JOB LOSSES
Attorney Kripa Upadhyay, co-chair of the Immigration and Global Mobility Practice at Buchalter law firm, warned that the rule could lead to job loss for employees, as EAD renewals can take 7–10 months to process.

“Employees will be forced to face job loss once the current EAD expires and before the new one is issued. The USCIS does not allow for premium processing option for EAD’s and the normal processing time is about seven to ten months depending on the jurisdiction of the case,” Kripa Upadhyay was quoted as saying by a Germantown-based news portal, The American Bazar.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news/story/us-immigration-india-outrage-sudden-migrant-work-permit-rule-change-employment-authorisation-documents-fi-h1b-visa-job-loss-2810971-2025-10-30

The deadliest police operation against drug gangs in Brazil’s history killed at least 121 people, authorities said on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses found overnight.
State police said the raids targeting a major drug gang had been planned exhaustively for more than two months, and were designed to drive suspects into a forested hillside where a special operations unit was waiting in ambush.

“The elevated lethality of the operation was expected but not desired,” Victor Santos, head of security for Rio state, told a news conference. He also promised an investigation into any police “misconduct.”
Rio police confirmed 121 deaths so far, including four officers. Public defenders said the final count would rise to at least 132.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the scourge of drug violence had to be confronted, calling for coordinated work that targets the gangs without putting police and innocent families at risk.
“We cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence throughout the cities,” he said in a post on X.

Residents of the Penha neighborhood in Rio gathered dozens of corpses from the surrounding forest overnight and lined up more than 70 of the bodies in the middle of a main street.
“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, a mother of one of those killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long row of bodies, some of which were covered with sheets or bags.
A motorcycle caravan set off from the neighborhood in the afternoon to protest the police violence outside the governor’s palace, where demonstrators gathered waving Brazilian flags stained with red palm marks.
The city’s most deadly police drug raid before Tuesday was in 2021, when 28 people were killed in the Jacarezinho neighborhood.
The latest raids were also Brazil’s deadliest ever police operation. In 1992, 111 prisoners died when Sao Paulo police stormed the Carandiru Penitentiary to put down a rebellion.

UN URGES INVESTIGATION

UN officials and security experts criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style operation. The United Nations human rights office said the killings add to a trend of extremely lethal police raids in Brazil’s marginalized communities.
“We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law, and urge prompt and effective investigations,” the agency said in a statement.
Relatives of the fallen described evidence of summary executions, including bound limbs, knife wounds and gunshots to the face and neck.
“Several families reported signs of torture on the victims’ bodies,” said Guilherme Pimentel, a human rights lawyer working with families of the deceased at Rio’s police morgue.
Santos, Rio state’s security secretary, said: “Any misconduct that may have occurred, which I believe did not happen, will be investigated.”
He said there was no connection between the violence and the global events Rio will host next week related to the United Nations COP30 climate negotiations, including the C40 summit of mayors addressing global warming and Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
Rio Governor Claudio Castro said he was certain those killed in the operation were criminals firing guns from the forest.
“I don’t think anyone would be walking in the forest on the day of the conflict,” he told reporters, calling the raids an effort to combat “narcoterrorism.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/more-than-40-bodies-seen-street-after-rios-deadliest-police-operation-2025-10-29/

Former Biden White House spokesperson Ian Sams, who aggressively defended the aging president as “sharp” and vigorous behind the scenes following his fumbling 2024 debate performance, privately admitted to House investigators that he rarely met the 46th president in person.

On July 2, 2024, five days after the disastrous debate, Sams went on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” and argued that the 46th president’s repudiation of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision illustrated how Biden was keeping up behind the scenes, despite public fears about his cognition.

“Yesterday, when he [gave] the speech about what the Supreme Court did, he drove that speech,” Sams raved to host Nicolle Wallace.

“That’s the President Biden that so many of us experience every single day, who’s asking the tough questions so that we as staff can be sharp to do our job best for the American people.”

“When I deal with him,” Sams reiterated at another point in the interview in reference to Biden, “he is sharp. He’s asking tough questions.”

Sams’ staunch defense of Biden went viral due to its contrast with the feeble display the Democrat had put on during the CNN debate against Donald Trump.

However, Sams told a different story about his dealings with the commander in chief during his August interview, the transcript of which was released Tuesday.

“The first time I met President Biden personally was in a meeting, maybe in early 2024,” he conceded to House Oversight Committee investigators. “…I interacted with him pretty infrequently.”

When pressed for specifics, Sams said he dealt with Biden directly “three or four times” during his two-plus years in the administration, including two in-person meetings, one phone meeting, and one virtual meeting.

Sams stood by his July 2024 description of Biden on MSNBC and brushed off concerns that his comments were misleading.

“I think it was pretty direct and honest and said that when I do deal with him he’s, you know, sharp and he was asking incisive questions during my meetings with him,” he insisted.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) described Sams’ testimony as “one of the most shocking” he had heard from former Biden aides who answered questions for the panel’s autopen probe.

Sams had been the White House point person responding to Comer’s investigations into the Biden family’s foreign business interests after Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterms.

“He was LYING to the American people to cover up for Biden’s decline,” the Oversight Committee’s X account jabbed on Wednesday alongside a mashup of Sams’ seemingly contradictory claims.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/29/us-news/ex-biden-spox-who-asserted-he-saw-sharp-prez-frequently-admits-to-seeing-him-twice-in-2-years/ 

Commerce Department data and record stock-market highs indicate the US economy is on a tear so far under President Donald Trump.

Yes, inflation is still a bit too high at 3% — but under Joe Biden, we had inflation two to three times that level.

And economic growth was much lower then, downright anemic compared to the near 4% we’ve seen over the past six months, as measured by the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank.

Someone please tell Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell the good news.

On Wednesday, Powell announced a modest quarter-point interest rate cut, lowering rates to a new range of 3.75% to 4% — the first time in nearly three years that the benchmark rate has dropped to so low a level.

It’s a decision that should add further energy to the US economy, but in his comments Powell sounded downright glum.

He described the economy as being in a period of “moderate growth,” wrongly stating that the United States is limping along at a 1.6% GDP growth rate, and that he expects sub-2% economic growth next year.

Talk about the tyranny of low expectations.

Powell remains hyper-critical of Trump’s trade policies, and said he expects “some significant inflation . . . from tariffs” that will show up “pretty soon.”

He’s only half-right at best.

Tariffs are taxes that reduce growth, and in isolation will spill into higher consumer prices. (Just look at what has happened to coffee prices due to tariffs of up to 50% on Brazilian and Colombian coffee beans.)

But Powell rarely if ever tells the world that Trump’s tax cuts, his cost-cutting deregulations, his “drill, baby, drill” energy strategies that have produced record low oil and gas, and his many productive trade deals have been economic boons.

These pro-growth policies all are disinflationary.

The biggest problem at the Fed is that, as Steve Forbes has correctly pointed out, Powell and his cadre of 300 PhD economists still believe that growth causes inflation.

Apparently, if we reduce the production of goods and services, their prices will go . . . down?

That’s a little like hoping the sun rises in the west.

The Fed needs an abrupt change of course.

It should always and everywhere defend the dollar and price stability through its interest rate policies and through its economic rhetoric.

This would help reverse the greenback’s slide against other currencies, and in turn reduce inflationary pressures.

The Fed should be cheerleading most of Trump’s supply-side and pro-America policies, while waving cautionary flags about the dangers of tariffs.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/29/opinion/fed-rate-cut-is-too-little-too-late-show-jerome-powell-the-door/

A RECORD-BREAKING Mega Millions jackpot has risen to $754 million in the US after four months of no wins.

The jackpot became the ninth-largest in the game’s history on Tuesday, hitting $714 million, but after another winless drawing that day, it went up by $40 million.

It comes after the Powerball lottery saw a similar dry spell, which eventually led to a jackpot of $1.7 billion.

The Mega Millions jackpot cash value went from $334.1 million on Tuesday to the current $352.8 million.

It climbed after nobody was able to match all six balls in the most recent draw.

This took place on Tuesday, when the balls to match were 2, 19, 33, 53 and 61, with the Mega Ball being 14.

The next drawing is set for Friday, October 31, at 11 pm ET on Halloween.

There were still plenty of wins in the Tuesday drawing, with 482,430 successful tickets in the lower price brackets.

Across the US, lottery players took in $11.7 million collectively from the Tuesday draw.

The current jackpot is one of the highest the Mega Millions has ever seen.

The two highest jackpots totalled $1.602 billion, claimed in 2023, and $1.537 billion in 2018.

This $754 million jackpot has been growing since June, when the winning player took over a month to come forward, despite having won $348 million.

That ticket was purchased in a convenience store in Northumberland County, Virginia.

LOSE HALF

Under state law, winners can request to remain anonymous if they win a prize deemed big enough.

When they do come forward, they will likely have to give up half of their winnings, as well as pay tax on them.

This is because of the choice they will face between accepting their money as one lump sum or in instalments over the next several years.

LUMP SUM VS ANNUITY

In many cases, taking the money in one go significantly reduces the amount that a winner will walk away with.

For example, one of the two men who won the recent Powerball jackpot was given the choice of $893.5 million over 30 instalments or $410.3 million as a one-time lump sum.

The two players came from Missouri and Texas, but due to the former’s stricter tax laws on lottery winnings, the Texas player took home $16.4 million more.

Across every state, the IRS takes a 24% cut of your lottery winnings and an additional 37% in income taxes.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/money/15413602/mega-millions-lottery-jackpot-draw-numbers/

Trump indicated this decision was prompted by the testing activities of other nations.

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will begin testing the nation’s nuclear weapons immediately. In a post on social media platform X, Trump boasted how the United States possesses “more nuclear weapons than any other country”, way ahead of Russia and China, and said that based on testing programs of others, he was instructing the Department of War to start testing their assets on an equal basis.
“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years,” Trump said in a post on X.
“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he added.

Notably, Russia recently tested two nuclear-powered strategic weapons — the 9M730 Burevestnik cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone — described by Moscow as capable of carrying nuclear payloads over long ranges. Putin personally oversaw these tests, which were described by Trump as “inappropriate.”

A Pakistani Army captain and five soldiers were killed in a clash with Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants near the Afghan border in Kurram district.

A Pakistani Army captain was among six soldiers killed in a clash with militants near the Afghan border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kurram district, the Pakistani military said on Wednesday.

According to a statement from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, at least seven militants were also killed during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) conducted in the Dogar area of Kurram.

The ISPR said the operation targeted members of Fitna al-Khawarij, a term it uses to describe militants belonging to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The Kurram district, which borders Afghanistan, has become a frequent flashpoint for cross-border militant infiltration and attacks targeting Pakistan’s security forces.

According to Dawn, Among the fallen was Captain Noman Saleem, a 24-year-old medical officer from Mianwali who, according to the army, “fought gallantly and embraced shahadat (martyrdom) along with his five men.” The other soldiers killed were Havaldar Amjad Ali (39, Swabi), Naik Waqas Ahmad (36, Rawalpindi), Sepoy Aijaz Ali (23, Shikarpur), Sepoy Muhammad Waleed (23, Jhelum), and Sepoy Muhammad Shahbaz (32, Khairpur).

ISPR said a sanitisation operation was underway to eliminate any remaining militants in the area.

“The relentless counterterrorism campaign under ‘Azm-e-Istehkam’ will continue at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign-sponsored and supported terrorism from the country,” the statement added.

The clash underscores Pakistan’s escalating security challenges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, where militant attacks have surged since the TTP ended its ceasefire with the government in late 2022.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pakistan-army-captain-six-soldiers-killed-ttp-militants-clash-afghan-border-kurram-azm-e-istehkam-2810499-2025-10-30

In rare interviews, ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she was living freely but cautiously in Delhi and had no intentions of leaving India. She also warned that millions of voters would boycott the election in Bangladesh if her party, the Awami League, wasn’t allowed to participate in it.

Ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said she had no plans of leaving India, warning that millions of voters would be boycotting the election in Bangladesh if her party, the Awami League, wasn’t allowed to participate. In interviews to a news agency and the UK’s Independent, Hasina refused to apologise for the killings that took place in July-August 2024 during the agitation that led to the toppling of her regime. Hasina told Reuters she “lives freely in Delhi but remains cautious given her family’s violent history”.

Hasina, advised by Bangladesh Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman, left for India on August 5 last year on a self-imposed exile as tens of thousands of protesters marched towards her residence in Dhaka. Since then, she has been in a safehouse in Delhi, according to reports. A Reuters journalist had seen Hasina taking a stroll at Delhi’s Lodhi Garden and nodding to passersby who recognised her.

In an e-mail interview to Reuters, Sheikh Hasina said that “she would not return to Bangladesh under any government formed after elections that exclude her party, and plans to remain in India”.

“I would of course love to go home, so long as the government there was legitimate, the Constitution was being upheld, and law and order genuinely prevailed,” she told Reuters.

Hasina and several leaders of her government and party are facing charges of murder and a trial has just concluded at the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in Dhaka where the government prosecutor sought the death penalty for her.

Around 1,400 people were allegedly killed in Bangladesh in July and August last year as a students’ protest against quota in jobs turned into a movement against the Sheikh Hasina regime.

In an interview to The Independent, published on Wednesday, Sheikh Hasina refused to apologise for the deaths, but said she “mourns each and every child, sibling, cousin and friend we lost as a nation” and would “continue to offer my condolences”.

She called the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) proceedings “sham trial” and part of the process of assassinations against her family, and a bid to get rid of her.

“The ICT is a sham court presided over by an unelected government consisting of my political opponents. Many of those opponents will stop at nothing to get rid of me,” Hasina told The Independent. “Because of my family’s history, nobody can be more aware than I am of the history of political assassinations in our country, and this move by the ICT is part of that ugly tradition.”

Sheikh Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the founders of Bangladesh, and several family members were assassinated by a group of army officers on August 15, 1975. Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rihanna Siddiq, who were vacationing abroad, survived. Then too, the sisters had sought refuge in Delhi.

The Election Commission of Bangladesh suspended the registration of Hasina’s party, the Awami League, in May. The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus banned Awami League’s activities soon after. The Awami League is one of the biggest parties and has family-based following.

The interviews came even as Dhaka-based Daily Star reported that the Election Commission was likely to announce the date for the general election by the first week of December.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/sheikh-hasina-bangladesh-ousted-pm-refuse-to-apologise-death-1400-people-student-uprising-no-intention-to-leave-india-2810291-2025-10-29

Hurricane Melissa weakened to a Category 1 storm as it begins to batter Bahamas after pummeling Cuba and Jamaica. DW has more.

Melissa starts to lash Bahamas, warning of flash floods, storm surges
Melissa is currently over the Bahamas, the live weather and hurricane tracking site Zoom Earth shows.

Melissa was downgraded to a Category 1 storm on Wednesday afternoon but is still predicted to bring a dangerous storm surge.

“Hurricane conditions, life-threatening storm-surge, and heavy rainfall” is expected across portions of the Bahamas on Thursday evening, according to the latest briefing by the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The advisory warns that the storm could generate storm surges of up to 7 feet (2 meters) and flash floods in southeastern Bahamas.

Residents in the Bahamas should remain sheltered, the advisory says.

At least 25 dead in Haiti flood
Flooding triggered by Hurricane Melissa has left at least 20 people dead and 10 others missing in Haiti, authorities said.

The mayor of the southern Haitian coastal town of Petit-Goave, Jean Bertrand Subreme, told The Associated Press that 25 people had died after La Digue river burst its banks and flooded nearby homes.

“I am overwhelmed by the situation,” Subreme said as he pleaded with the government to help rescue victims.

Dozens of homes collapsed and people were still trapped under rubble as of Wednesday morning, he added.

Emmanuel Pierre, Haiti’s civil defense agency chief, told the AFP news agency that 10 children were among those who died in river floods. Emergency responders were conducting searches for the missing, Pierre added.

Cuba reports ‘extensive damage’ as Hurricane Melissa hits
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Wednesday that Hurricane Melissa had caused “extensive damage” after making landfall overnight on the island’s southern coast.

Diaz-Canel said in a post on social media that it had been “a very difficult early morning” and warned that the storm was still over Cuban territory. He urged citizens to remain cautious, maintain discipline, and stay safely sheltered.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/hurricane-melissa-weakens-to-category-1-storm-over-bahamas/live-74514852

THIS is the terrifying moment a fire tears through a family home after a firework from Diwali landed in their garden.

The Coventry family say they’ve “lost everything” after the blaze destroyed their three-bed property in Foleshill.

Emergency services were called to reports of the fire ripping through the home at around 9:30pm on October 18.

Mohsen Mahmoudi and his family of four were out when a firework is thought to have landed in their garden.

By the time firefighters had arrived, however, the blaze had already engulfed the house.

The spark was so severe, it spread to two neighbouring properties, firefighters said.

Dramatic video shows smoke billowing from the property as the the blaze ripped through the family home.

Gargantuan flames fill the black sky as shocked voices are heard muttering in the background.

Pictures of the aftermath, meanwhile, show charred debris sprawled across where the house once stood.

Friend Monica Chumber, 28, said the family have been left “devastated” and are just “trying to keep going”.

She said: “They have lost everything — clothes, furniture, keepsakes, and the comfort of their own home.”

Monica has since set up a GoFundMe to help the family with rebuilding costs as “there was no home insurance”.

She said: “You go out and live your normal life, thinking you are going to come back, and the house will be the same, and their house is just completely gutted.”

“This home wasn’t just a building, It’s where neighbours would stop by for a chat, where birthdays were celebrated, and where the door was always open for anyone who needed a cup of tea and a friendly ear.

“To see it gone has left a deep hole in his family’s hearts and the community they have,” she added.

A West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “Shortly after 9.25pm on Saturday 18th October, we responded to Horndean Close, Coventry.

“Initially, four fire engines and two 4×4 brigade response vehicles and a hydraulic aerial platform responded.

“This was a fire that started in a garden conservatory and spread to two neighbouring properties.

“Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus extinguished the fires.

“There were no injuries or casualties.

“We conducted several revisits to check for hotspots.”

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/15415426/blaze-rips-family-home-firework-lands-garden/

Mountaineer Jim Morrison hopped left on his skis, sending trickles of snow down a sheer gully on the North Face of Mount Everest, then he hopped to the right, his breath heavy in the oxygen-thin air.

Below him plunged 9,000 feet (2,700 meters) of snow, ice and rock — the most merciless ski run on planet Earth.

It had never been skied, until Morrison did it.

“It was a spectacular four hours of skiing down a horrific snow pack,” Morrison told The Associated Press Tuesday of his historic Oct. 15 run.

Morrison climbed Everest’s notorious North Face through the Hornbein Couloir alongside 10 other mountaineers and documentarian Jimmy Chin, who is co-directing a documentary about Morrison’s run. Chin also filmed Alex Honnold’s ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without ropes for the documentary “Free Solo.”

This adventure is “the skiing equivalent to free soloing,” said Chin. “If your edge blows out or you slip anywhere on the line, you’re gone. You fall 9,000 feet.”

The ski run starts atop Everest, some 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) above sea level and in the death zone, where people can’t survive for long.

“When it comes to big mountain stuff and climbing, it’s like landing on the moon,” said Jeremy Evans, who wrote a book about the last person to attempt the run from the summit. The young snowboarder, Marco Siffredi, disappeared on its slopes in 2002.

The adventure was dreamed up by Morrison and his life partner, accomplished ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson. They planned to do it together until her death in 2022 while skiing on the world’s eighth-highest mountain.

From then on, it was a trip Morrison was doing for them both.

At the bottom of their route up Mount Everest, before their four-day climb to the summit, they craned their necks upward.

“We’ve spent an entire lifetime climbing in the big mountains,” said Chin. “I’ve never to this day seen anything that’s more intimidating as a climbing objective.”

Only five people had climbed it before, and nobody had since 1991. While the other, more popular routes up Everest follow a ridgeline, this path up the mountain’s imposing North Face was called the Super Direct route — it’s straight up, and then straight down.

Their 12-person team started, climbing through snowfields, over rock and on patches of ice, facing the possibility of rock falls and avalanches. They had carefully timed their trip in a narrow weather window, seeking enough snow to ski and safe conditions.

At night, they spent hours hacking ridges into the ice and snow that they could squeeze into to sleep, always harnessed to their ropes.

One night, they were huddled on the mountain face as a howling wind rained snow from above and threatened to blow their tent off the mountain, said Chin.

Morrison went to sleep. Chin needed sleep, too, and they’d done all they could to secure themselves to the mountain.

“So I put in my earplugs because I figured if we go get blown off the mountain, I don’t want to know what’s happening,” he said.

The sun came up. As they continued climbing, Morrison assessed the snow that he would be skiing down, and “basically everything I saw looked terrifying. The snow conditions were really, really bad,” he said.

But Morrison kept on, holding Nelson in his mind, and “as I got higher and higher, and further into the death zone, I got closer and closer to her.”

On the summit, the sun was shining. The Himalayan Mountains splayed out around them.

They celebrated together and took selfies. Morrison spread some of Nelson’s ashes.

Then, as Morrison donned his skis and looked over at his teammates, he realized: “‘OK, now I’m in a completely different world. I’m on my own.’”

He dropped in, doing controlled hop turns on his skies. The route’s details, which he had studied, imagined, witnessed, read of and dreamed about, took over his mind. He wasn’t thinking of a possible fall, only the next turn. Every breath was a challenge at that altitude.

He’d later text his friends: “the conditions were abominable, and I was able to shred a lot of it.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/mountaineer-jim-morrison-everest-documentary-jimmy-chin-f95c2e1466881672df92c341e7fdbe65

A dark fleet of tankers carried tens of billions of dollars of Iranian and Russian oil to Asia, evading Western sanctions. Reuters found the ships were connected by one thing: a small insurance company in New Zealand, run by a British family.

Last Christmas, the tanker Yug cruised out of the Chinese port of Qingdao after offloading 2 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian oil. Near the Arctic, a vessel carrying Russian crude churned through icy seas, bound for India. Six thousand miles away, a third ship unloaded its cargo of Iranian oil off the coast of Malaysia.
The three tankers had different owners, different operators and different clients. But they shared one thing: a small insurer headquartered in New Zealand, backstopped by some of the world’s biggest reinsurance firms.
The company, Maritime Mutual, is run by 75-year-old Briton Paul Rankin and family members. For more than two decades, it has insured everything from tugboats to ferries and cargo ships.
Maritime Mutual has also helped in the trade of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian and Russian oil by providing vessels skirting Western sanctions with the insurance they need to enter ports, according to a Reuters review of thousands of shipping and insurance records, hundreds of oil trades and sanctions designations, and interviews with more than two dozen people with knowledge of the company.

Many of those vessels belong to what’s known in shipping as the shadow fleet – the tankers that transport sanctioned cargoes from countries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela, concealing their trade with fake locations, documents and names.
Maritime Mutual’s insurance coverage has played a crucial role in helping this dark fleet – as it’s also known – to operate despite sanctions designed to prevent Iran from raising money for anti-Western militias in the Middle East and to drain Russia’s war chest for the conflict in Ukraine.
Reuters reporting reveals that the company, whose main business Maritime Mutual Insurance Association (MMIA) is based in a dark grey office building in Auckland, has insured at some point almost one in six of the shadow fleet tankers that have been sanctioned by Western governments, such as the United States, European Union and Britain.
That makes it one of the “big power players” in the industry, said David Tannenbaum, director of sanctions consultancy Blackstone Compliance Services and a former U.S. Treasury sanctions specialist, commenting on Reuters’ findings. “The numbers are larger than a lot of the dark fleet actors we follow that are majors in their business.”

“Even Iranian and Russian ports aren’t going to allow an uninsured vessel within their waters.”

Reuters and shipping publication Lloyd’s List have previously reported that Maritime Mutual covered a handful of tankers that have evaded sanctions, and disclosed some details of its ownership and corporate structure. This report is the first to document the scale of the shadow fleet’s use of Maritime Mutual and the major Western companies that support the firm by providing the reinsurance it needs to help cover potentially huge payouts.
New Zealand – working with partners including Australia, Britain and the United States – is investigating Maritime Mutual over their concerns it may have enabled the violation of sanctions and failed to meet its obligations to deter money laundering and terrorism financing, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The investigation hasn’t been previously reported.
In a statement to Reuters, Maritime Mutual said it “categorically denies” engaging in conduct that breached any applicable international sanctions. It said it maintains a “zero-tolerance policy” on sanction breaches and operates under “rigorous compliance standards designed to ensure full adherence to all applicable laws and regulations”.
Maritime Mutual did not comment on the New Zealand investigation. Rankin, the company’s founder, and his family also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

As part of their investigation into alleged breaches of Russian sanctions, police in New Zealand searched Maritime Mutual premises on October 16, a second person with knowledge of the investigation said.
The person said officers from the financial crime group seized documents and records during searches at Maritime Mutual offices in Auckland and Christchurch and a residence in Auckland. Police questioned three people but no criminal charges have been filed yet, they said.
Reuters was unable to determine the identity of the three people. Maritime Mutual confirmed police entered its Auckland office on October 16.
In an October 21 statement to Reuters, Maritime Mutual’s New Zealand branch said its board of directors had the day before resolved not to provide cover for any vessel identified by shipping intelligence providers Windward and Lloyd’s List as being in the shadow fleet, nor for any vessel carrying Russian oil or refined petroleum products.
It said all MMIA’s activities have been in compliance with sanctions and that it had taken the decision due to the disproportionate amount of management and compliance time associated with tankers.
Providing services such as insurance to a ship on Western blacklists violates sanctions. Many Western governments also forbid providing services that enable the transport and sale of any banned Russian and Iranian oil products, even if the vessel itself has not been sanctioned.

Reuters did not reach any independent conclusions about the legality of Maritime Mutual’s activities.
Maritime Mutual earlier told Reuters it has a detailed onboarding and due diligence procedure to screen ship owners, ultimate beneficial owners and vessels before issuing insurance. Its contract terms, it added, call for immediately cancelling coverage for any ship or owner deemed to have violated sanctions.
Reuters was unable to contact the owner of the Yug, formerly known as the Mur, and its operator did not respond to emailed questions. Government officials in Russia and Iran did not reply to requests for comment about Maritime Mutual. Russia has said Western sanctions are illegal and President Vladimir Putin has touted Moscow’s success in circumventing them.
The Reuters examination of Maritime Mutual doesn’t provide a complete picture of the company’s operations. The news agency wasn’t able to identify all of the hundreds of tankers it says it covers. Unlike most competitors, Maritime Mutual does not offer a way for the public to check if a tanker has its cover. Nor does it share that information with major shipping data providers such as S&P Global Market Intelligence and Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Maritime Mutual did not comment on why it doesn’t list the vessels it insures or share information with data providers.
Reuters also couldn’t determine which customers Maritime Mutual may have dropped after deeming they’d violated sanctions. It declined to provide a full list of vessels for which cover was terminated.

DEAD IN THE WATER WITHOUT INSURANCE

Maritime Mutual’s main insurance offering – so-called protection and indemnity insurance – does not cover the physical vessel or its cargo. It insures the ship and its owner in the event of harm accidentally caused to people, property or the environment. While P&I coverage for smaller tankers can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, industry sources say it can exceed $200,000 for very large, old vessels, depending on factors such as the ship’s age, size and owner.
Tannenbaum said P&I insurance is crucial for shadow fleet vessels to operate. “Without that they’re dead in the water,” he said. “Even Iranian and Russian ports aren’t going to allow an uninsured vessel within their waters.”
Reuters first found shipping documents showing Maritime Mutual had insured tankers carrying sanctioned oil during an investigation into how Iran moves crude around the world, published in January.
A full roster of its clients isn’t available. But Reuters compiled a list of 231 tankers that Maritime Mutual has covered since 2018 using a variety of sources: emails from Iranian oil traders detailing their insurers, leaked by hackers; Russian port and customs data; shipping databases; company documents; and industry players. Reuters shared the list with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a think-tank in Helsinki that tracks the energy sector.
Of those 231 vessels, CREA determined that 130 had carried Iranian or Russian energy products after sanctions were imposed on Tehran in November 2018 and Moscow in December 2022.
Using commercial databases of individual oil trades and historic crude prices, CREA calculated vessels insured by Maritime Mutual had shipped at least $18.2 billion of Iranian oil and energy products and $16.7 billion of Russian energy products since the sanctions came into force.
Often, 30 or more tankers covered by Maritime Mutual were moving Iranian and Russian energy products on a given day. On April 1, 2024, there were 41. Reuters replicated CREA’s calculations by running them through the same databases.

“There is no cover for any ship which operates otherwise than in full compliance with all applicable sanctions regimes or which otherwise exposes MMIA to sanctions risk.”

Maritime Mutual did not comment on CREA’s figures. In its statement, the insurer said it obtains attestations to ensure vessels carrying Russian oil are compliant with Western sanctions.
“There is no cover for any ship which operates otherwise than in full compliance with all applicable sanctions regimes or which otherwise exposes MMIA to sanctions risk,” it told Reuters, “including those vessels named in your enquiry, as well as any vessel carrying Iranian oil.”
Maritime Mutual did not respond to requests to share copies of the attestations. The company told Reuters on October 15 that it now includes a specific sanctions warranty in all its insurance quotes requiring clients to ensure vessels operate “in full compliance with applicable sanctions regimes”. Reuters found such language in a ship’s insurance certificate from March 2025 but not in similar documents for different vessels in 2022, 2023 and January 2024.

BLACKLISTED BY THE WEST

Maritime Mutual insures about 6,000 ships, the company told Reuters in April. Tankers – vessels designed to carry liquid cargoes such as crude oil – accounted for roughly 8% of that total, the company said. That’s about 480 tankers.
Many of the vessels Maritime Mutual has covered are now sanctioned, the Reuters review found.
The United States, European Union and others had sanctioned 621 shadow fleet tankers as of July 31, according to Pole Star Global, a maritime data and intelligence company.
Using Lloyd’s List Intelligence Seasearcher and official sanctions databases, Reuters identified 97 tankers under sanctions that have had Maritime Mutual cover, including 48 that were carrying its insurance on the day they were blacklisted by at least one Western government. Reuters was unable to determine whether the remaining tankers were covered by the company when they were blacklisted.
Asked to comment on the findings, Maritime Mutual said it had cancelled coverage for 92 vessels since 2022 because they had been sanctioned.
Reuters was unable to verify this figure as Maritime Mutual declined to provide a full list of the tankers it had insured.
In one instance, Washington sanctioned the tanker Fenghuang, owned by a Hong Kong company, on February 24, 2025. Exactly a week later, after reaching the eastern Russian port of Nakhodka, the ship formerly known as the Phoenix I declared that it had Maritime Mutual cover, the data showed.
Maritime Mutual said it started insuring the Fenghuang on February 14, 2025, and cancelled the coverage 10 days later when the tanker was sanctioned.

As is standard for marine insurers, Maritime Mutual policies contain a sanctions clause, saying it will not cover claims or members if they put the insurer at risk of sanctions violations, according to its rule book.
In its statement to Reuters, Maritime Mutual said insurance coverage is automatically cancelled if a ship is deemed to have been sanctioned.
Reuters also found that 126 companies targeted by sanctions – either directly or via affiliates – have owned or operated tankers covered by Maritime Mutual at some point. For 61 of them, sanctions hit while Maritime Mutual was covering at least one of their vessels.
In total, Reuters found that seven tankers declared having Maritime Mutual insurance after the ships were blacklisted, according to Russian port data.
One of these, the Sunsea, formerly known as the Chembulk Tortola, reported having a Maritime Mutual insurance policy that began months after it was sanctioned, according to Russian port data and Reuters reporting.
Maritime Mutual said it started covering the Sunsea in May 2023, more than two months after it was sanctioned by Washington, due to an administrative error. It said it cancelled the policy when this was discovered a month later.
Reuters was either unable to reach the owners and operators of the Sunsea or the Fenghuang, also formerly known as the Minerva Zenia, or they did not respond to emailed questions.

As Maritime Mutual declined to provide details of the tankers it has insured, Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of every Maritime Mutual policy it found. Many of the policies for the 231 tankers identified by Reuters had lapsed and thus couldn’t be checked, as official shipping registry databases didn’t provide access to expired policies.
However, the news agency was able to check the validity of seven tankers’ documents, issued by shipping registries, that confirmed Maritime Mutual as the provider of the vessels’ insurance coverage. All were authentic, according to the registries’ official databases.
Western sanctions do not prohibit involvement in exporting Russian oil, provided it’s sold below a price cap. Set at $60 a barrel in 2022, the cap was lowered to $47.60 by most Western governments in September. The cap is designed to limit Russia’s Ukraine war chest while ensuring a reliable supply of Russian oil to prevent a surge in global energy prices.
Reuters couldn’t definitively establish whether the cap had been breached for each Russian cargo shipped by tankers covered by Maritime Mutual. However, 30 tankers sanctioned for carrying Russian cargoes priced above the cap had Maritime Mutual cover on the day they were blacklisted, documents and government databases showed.
“Any vessel that is carrying Russian oil is carefully assessed and necessary attestations obtained to ensure that it is in compliance with the G7 oil price cap,” Maritime Mutual told Reuters, prior to its October 21 statement that it will no longer cover ships carrying Russian oil products.
The guidance on the Russian price cap requires insurers to get attestations from the parties to each oil trade, stating they have complied.
Ensuring that clients comply with sanctions rules is a challenge, industry insiders say. “You’re relying on their word, and it’s really difficult for underwriters who aren’t involved directly in the trade and have no knowledge of the actual contract price,” said Neil Roberts, chair of the International Union of Marine Insurance’s Policy Forum.

Checks can require companies to employ teams “to constantly monitor every single one of the several thousand ships that we have,” said a senior manager at a major insurance broker.
Vessels covered by Maritime Mutual carrying Iranian or Russian oil have frequently tried to hide their movements, according to Global Fishing Watch, a non-profit organisation that monitors human activity at sea.
It identified 274 instances between 2021 and mid-2025 when ships insured by Maritime Mutual turned off the automatic identification system (AIS) that signals their location, or manipulated it to send fake tracking data – common tactics known as spoofing, used by crews camouflaging their activities. Maritime Mutual had no comment on the Global Fishing Watch analysis.
“It does seem surprising to me that a company from a country cooperating with U.S. and European sanctions is insuring so many vessels that are spoofing their positions,” said Bjorn Bergman, a Global Fishing Watch analyst.
The U.N.’s International Maritime Organization requires large vessels on international voyages to use AIS, with some exceptions for safety. Enforcement, though, is down to the individual countries that register ships, Bergman said.

SANCTIONS RISK FOR REINSURERS

Like other protection and indemnity insurers, Maritime Mutual spreads the risk of high payouts from accidents through reinsurance, a system under which insurance companies pay a portion of their profits to other insurers in exchange for help covering any claims.
Reinsurers are subject to sanctions compliance, according to guidance published by many Western governments. Maritime Mutual’s reinsurers could face enforcement measures if its P&I policies covered ships that violated sanctions, said Waleed Tahirkheli, managing partner at Eldwick Law, a firm in London that specialises in sanctions. So could brokers who help Maritime Mutual arrange reinsurance.
According to Maritime Mutual’s website, it is reinsured by members of Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s biggest insurance markets, with more than 50 member underwriters.
Lloyd’s members who have reinsured Maritime Mutual include the world’s biggest reinsurer, Germany’s Munich Re Group, German peer Hannover Re, and Britain’s MS Amlin and Atrium, according to people familiar with the reinsurance market.

Major British-American insurance company Aon <AON.N> and America’s Lockton have acted as Maritime Mutual’s brokers, a person with direct knowledge of the business told Reuters.
Atrium confirmed it reinsures Maritime Mutual. Broker Aon also said the company is a client. MS Amlin said it had reinsured Maritime Mutual but ended the relationship, without providing details.
Hannover Re declined to comment on individual clients. It said it is committed to complying with applicable international sanctions and has clauses in its contracts which prevent coverage for any sanctioned entities.
Arabella Ramage, legal and regulatory director at Lloyd’s Market Association, declined to comment when asked about Maritime Mutual’s reinsurance through Lloyd’s. She said it does not regulate reinsurance groups or have access to their contracts or their sanctions screening systems. Lloyd’s of London and Munich Re declined to comment. Lockton said it takes its sanctions compliance obligations very seriously but could not comment on specific clients.

WOOING IRAN

Rankin, a veteran of marine insurance, established Maritime Mutual’s headquarters in Auckland in 2004. The next year, Maritime Mutual was accused by Japan of insuring North Korean ships, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable. Rankin told a New Zealand official in 2006 that it no longer insured North Korean vessels, according to a subsequent cable. Both cables were published by WikiLeaks. Maritime Mutual did not comment on the contents of the U.S. cables.
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to a request for comment. Japan’s transport ministry said it has not taken any special measures against the company.
The Maritime Mutual group is a family affair. Staff include two of Rankin’s daughters, Claire and Sarah, and a son-in-law, Steven Joyce, according to the company website, LinkedIn and social media profiles. Rankin, his wife Agnes, Claire and Joyce are all directors of Maritime Management Administration Services, a company in Guernsey registered in British company filings as a director of British affiliate Maritime Pacific Insurance Services.
None of the Rankin family members responded to requests for comment.
Most of Maritime Mutual’s early business came from insuring older ships and smaller fleets at lower premiums than large P&I providers, which are typically known as “clubs” in the industry, according to six people with knowledge of the company.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/investigations/iran-russia-new-zealand-insurer-that-kept-their-sanctioned-oil-flowing-2025-10-28/

U.S. military officials involved with President Donald Trump’s expanding operations in Latin America have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, three U.S. officials say, a development that raises new questions about a military buildup that Venezuela fears may lead to an invasion.
The step is highly unusual, given that U.S. military officials are already required to shield national security secrets from public view, and comes as lawmakers in Congress say they are being kept in the dark about key aspects of the mission.

The officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity did not know how many members of the U.S. Defense Department had been asked to sign the agreements and did not offer further details on the scope of the NDAs.
While the Defense Department has turned to NDAs from time to time since Pete Hegseth became defense secretary in January, the Pentagon’s use of non-disclosure agreements specific to activities in Latin America has not been previously reported.
The Pentagon announced last week the deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier group to Latin America, escalating a military buildup that experts say far exceeds any requirement for counter-narcotics operations — the stated intent of the U.S. mission so far.

The U.S. military has carried out at least 13 strikes against alleged drug vessels, mostly in the Caribbean, since early September, killing about 57 people. The Pentagon has provided few details about the people targeted but has acknowledged some of them include people from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
The carrier strike group adds another roughly 10,000 troops and enormous firepower to a buildup that already includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops.
The Pentagon has not explained why such firepower is required for the counter-narcotics operations.
Hegseth has taken a series of steps to try to control the flow of information since taking over the Pentagon in January. He told Pentagon staff they must obtain permission before interacting with members of Congress, according to an Oct. 15 memo. He has also launched leak investigations and demanded Pentagon-based journalists sign a new press access policy, taking away the credentials of those who did not.

DRUG TRADE

Trump’s administration has been tying the governments of Venezuela and, more recently, neighboring Colombia directly to the drug trade, allegations denied by both governments. The claims, however, have raised concerns that the U.S. military might be tasked with carrying out attacks in both countries.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican lawmaker with close ties to Trump, suggested in a television interview on Sunday Trump would soon outline to Congress “future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia.”
Washington in August doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, accusing him of links to drug trafficking and criminal groups that Maduro denies.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-military-officials-required-sign-ndas-tied-latin-america-mission-sources-say-2025-10-28/

KIM Jong-un has fired terrifying cruise missiles in his latest plea for attention – just hours before Donald Trump is set to arrive in South Korea.

Pyongyang said the warship launch was a “deterrence exercise” – and comes days after the US leader proposed a meeting with his North Korean counterpart.

Kim’s regime said the latest operation’s purpose was also to “prepare for nuclear war”.

They also called the test a success and said it would help expand the operational capabilities of the pariah state’s military.

The sea-to-surface cruise missiles were launched from naval destroyers in the West Sea on Tuesday, local media reported.

Authorities from the hermit kingdom said: “The cruise missiles, which were modified for ship-launch, were launched vertically and flew along a set trajectory over the West Sea for about 7,800 seconds, destroying the target.”

It comes as Trump continues to travel across Asia for diplomatic shoulder rubbing – having most recently visited Japan.

He will visit South Korea on Wednesday and is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping there on Thursday.

But the US president has also proposed to meet Kim as he jets across the continent to strike deals and build rapport.

Trump invited Kim to a meeting at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) last weekend – but the despot is yet to respond.

Speaking of a potential second-round meeting with the North Korean leader, the Don said: “If he contacts me, I’d like to do so.”

It comes after Trump famously visited Kim during his first term in an unprecedented 2019 meeting.

Kim’s latest launch saw the lethal weapon fly for just over two hours, according to reports.

Pyongyang claimed the test was part of “war deterrence measures” and part of their efforts to “put nuclear forces to practical use”.

They said: “We must constantly renew our combat power, and in particular, it is our responsible mission and duty to constantly sharpen our nuclear combat readiness.”

It comes after Kim unveiled a “sacred sanctuary” to the hundreds of North Korean troops killed fighting for Vladimir Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15411176/kim-jong-un-fires-missile-before-trump-korea-visit/

The reality star recently revealed she plans to quit showbiz and focus on her new career as a lawyer

KIM Kardashian has been slammed for showing off her collection of expensive Hermes bags during a major economic struggle.

The model posted a photo of her four new colorful handbags lined up on the counter on her Instagram Stories late Sunday night.

According to the brand’s website, Kim‘s crocodile bags cost a total of $1million, with each bag costing several thousand dollars.

Fans were outraged by The Kardashians star blatantly flaunting her earnings in the middle of a government shutdown and shared their frustrations in an online forum.

“The timing of this is SO incredibly tone deaf, and shows just how out of touch with normality she really is,” one person wrote in the thread.

“Wants to be a lawyer but has not one ounce, of humility,” ripped another.

“That’s a disgusting amount of money to spend on handbags,” a third complained.

“In this economy?!” voiced a fourth.

“Ugh people are starving/dying Kim! How much is that worth?!” a fifth said, referencing a throwback moment from Keeping Up with the Kardashians where Kim’s sister Kourtney mocked her for crying over a lost diamond earring.

Kim doesn’t seem fazed by the current economic hardships, especially given her estimated net worth of $1.7billion.

LEAVE SHOWBIZ?

However, she recently revealed she plans to walk away from show business and give up her Kim K brand.

Kim made the confession during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show on Friday.

The TV personality revealed she will soon be a qualified lawyer after taking the BAR exam in July.

She gushed over her dream future as an attorney and teased that she may leave her entire brand behind one day.

“Maybe in 10 years, I think I’ll give up being Kim K and be a trial lawyer.

“That’s what I really want,” Kim admitted.

Kim was on the show to promote her new Hulu drama series All’s Fair, in which she plays a divorce lawyer.

Her co-stars include Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Teyana Taylor, Niecy Nash Betts, and Naomi Watts.

The role appears to be a perfect fit for Kim, given her goal of becoming a lawyer and that she’s gone through several divorces of her own.

CO-PARENTING CHALLENGES

Kim was most recently married to rapper Kanye West for seven years before they split in 2022.

During the Season 7 premiere of The Kardashians, Kim revealed she suffered a brain aneurysm caused by stress following her divorce from Kanye.

Kim had spoken about Kanye’s involvement in their kids’ lives just days earlier on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15411073/kim-kardashian-slammed-hermes-bags-wealth-people-starving/

SELENA Gomez’s ‘unnecessarily cruel’ comments has landed her in hot water with people who have long modeled for her brand, The U.S. Sun can exclusively reveal.

The Only Murders in the Building actress has come under fire for boasting that her billion-dollar brand doesn’t “use real models” for its beauty campaigns.

While Selena, 33, was attempting to deliver a positive message about how Rare Beauty highlights real, natural features, many took offense to the comments.

The company has used hundreds of different models since it launched in September 2020 – making many feel Selena’s comments disregard their talents and professions.

Her remarks caught the eye of one Rare Beauty model who spoke exclusively to The U.S. Sun about hearing Selena’s comments.

The model, who does not wish to be named due to fear of not being hired for future campaigns, has been working with the brand since 2024.

“I actually cried when I heard Selena’s comments,” the model claimed, who then added: “I was already having a bad day and was feeling really sensitive and emotional.”

She continued: “I was feeling nervous about some career stuff, and then I saw that video of her saying I’m not even a real model.

“It hit me at the worst time because now I’m like… ‘what am I even doing?’

“I thought this would be a big break for me, and to be told by the founder of the company that I look up to that I am not ‘real’ at my job?

“It’s degrading and embarrassing. The number of family and friends who sent me that clip after was mortifying.”

The model said that she has not yet had a chance to meet Selena in person but fired off that “at this point, I’m good.”

“I don’t need to meet her. I hope in the future she chooses her words more wisely and remembers how much influence she has.”

When asked if the model, who has gone on to work with other large beauty brands, would pose for Rare again, she confessed: “If it’s a huge campaign, I’m not in a position to say no to it.

“But to be honest, would I want to work for a company again that discards what I do, or am trying to do, for a living? Ideally not.

“I’d like to work for brands that see me, that believe in me. I thought Rare was the epitome of that you know? But I was wrong.”

The U.S. Sun has reached out to Rare Beauty for comment.

‘CRUEL’ INTENTIONS?

Last week, Selena was a keynote speaker at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit to celebrate her work with Rare Beauty.

At one point during the conversation, Selena said on stage that she wanted to continue “doubling down” on the company’s pursuit of more natural beauty.

“I want the conversation to change. If anything, we will double down on what we mean.

“We don’t use models. We use people who I have felt they can be your best friend.

“I want something real,” she said on stage at the summit.

Following the comments going viral, another model who has posed for Rare reposted the video and added: “Well this is awkward…

“She called me chopped oh lord!”

Fans were also fuming by Selena’s comments, with one saying: “She’s so tone def & hypocritical in the name of being ‘inclusive.’

“Anything to boost her ego is why she genuinely doesn’t see normal people as beautiful loool.”

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15409919/selena-gomez-slammed-rare-beauty-model-degrading-embarrassing/

The leaders of the US and Japan appeared together on a US aircraft carrier after announcing deals on developing rare earths and deepening their strategic alliance.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi declared “a new golden age” on the horizon for the US-Japan alliance.

Japan was the second stop for the US president on a tour of Asia that is set to culminate on Thursday in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in South Korea.

In Japan, Trump used his visit to the US’s closest ally in East Asia to demonstrate strength ahead of his much-anticipated meeting with Xi.

Trump and Takaichi signed an agreement on strategically important raw materials and published a list of joint projects in energy, artificial intelligence and critical technologies.

The two leaders also appeared together on the nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier in Yokohama harbor.

Speaking to US Marines, Takaichi called for a “free and open” Indo-Pacific as the basis for US-Japanese strategic cooperation.

“No one has our weapons, and very soon our country will be even stronger and more powerful than ever before,” Trump declared, before concluding with a small dance to the song “YMCA,” reminiscent of his presidential campaign.

Conservative bedfellows
During their first face-to-face meeting, Takaichi left no stone unturned in her efforts to establish a good relationship with Trump.

The 64-year-old Takaichi also played off her close ties with Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump also praised Takaichi several times for becoming Japan’s first female prime minister.

Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, was a close friend of Trump during his first term in office, and Trump still holds his memory in high esteem today.

The nationalist Abe was Takaichi’s mentor, and she sees herself as his political heir. At her first meeting with Trump, she presented him with Abe’s golf putter as a gift, as the two had played golf together several times. Takaichi clearly wanted to transfer Trump’s positive feelings for Abe to herself.

Other small gestures were intended to show that Japan has picked up on the tone coming from Trump’s administration. At lunch, Trump and Takaichi were served American risotto rice and a steak made from US beef.

The meal was intended to serve as a symbol of Japan’s desire to import more US agricultural products, and Trump had specifically requested for more rice and beef purchases.

Japan also offered to buy more soybeans and natural gas from the US, as well as a fleet of US pickup trucks.

US-Japan ‘allies at strongest level’
Takaichi praised Trump’s role in securing ceasefires between Cambodia and Thailand, and between Israel and Hamas. These were “unprecedented” achievements. According to the White House, Takaichi will also nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The conservative politician had already worked on making a good impression on Trump in the run-up to his visit.

On Friday, Takaichi announced in parliament that Japan would increase defense spending to 2% of economic output in the fiscal year ending in March. Previously, Japan had planned to reach this target only in 2027.

Trump promptly praised Japan for increasing its military capabilities “very significantly,” adding that the US has already received Japanese orders “for a very large quantity of new military equipment.”

Delivery of the long-awaited US missiles for F-35 fighter jets, which Japan has long awaited. is due to begin this week.

At the same time, Trump assured Japan of US strategic support, which he had called into question during his first presidency by implying that Japan needs to share more of the costs of stationing US troops there.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/us-and-japan-signal-solidarity-ahead-of-trump-xi-talks/a-74526815

As Trump presses for a $350 billion investment and a summit with Kim Jong Un, South Korea has pushed back, citing financial risks, public anger over a Hyundai ICE raid, and fears of being strong-armed.

US President Donald Trump is due to arrive in South Korea on Wednesday as part of his five-day tour of Asia, and has two clear priorities.

The first is for the South Korean government to finalize a $350 billion (€300 billion) investment package in the US and the second is to arrange another face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After successful visits to Malaysia and Japan, where Trump inked beneficial trade and security deals, analysts say his maximalist ambitions from his visit to South Korea are likely to be more difficult to achieve.

The $350 billion deadlock
The South Korean administration of President Lee Jae-myung is standing its ground on the massive investment package that is being demanded in return for the reduction of US tariffs on Korean imports.

Officials in South Korea said the bulk of the $350 billion investment had been earmarked for loans and loan guarantees to South Korean companies setting up new facilities in the US.

Trump, however, wants Seoul to pay the total in cash or equity “up front.” Lee said that such a cash outlay would destabilize the country’s financial markets, putting the investment deal in doubt.

A cool South Korean welcome
Trump may not receive a warm welcome from the people of South Korea.

There have been several demonstrations outside the US embassy in central Seoul over the past few days. Some South Koreans even feel their nation is being strong-armed into trade deals and fear that Trump might once again threaten to withdraw US forces if his demands are not met.

There is still lingering resentment over a raid by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a Hyundai plant in the US state of Georgia in September. Over 300 South Korean workers were detained before being returned to Seoul.

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told reporters on Friday that since the ICE raid on the South Korean carmaker, Seoul and Washington have agreed to establish a working group to create a new visa category for future South Korean investment projects.

South Koreans question cost of US alliance
“For many South Koreans, the United States has long been regarded as the country’s most important security partner,” said Hyobin Lee, a professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

“However, under the Trump administration, there is a widespread perception that the alliance is being leveraged for unilateral economic gains.”

“The idea that South Korea must make large-scale investments simply to avoid being disadvantaged by US tariffs has been received by many as a sense of betrayal,” she told DW.

Washington and Seoul have said that they are narrowing their differences over the $350 billion investment package that the US is demanding in return for the US reducing tariffs from 25% at present to 15%.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Lee said that a number of sticking points remain, including the amount of the investment, the timeline, the method of investment and how the losses and profits will be shared.

“The US will of course try to maximize its interests, but it must not be to the extent that causes catastrophic consequences for South Korea,” Lee said.

Kim Sang-woo, a former politician with the left-leaning South Korean Congress for New Politics and now a member of the board of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation, says the US demand is widely seen as “huge.”

“The US is asking Korea to make the investment mostly in the form of cash while Seoul wants it in credits, but the total is about 6.5% of our total GDP and if Korea agreed to that then it could have an enormous negative impact on our financial stability,” he said.

Security in Northeast Asia
Lee is due to host Trump for a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju.

Aboard Air Force One flying from Malaysia to Japan on Monday, however, Trump indicated he hopes to rekindle the “bromance” of his first spell in the White House with Kim Jong Un.

“I’d love to meet with him, if he would like to meet,” Trump told reporters. He made a similar offer on Friday, saying, “I put it out over the internet that I’m coming to South Korea and if he would like to meet, I’m open to it.”

Analysts say it is impossible to determine whether the meeting will go ahead as both men are unpredictable and spontaneous but there have been no positive hints emerging from Pyongyang.

The last time Trump and Kim met was in June 2019 at the village of Panmunjom on the North-South border. Their first meeting in Singapore in June 2018 had been positive, but the relationship frayed badly after the collapse of talks in Hanoi in February 2019.

In the meantime, Kim has signed a military and trade alliance with Russia, dramatically easing many of the shortages North Korea was experiencing in fuel, food and other necessities due to international sanctions on the regime.

“It is always possible that they could meet, but I see Kim as trying to get as much out of Trump as he can if they do meet,” said Kim Sang-woo.

“On the other hand, Trump is looking to promote the visuals of him meeting Kim rather than offering anything substantial. I do not think that would be enough to convince Kim.”

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-trumps-demands-test-seouls-patience/a-74525051

A US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on Oct 10, halting two years of war that was triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

Israeli planes launched strikes on Gaza City on Tuesday (Oct 28) after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the militant group Hamas of violating a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory and ordered the military to carry out “powerful attacks”.

The Israeli strikes targeted an area close to Shifa hospital, the largest operational hospital in northern Gaza, witnesses and Hamas media said. There was no word yet on any casualties.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, which were the latest violence in a fragile three-week-old ceasefire and which followed a statement by Netanyahu’s office saying he had ordered immediate attacks.

The statement did not give a specific reason for the attacks but an Israeli military official said Hamas had violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack against Israeli forces in an area of the enclave that is under Israeli control.

“This is yet another blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.

The US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on Oct 10, halting two years of war that was triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct 7, 2023 and that has devastated the narrow coastal strip.

Both sides have accused each other of violations.

On Saturday, Israel said its forces carried out a “targeted strike” on a person in central Gaza who was planning to attack Israeli troops.

NETANYAHU ACCUSES HAMAS OF VIOLATING CEASEFIRE
Earlier on Tuesday Netanyahu accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by turning over some wrong remains in a process of returning the bodies of hostages to Israel.

Netanyahu said the remains handed over on Monday belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli killed during Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack. Tzarfati’s remains had already been partially retrieved by Israeli troops during the war.

Hamas initially said in response to this that it would hand over to Israel on Tuesday the body of a missing hostage found in a tunnel in Gaza. However, Hamas’ armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, said later it would postpone the planned handover, citing what it said were Israel’s violations of the ceasefire.

Israeli media earlier reported an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the reports.

Hamas said it was complying with the ceasefire terms and Netanyahu was looking for excuses to back away from Israel’s obligations.

Under the ceasefire terms, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.

SEARCH FOR HOSTAGE BODIES
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies in the enclave, which has been devastated by two years of war. Israel says the militant group can access the remains of most of the hostages.

The issue has become one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, which US President Donald Trump says he is watching closely.

The search for hostage bodies stepped up over the past few days after the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt. Bulldozers were working in Khan Younis on Tuesday, in the southern Gaza Strip, and further north in Nuseirat, as Hamas fighters deployed around them.

Some of the bodies are believed to be in Hamas’ network of tunnels running below Gaza.

Witnesses in Khan Younis said the Egyptian teams, working with armed Hamas fighters, were digging deep near the Qatari-funded Hamad Housing City in the western side of Khan Younis, reaching tunnel shafts.

Reuters images showed an excavation a dozen or so metres below the surface, with Hamas men at the bottom of the trench next to a tunnel opening in an apparent search for bodies inside.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/israeli-planes-strike-gaza-city-after-netanyahu-orders-powerful-attacks-5430546

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were spotted enjoying a date night at Game 4 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays.

The superstar couple, who was regularly seen on TV as they enjoyed the action from the front-row of Dodger stadium on Tuesday, wore Dodgers merch for the big game.

Markle and Harry wore nearly identical outfits consisting of blue Dodgers caps, white shirts and blue over-layers.

Prior to the game, MLB posted a clip of the duo smiling and greeting fans as they made their way into the stadium.

Commenters on social media seemed pleased to see the famous couple, with one writing that it had given the game “the Royal seal of approval.”

“Love seeing global icons reppin’ LA!” another fan added. “Dodgers uniting the world one hat at a time.”

Their sighting at the game comes two days after Harry and Markle got into the Halloween spirit with a fun-filled day at the pumpkin patch.

Over the weekend, the “Suits” star shared a clip of their 6-year-old son, Prince Archie, and 4-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet, picking out their pumpkins.

At least 64 people were killed in a police operation against the Red Command gang in Rio de Janeiro’s northern suburbs – the largest and deadliest raid in the Brazilian state’s history.

Four police officers were among those killed during Operation Containment in the Alemão and Penha districts, state Governor Cláudio Castro said. More than 80 people were arrested.

Fierce clashes erupted when about 2,500 security personnel moved in on Tuesday morning. The Red Command (Comando Vermelho) responded with gunfire, burning barricades and dropping bombs from drones, officials said.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was “horrified” by the police operation, urging “prompt and effective investigations”.

The area of favelas near Rio’s airport is considered to be the headquarters of one of Brazil’s most powerful organised crime groups.

State officials said at least 50 of those killed were “indicated by police as suspected of being criminals”.

Dozens of people were injured, including civilians caught in the crossfire.

Locals have likened the hillside area – home to about 300,000 people – to a “war zone” since the operation began.

Roads remain closed throughout the region.

The Red Command group have been expanding their territory across the Rio state, increasing drug trafficking routes and control of the hillside favelas.

Rio’s police said more than 200kg (441lb) of drugs were seized in the raid, along with dozens of firearms.

The joint operation by civil and military police comes after a year-long investigation.

Dozens of the suspects are thought to be members of a faction from the Pará state who are currently hiding in Rio de Janeiro.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8x155engwpo

Deploying the classic Islamabad toolkit in an attempt to tweak the narrative, Pakistan’s defense minister alleged that Kabul was being controlled by New Delhi.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has made wild allegations, accusing Kabul of acting as a tool for New Delhi to spread terror in his country. Asif also warned of a “50 times stronger” response if Kabul attacks Islamabad. Making strong remarks on Geo News’ primetime show ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada ke Saath,’ he slammed Afghan negotiators for taking a step back from the peace deal time and again. The remarks came after peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Istanbul dramatically collapsed.

“Whenever we got close to an agreement—either in the last four days or last week—when negotiators reported to Kabul, then there was intervention and the agreement was withdrawn,” Asif outlined, as reported by Dawn. “I believe that the negotiations were sabotaged. We had an agreement, but then they called Kabul and backpedaled from the deal.”

Kabul had earlier dismissed similar allegations by Islamabad as baseless.

The Pakistani minister nonetheless complimented the Afghan negotiators for being cooperative and trained his guns at the Kabul leadership.

Deploying the classic Islamabad toolkit in an attempt to tweak the narrative, he alleged that Kabul was being controlled by New Delhi. “I would compliment their delegation, but the people in Kabul pulling the strings and staging the puppet show are being controlled by Delhi,” he added.

“India is compensating for its defeat on their western border through Kabul. The junta there (in Afghanistan) has elements that have visited India and visited their temples,” Asif claimed. “India wants to engage in a low-intensity war with Pakistan. To achieve this, they are using Kabul.”

On Afghanistan’s threats and a possible attack on Islamabad, Asif warned of a stronger response.

“If Afghanistan even looks at Islamabad, we will gouge their eyes out. They can employ the use of terrorists, and they already are. Over the past four years, they have been using terrorists,” he said.

“There should be no doubt that Kabul is responsible for the terrorism in Pakistan. Kabul is a tool for Delhi. If they want to, God forbid, attack Islamabad, we will give a befitting response. A response 50 times stronger,” the Defence Minister added.

Afghanistan’s Defence Minister, Mohammad Yaqoob, had earlier called Pakistan’s accusations “unfounded and illogical” and stressed that it maintains relations with India as an independent nation.

Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace Talks

Pakistan and Afghanistan on Saturday (October 25) began the second round of peace talks in Istanbul while Asif warned of engaging in open war in case the talks fail. The peace talks led by mediators from Qatar and Turkey did collapse.

VENEZUELA says it has captured CIA spies attempting to spark a US invasion – amid spiralling relations between Washington and Caracas.

Donald Trump‘s B-1 bombers were also seen flying off the Venezuelan coast on Monday – the US president’s latest show of force against Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

Venezuelan authorities said the CIA operatives were carrying out a “false flag” operation – a plot designed to make one party appear responsible for an act carried out by another.

They claimed the men were aiming to “generate a full-scale military confrontation” against Maduro’s pariah state.

It comes as Trump continues to pile pressure on the Venezuelan tyrant – who he accuses of funding drug-smuggling cartels.

His latest military deployment saw two menacing B-1B bombers depart Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota before flying near the Latin American nation’s waters.

Codenamed HOGAN11 and HOGAN13, the long-range heavy bombers, also known as “lancers”, were seen jetting over the Caribbean Sea in what is understood to be another “attack demo”.

Earlier this month, three American B-52s flew alongside Marine Corps F-35s in what US authorities called a “bomber attack demo”.

The 2nd Bomb Wing said following the first flyover: “Bomber Attack Demonstrations contribute to the collective defense of the Western Hemisphere and demonstrate the US commitment to the safety and security of the region.”

As part of his war on drugs, Trump has so far amassed around 10,000 troops, a group of US marines and at least 10 warships to the Caribbean.

Last week, it was also revealed the US president had deployed USS Gerald Ford – the world’s biggest aircraft carrier – to the region.

On Sunday, USS Gravely, a guided missile destroyer, arrived in Trinidad and Tobago on Venezuela’s doorstep.

The White House said the deployment was part of Trump’s ongoing efforts to put an end to drug trafficking.

His war on drugs has been punctuated by lethal boat strikes on “narco terrorists” allegedly smuggling drugs into the US.

Washington claims to have destroyed at least 10 boats suspected of smuggling narcotics – killing 43 people since September.

Trump has hinted that his campaign could soon move onto land.

This is a possibility that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has described as a plot to oust him from power.

Analysts have suggested that this show of force represents a modern extension of the Monroe Doctrine – now rebranded as the so-called “Donroe Doctrine.”

The alludes to the 19th-century U.S. policy that justified intervention throughout the Americas under the pretext of protecting regional stability and American interests.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a close ally of Maduro, said there was “no doubt” that Trump is attempting to overthrow the Venezuelan government.

“Trump wants to turn Venezuela into a colony of the US,” Saab claimed.

When asked about the risk of a land invasion, he said: “It shouldn’t happen, but we are prepared.”

Despite this, Saab insisted that Venezuela remains open to diplomacy, adding the country was “still ready to resume dialogue” with the US, despite what he described as its “illegitimate fight against drug trafficking.”

Trump has labelled Maduro “the leader of an organised crime gang”.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15405148/venezuela-captures-cia-spies-invasion-plot/

DONALD Trump admits he is thinking about running for a third term as president.

Musing on another White House bid, he told reporters on Air Force One as they headed to Japan yesterday: “I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever.”

The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits anyone from serving three terms.

But his supporters have floated the possibility that Trump could run for vice president, while another candidate stood for president and resigned — allowing him to take their place.

Trump has rejected this as “too cute”, however.

As Air Force One landed in Tokyo, Trump took to Truth Social to brag: “I am now getting the best polling numbers I have ever received.”

Kamala Harris has hinted she may run for the US presidency again in 2028 despite her crushing defeat to Trump.

The Democratic former vice president vowed “I am not done,” as she also hit out at Trump by labelling her political foe a “tyrant”.

Speaking in her first UK interview since the election thumping by Trump last year, Harris said she would “possibly” be president one day.

She also told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she was confident that one day there will be a woman in the Oval Office.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15405899/donald-trump-third-term-president/

Zohran Mamdani may have won the Democratic primary in the race to become New York City’s next mayor, but many local Democrats still oppose him. In fact, he didn’t get a majority of votes in the first round against Andrew Cuomo, Brad Landers, and others.

The Post spoke to several “never Mamdani” Democrats from across the city about what worries them about the frontrunner, from his anti-business policies to his lack of understanding of working class struggles:

‘He wants to turn this metropolis into a college town’

“If you know anything about Black history since the great migration, it was only by purchasing private property that we were able to gain economic empowerment in New York City … So, anybody against private property, in my view, is against most of black wealth,” Pastor Conrad Tillard of the Congregational Church of South Hempstead told The Post.

Tillard, 61, who retired last year from teaching Black Studies at City College of New York and lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, originally supported Eric Adams. He says black people “do not know,” Mamdani and will “stick with Cuomo,” who he will also vote for.

“You embrace New York for what it is. You don’t try to make New York into Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s what these gentrifiers are doing,” he said of Mamdani.

“The bike lanes, the pedestrian plazas, congestion pricing. They’re trying to make this great metropolis into a college town.”

‘I’m moving out if he wins’

Mamdani’s promises to bring prices down rings hollow with East Village resident Andrew Bernstein, who also believes his plan to freeze rent in stabilized apartments won’t work.

“The city’s already unaffordable … The whole housing situation in New York is so fundamentally broken and ridiculous, and Mamdani’s approach to it is the opposite of what is needed,” Bernstein explained. “It just brings the rent up for everyone else [not stabilized].”

Bernstein, 28, a Democrat who supported Zellnor Myrie in the primary, said he’ll move out if Mamdani wins – most likely to Florida or New Jersey – a move a quarter of New Yorkers are reportedly considering.

“I think if people have the flexibility to leave, they will … I think [Mamdani’s] pandering and trying to wait out the election. I don’t think he actually believes in any of this stuff [he’s now saying]. He’s really a socialist.”

‘I know socialism fails because my family fled it’

Phil Wong of Elmhurst, Queens, knows socialism doesn’t work after his family fled mainland China to be free from it. He warns Mamdani’s supporters think they’ll get “free healthcare, free buses, free rents … [but] nothing is free.”

Wong, 59, served as president of the Community Education Council for New York City’s 24th district and is particularly worried about Mamdani canceling gifted and talented programs.

“If he follows his group of people, the young hipsters that never had kids or never sat on a school board, that will be very harmful.

“The parents know best. I have three daughters, and I know there is a high demand for [these programs], and now you want to get rid of it? We’re going to have a mass exodus of kids.”

Wong, a self-described moderate Democrat, is throwing his hat into the ring in his local City Council race in Queens, where he says crime is rampant and more cops are needed — something he fears will get worse in a Mamdani New York.

‘Where is the money going to come from to make it free?’

Alicia Barksdale, 64, of Harlem, is a former toll collector at bridges and tunnels for the MTA, who thinks Mamdani’s plan to make buses free doesn’t add up.

“Where is the money going to come from to [make] it free? My eyebrows are going up, because, okay, you’re young… Saying free transportation is really saying to people you’re going to be losing jobs,” she said, explaining the MTA won’t have enough revenue to pay drivers and might force them into early retirement.

She also worries a Mamdani victory will cause Trump to pull federal funding for the city — and the least fortunate will suffer most.

“So you’re just going to jeopardize them, when they’re already struggling,” Barksdale told The Post. “When the city loses everything, he’s going to be a one-term mayor.”

‘His views would be comical if they weren’t so scary’

“His ideological point of view would be comical if it wasn’t so scary,” entrepreneur Jason Pomeranc told The Post.

The 54-year-old lifelong Democrat was born in Queens and resides in Manhattan. He co-founded the SIXTY and Thompson Hotel Groups and thinks Mamdani’s anti-capitalist views and past anti-police rhetoric will hurt business in the city.

“I don’t think Mamdani has a clear understanding of how important hospitality is, and how each decision he makes can have a ripple effect.

“Harboring hostility to some of the bravest and committed individuals in the city betrays a lack of understanding of public safety … People don’t feel safe walking around the streets of their home, tourists don’t feel safe walking around the streets of the city… I’m deeply concerned as someone who lives here that things could unravel quickly.”

‘I’m worried for my children’s safety’

Sarah Sarway, a Jewish mother of a one-year-old with a second on the way, worries a victory by Mamdani, who supports boycotting Israel, could make her community less safe.

The 34-year-old from Midwood, Brooklyn, is a lifelong Democrat raised in a Republican family. She says she always ignored conservative media — but she thinks they’re right about Mamdani.

“I was always rolling my eyes, trying not to listen to the media they were consuming just villainizing Democrats,” the marketing professional said. “But Mamdani is really as bad as they’re saying he is … they’re not exaggerating.”

Cuomo supporter Sarway says “Israel is always an issue in the back of [her] head” when voting and she worries future anti-Israel protesters could be emboldened and get out of hand under Mamdani.

“It didn’t make sense to me why he was just getting stronger, and getting more supporters, but then I realized that’s really what is going on in New York right now — it’s really frightening that the voice of the city now is his supporters,” she said.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/27/us-news/why-many-nyc-democrats-will-never-vote-for-zohran-mamdani/

A fighter jet and a helicopter based off the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz both crashed into the South China Sea within 30 minutes of each other, the Navy’s Pacific Fleet said.

The three crew members of the MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter were rescued on Sunday afternoon, and the two aviators in the F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet ejected and were recovered safely, and all five “are safe and in stable condition,” the fleet said in a statement.

The causes of the two crashes were under investigation, the statement said.

President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Tokyo on Monday, said the incidents could have been caused by “bad fuel.” He ruled out foul play and said there was “nothing to hide.”

The USS Nimitz is returning to its home port in Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state after having been deployed to the Middle East for most of the summer as part of the U.S. response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial shipping. The carrier is on its final deployment before decommissioning.

Another aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, suffered a series of mishaps in recent months while deployed to the Middle East.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/navy-nimitz-aircraft-carrier-crashes-8afee8488bd39371350fe0a1dd55374d

Back in her “Red” era.

Taylor Swift was spotted at another Kansas City game in style on Monday evening, supporting fiancé Travis Kelce at the Chiefs vs. Washington Commanders game on their home turf at Arrowhead Stadium.

She dressed for her team — and the weather — in a bright red turtleneck, matching with her close pal, Brittany Mahomes.

Mahomes also sported a red turtleneck sweater while cheering with Swift in a luxury box at the game.

At one point, Swift was seen pointing at the field with a smile on her face while huddled next to Mahomes.

Swift’s hair was pulled back and she rocked her signature bold red lip.

She also wore her stunning engagement ring from Kelce: an old mine brilliant-cut diamond set on a hand-engraved yellow gold band. The tight end co-designed the sparkler with jeweler Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine, as first confirmed by Page Six Style.

This is the Grammy winner’s third season as an NFL WAG, but she hasn’t been as visible in the stands this season.

Weeks ago, at the start of the 2025-26 NFL season, Taylor Swift stayed hidden at fiancé Travis Kelce’s first home game, sparking numerous fan theories online.

Page Six confirmed that the pop superstar, 35, quietly snuck into the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Philadelphia Eagles matchup at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Sept. 14.

Swift got to her VIP suite by walking behind a large screen — a rare move for the singer-songwriter, who is normally photographed making her way into the stadium.

She made it to the Chiefs vs. Ravens game on Sunday, Sept. 28, the day after her best friend Selena Gomez’s wedding.

Following the release of “The Life of a Showgirl” album on Oct. 3, she skipped last Monday’s away game, when the Chiefs lost to the Jaguars, 28 – 31.

For the Kansas City vs. Detroit game, Swift returned to Arrowhead and was seen with friends and family inside Kelce’s private box. The “Fate of Ophelia” singer cheered on her man and his team, wearing a custom Ganni minidress with “Chiefs” and the number 13 emblazoned across the chest.

Last weekend, she attended the Chiefs vs the Raiders game, but stayed off-camera with other VIPs.

Back in September 2023, she made her first-ever appearance at Arrowhead Stadium wearing a New Era team windbreaker with a casual Dôen tank top, Ksubi cutoffs and New Balance sneakers in Chiefs colors.

Her style has evolved over the course of the many games she’s attended since; for the season opener in 2024, for instance, she showed up in a denim Versace corset and shorts teamed with thigh-high red boots.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/27/entertainment/taylor-swift-and-brittany-mahomes-match-in-red-for-chiefs-vs-washington-commanders/

If the identity of the deceased hostage is confirmed, it would mean that the remains of 12 hostages are still in Gaza.

Israel said on Monday (Oct 27) that the Red Cross had handed over the body of another deceased hostage from Gaza to the Israeli military, according to a statement by the Israeli prime minister’s office.

If the identity of the deceased hostage is confirmed, it would mean that the remains of 12 hostages remain in Gaza with Palestinian militant group Hamas citing obstacles to locating them in the rubble left by the fighting.

Earlier on Monday, Hamas’ armed wing said it would hand over the body of a deceased hostage it recovered on Monday in Gaza.

The recovery and handover of bodies of deceased hostages in Gaza has been one of the obstacles to US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan.

An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday that the Palestinian militant group knew where the bodies were.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/israel-gaza-hostage-hamas-5428161

Sanae Takaichi is expected to offer a package of US investments in a US$550-billion deal agreed this year, according to sources.

US President Donald Trump lavished praise on Japan’s first female leader Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Tuesday (Oct 28), welcoming her pledge to accelerate a military buildup and signing deals on trade and critical minerals.

Takaichi, a close ally of Trump’s friend and golfing partner late Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, also said she would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

The new prime minister is also expected to offer a package of US investments under a US$550-billion deal agreed this year, including shipbuilding, and increased purchases of US soybeans, natural gas and pickup trucks, sources familiar with the talk said.

Those gestures may temper any Trump demands for Tokyo to spend more on defending islands from an increasingly assertive China, which Takaichi sought to head off by pledging last week to fast-track plans to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP.

“It’s a very strong handshake,” Trump said, as the pair posed for photos at the Akasaka Palace in downtown Tokyo.

“Everything I know from Shinzo and others, you will be one of the great prime ministers. I’d also like to congratulate you on being the first woman prime minister. It’s a big deal,” Trump told Takaichi as the pair sat down for discussions with their delegations.

Takaichi gifted Trump Abe’s putter, a golf bag signed by Japanese major winner Hideki Matsuyama and a gold leaf golf ball, according to photos posted on X by Trump’s assistant Margo Martin.

DEAL ON CRITICAL MINERALS SIGNED

Trump also praised Japan’s efforts to purchase more US defence equipment, while Takaichi said Trump’s role in securing ceasefires between Cambodia and Thailand, and Israel and Palestinian militants, were “unprecedented” achievements.

Takaichi followed other world leaders to recommend Trump for the Peace Prize he has long said he is worthy of.

The leaders then signed an agreement to support the supply of critical minerals and rare earths, as the countries seek to wean reliance off China’s chokehold on the materials crucial for a wide range of products from smartphones to fighter jets.

The deal aims to jointly identify projects of interest in areas such as magnets and batteries over the next six months and work together to develop stockpiles of key minerals, among other measures.

Trump was last at the palace, an ornate residence built in a European style, in 2019 for talks with Abe, who was assassinated in 2022.

After lunch with Takaichi there, Trump met with relatives of people abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s to train its spies and their relatives. While some were later repatriated, Japan continues to press Pyongyang for a full accounting of all the abductees and the return of any who remain alive, a cause championed by Abe.

“The United States is with them all the way,” Trump said after greeting the families.

The US leader began his visit on Monday with a meeting at the Imperial Palace with Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

VISIT US NAVAL BASE

Takaichi’s gifts to Trump and repeated references to Abe are aimed at evoking memories of a close bond forged over hours the pair spent golfing together during Trump’s first term. Abe was assassinated in 2022, with the trial of his assailant coincidentally beginning in the western city of Nara on Tuesday.

A similar close relationship with the leader of Japan’s key security and trade partner could help Takaichi bolster her weak political position at home.

Though she has seen a surge in public support since becoming prime minister, her coalition government is two votes shy of a majority in parliament’s lower house.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-trump-japan-takaichi-trade-security-5428521

Hidden away in a lab in north-west London three black metal robotic hands move eerily on an engineering work bench. No claws, or pincers, but four fingers and a thumb opening and closing slowly, with joints in all the right places.

“We’re not trying to build Terminator,” jokes Rich Walker, director of Shadow Robot, the firm that made them.

Bespectacled, with long hair and a beard and moustache, he seems more like a latter-day hippy than a tech whizz, and he is clearly proud as he shows me around his firm.

“We set out to build the robot that helps you, that makes your life better, your general-purpose servant that can do anything around the home, do all the housework…”

But there’s a deeper ambition: to address one of the UK’s most pressing challenges – the escalating crisis in social care.

There were 131,000 vacancies for adult care workers in England, a report by charity, Skills for Care, found last year. And in all, around two million people aged 65 and over in England are living with unmet care needs, according to Age UK.

By 2050, one in four people in the UK expected to be aged 65 or over, potentially putting more strain still on the care system.

Which is where robots come in.

The previous government announced a £34m investment in developing robots that could potentially be used to give care. It went as far as saying, in 2019, that “within the next 20 years, autonomous systems like… robots will become a normal part of our lives, transforming the way we live, work and travel.”

Could this “techno-solutionism” – which sounds more like something out of a sci-fi film – really be the solution? And would you really trust your elderly relatives, or yourself when you’re at your most vulnerable with what is essentially a very strong machine?

PANIC gripped western Turkey tonight as a powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake sent residents running from their homes into the streets.

The quake struck the Balikesir region at 10.48pm local time, shaking buildings across a wide area including Istanbul and Izmir — two of the country’s largest cities.

According to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the tremor hit the Sindirgi district of Balikesir province at a shallow depth of 3.72 miles.

The Kandilli Observatory recorded it slightly lower, at magnitude 6.0 and 7 miles deep.

Witnesses described prolonged shaking that sent terrified residents fleeing into the night.

Footage circulating on social media appears to show buildings turned to rubble and people gathering in the streets, staring in horror at the destruction.

Emergency services said the region had been hit by a strong earthquake, with reports of damage to some buildings, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said “field surveys” are being carried out to assess the damage.

In a statement on social media, he added: “Regarding the earthquake, which was also felt in surrounding provinces, all teams from AFAD and our relevant institutions immediately began field surveys.

“I offer my best wishes to our citizens affected by the earthquake. May God protect our country and our nation from disasters.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also issued a late night statement, saying: “I extend my condolences to the citizens affected by the earthquake that occurred in the Sındırgı district of Balıkesir and was also felt in our neighboring provinces.

“Our AFAD, along with the relevant units, is meticulously continuing inspection and control efforts in the field.

“We are also closely following the process.

“May our Lord protect our country and nation from all kinds of disasters.”

The epicentre lies close to densely populated areas, including Istanbul – which has a population of 15 million – and Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city.

The tremor reignited painful memories of the 2023 disaster that killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and 6,000 in northern Syria.

Sitting atop major fault lines, Turkey is no stranger to powerful earthquakes — and history offers grim reminders.

In 1999, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the city of İzmit, east of Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

More recently, in January 2020, a 6.8 magnitude quake hit Elazığ in eastern Turkey, killing at least 41 people and injuring over 1,600.

It comes after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the southern Philippines on October 17, rattling communities across Mindanao and sending residents fleeing from their homes late at night.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15405464/earthquake-turkey-buildings-collapse-people-flee/

THIS is the moment a US Air Force crew punched straight through the heart of Hurricane Melissa — and found eerie stillness inside the monster storm’s deadly core.

Cockpit footage from the “Teal 74” reconnaissance mission shows a jaw-dropping scene few humans ever witness: towering walls of cloud, rising like cliffs into the sky, circling a perfectly clear and blue calm.

The video opens with the WC-130J’s propeller slicing through white fury, the hurricane’s wall looming like a vast fortress.

Seconds later, chaos turns into silence as the storm’s eye is calm, still, and surreal.

It stretches for miles, with sunlight flooding the circular space like a sky-made stadium.

Then, as the aircraft banks, the scale of the beast becomes clear as walls of dense cloud curve skyward in every direction, a calm void surrounded by destruction.

“This is as clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin,” said a crewmember from the mission, captured on video as Hurricane Melissa roared toward Category 5 strength.

Within hours, Melissa exploded into a 175mph monster — now the Atlantic’s strongest storm of 2025 — bearing down on Jamaica in what could become the island’s most devastating hurricane in history.

Meteorologists warn that Melissa, crawling westward at just 3mph, will dump up to 40 inches of rain on parts of Jamaica.

It is set to trigger “catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides,” according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica’s minister of local government, said: “Many of these communities will not survive this flooding.

“Kingston is low, extremely low… No community in Kingston is immune from flooding.”

Mandatory evacuations are underway across coastal regions, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness has urged citizens to act fast.

He said: “Now is the time to secure your home, check your roof, windows, and surroundings… If you live in a flood-prone area, take protective measures and have an evacuation plan ready.”

Melissa’s slow grind and explosive power have stunned experts — its winds doubling in just two days as it churned across the hot Caribbean.

At 130 miles south of Kingston late Sunday, the hurricane’s eye was locked on Jamaica’s southern coast, with forecasters predicting landfall early Tuesday.

The government has shut airports, opened emergency shelters, and placed hospitals in emergency mode.

For now, storm chasers aboard “Teal 74” are among the few to have glimpsed the calm within the chaos.

Recon missions like theirs provide real-time pressure and wind data that can improve forecast accuracy by up to 20 per cent, according to peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.

And on the ground, the tension is just as thick.

Along Kingston’s waterfront, fishermen and shopkeepers lashed down boats and shutters as the first bands of rain swept in.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15405700/chilling-calm-eye-hurricane-melissa-storm/

Gene and his wife, Betsy’s estate have been hit with a slew of creditor claims

GENE Hackman and wife, Betsy Arakawa, were sued after their death for a nearly $2,000 bill from a phone company.

The U.S. Sun exclusively obtained documents filed against the Hackmans’ estate on September 30, after Gene and his wife Betsy, were found dead in their sprawling Santa Fe estate on February 26.

On September 10, the Hackmans’ personal representative, Julia Peters, was hit with a claim from AT&T Mobility for his wife, Betsy.

The statement of claim read, “The decendent purchased goods and/or services in the amount of $1,820.74.”

The couple’s estate had also been hit with another claim, though a much larger one, to the tune of $98,345.29, for unpaid credit card debt by Citibank over money owed on a Mastercard.

Additionally, around that same time, another claim was filed against Betsy’s estate for $4,329.75 allegedly owed on an account with Bank of America.

US Weekly first reported on the Citibank and Bank of America claims.

AUTOPSY RESULTS

An autopsy report from April revealed that the concert pianist, Arakawa, had fluid in her chest and mild hardening of the arteries supplying blood to her heart and body.

She also had a hantavirus infection.

Hantavirus is a rare and potentially lethal illness and is transmitted through the droppings of infected rodents.

The autopsy report stated that Arakawa showed no signs of trauma and tested negative for both COVID-19 and the flu.

While caffeine was present in her system, her carbon monoxide levels were normal, and she tested negative for alcohol and intoxicating substances.

The release of Arakawa’s autopsy and toxicology findings occurred two days after the publication of similar documents regarding Hackman’s death, which confirmed heart disease as his primary cause of death.

According to his autopsy, the 95-year-old actor was also in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease and appeared to have not eaten for a considerable time. He tested negative for hantavirus.

Records made public earlier in the investigation indicated Arakawa had been making phone calls and conducting internet searches, researching flu-like symptoms and breathing methods.

In early March, detectives had searched the residence for her laptop and other evidence.

Investigators previously outlined their theory that the couple died days apart. They noted that due to Hackman’s advanced Alzheimer’s, it was possible he was unaware his wife had passed away.

Tragic surveillance footage also emerged, capturing the final movements of Hackman’s wife weeks before the couple’s mummified remains were located at their sprawling New Mexico estate.

Two weeks before authorities made the grim discovery, Arakawa was recorded on video staying active and running errands.

HARROWING FIND

Bodycam footage from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office captured the moment deputies arrived at the baffling scene, where one of the couple’s German Shepherd dogs was found guarding Arakawa’s body.

“Poor guy, he’s sad,” one of the deputies can be heard saying.

A different video segment recorded the moment authorities located Hackman’s body in another part of the property.

“Two totally separate areas of the house,” one deputy is heard remarking, to which another replies, “Mhm, it’s strange.”

One of the couple’s three dogs was also discovered deceased. It was found in a crate inside a bathroom closet near where Arakawa’s body was.

The remaining two dogs were alive, with one heard barking in the background.

The video also showed deputies systematically moving through the estate’s rooms, searching for any indication of foul play or forced entry.

Investigators were observed counting cash found within the home, examining prescription drugs on a bathroom counter, and inspecting the kitchen stove due to concerns about a possible gas leak.

This concern about a leak led deputies to begin opening doors and windows throughout the house.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15405177/gene-hackman-debt-death-wife-betsy-arakawa-sued-bills/

Albania’s PM Edi Rama announced that the country’s AI anti-corruption minister, Diella, is “pregnant” with 83 AI assistants to aid Socialist MPs, symbolising Albania’s bold digital governance revolution.

In a revelation that could make even sci-fi screenwriters jealous, Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has announced that his country’s first AI minister, Diella, is “pregnant” — expecting not babies, but 83 digital offspring to serve lawmakers.

In a speech at the Berlin Global Dialogue (BGD), Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama stunned the audience with a tongue-in-cheek revelation: the country’s artificial intelligence minister, Diella, is “pregnant” — and not with data, but with “83 children.”

“We took quite a risk today with Diella here and we did very well,” Rama said. “So for the first time, Diella is pregnant and with 83 children.”

According to Rama, these “children” are not your average newborns but AI assistants programmed to support Albania’s 83 Socialist Party MPs. Each will act as a digital aide, recording parliamentary sessions, summarising debates, and alerting lawmakers to key discussions they miss.

“Each one will serve as an assistant for those who will participate in parliamentary sessions,” Rama explained. “These children will know their mother.”

Rama said the system — expected to be fully functional by the end of 2026 — represents the next phase in Albania’s digital governance revolution.

FROM VIRTUAL BIRTH TO BUREAUCRATIC BRILLIANCE

Diella, whose name means Sun in Albanian, was officially appointed in May 2025 as the world’s first AI-generated cabinet minister. Her mission: To eradicate corruption in Albania’s notoriously murky public procurement system.

Initially launched as a virtual assistant on the e-Albania portal, Diella now oversees tenders and contracts, using data-driven logic to ensure fairness and transparency.

“She is the servant of public procurement,” Rama declared earlier. “We want to make tenders 100 percent incorruptible and every public fund 100 percent legible.”

The AI minister, represented visually as a woman in traditional Albanian dress, has become a symbol of the government’s attempt to merge technology with accountability.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/ai-minister-pregnant-with-83-children-albania-pms-bizarre-revelation-glbs-2809279-2025-10-28

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a planned international force in Gaza to help secure a fragile ceasefire under U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan.
It remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops, in part given the refusal of Palestinian Hamas militants to disarm as called for by the plan, while Israel has voiced concerns about the make-up of the force.

While the Trump administration has ruled out sending U.S. soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Azerbaijan to contribute to the multinational force.
“We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate,” Netanyahu said.
“This is, of course, acceptable to the United States as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” he told a session of his cabinet.

Israel, which besieged Gaza for two years to back up its air and ground war in the enclave against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, continues to control all access to the territory.

ISRAEL OPPOSED TO TURKISH ROLE IN GAZA FORCE

Last week Netanyahu hinted that he would be opposed to any role for Turkish security forces in Gaza. Once-warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign in the small Palestinian enclave.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a visit to Israel aimed at shoring up the truce, said on Friday the international force would have to be made up of “countries that Israel’s comfortable with”. He made no comment on Turkish involvement.
Rubio added that Gaza’s future governance still needed to be worked out among Israel and partner nations but could not include Hamas.

Rubio later said U.S. officials were receiving input on a possible U.N. resolution or international agreement to authorise the multinational force in Gaza and would discuss the issue in Qatar, a key Gulf mediator on Gaza, on Sunday.
A major challenge to Trump’s plan is that Hamas has balked at disarming. Since the ceasefire took hold two weeks ago as the first stage of Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas has waged a violent crackdown on clans that have tested its grip on power.

ISRAEL SAYS HAMAS KNOWS WHERE HOSTAGE REMAINS ARE

At the same time, the remains of 13 deceased hostages remain in Gaza with Hamas citing obstacles to locating them in the pervasive rubble left by the fighting.
An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday Hamas, which released the remaining 20 living hostages it took in its October 2023 assault, knew where the bodies were.

“Israel is aware that Hamas knows where our deceased hostages are, in fact, located. If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said.
Israel had, however, allowed the entry of an Egyptian technical team to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies. She said the team would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the so-called yellow line in Gaza behind which Israeli troops have initially pulled back under Trump’s plan.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-says-israel-will-determine-which-international-forces-are-unacceptable-2025-10-26/

The US says it is fighting drugs, but its warships off Venezuela tell another story about power, control and regime change.

All of this is ostensibly aimed at getting rid of Maduro, who Trump claims is leading a vast criminal organisation. “Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organisation Cartel de los Soles, and he is responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States,” Secretary of State — and longtime Venezuela hawk — Marco Rubio has said to justify the US military posture in the region. The United States has also placed a $50m bounty on the Venezuelan president’s head.

The official narrative is a fabrication. The existence of a Venezuelan government-run “Cartel de los Soles”, let alone its control of the transnational cocaine trade from Venezuela, has been largely debunked. And while “Tren de Aragua” is a real criminal organisation with a transnational presence, it lacks the capacity to operate in the ways suggested by the United States; it certainly pales in comparison to the power of cartels in Colombia, Mexico, or Ecuador.

Tellingly, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment of 2024 does not even mention Venezuela. And a classified National Intelligence Council report established that Maduro did not control any drug trafficking organisation. There is no denying that there is some transiting of drugs through Venezuela, but the volume is marginal compared with the cocaine currently passing through South America’s Pacific Coast routes. And Venezuela plays no role in the production and export of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, or with the US’s broader opioid crisis. Put simply, if the Trump administration was actually intent on combating drug trafficking, Venezuela makes little sense as a target.

So what is US policy really about? And where might this dramatic escalation lead?

At first, the US display of force off the coast of Venezuela appeared to be an exercise in political theatre: an attempt by President Trump to project his “tough on crime” approach to domestic — including eager MAGA — audiences. “If you traffic in drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week. Recent polls show that crime remains one of Americans’ primary concerns.

Another reading was that Trump’s build-up was a political stunt designed to appease the neo-cons in his administration, sectors of Washington’s foreign policy establishment, and radical elements of the Venezuelan opposition, including Maria Corina Machado, the new Nobel Laureate and hardline opposition leader who has called for foreign intervention in her own country. Unlike more moderate Venezuelan opposition leaders, these actors are all hostile to any perceived normalisation with Venezuela and oppose Trump’s recent granting of an operating licence to Chevron. The build-up appeared, in this light, as a typical Trumpian bluff: projecting toughness towards Maduro while simultaneously securing Venezuela’s oil.

One potential scenario is that the rhetorical escalation of the last few weeks will not be matched by direct attacks on Venezuela, and that the United States’s extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean will simply continue as they have over the last month and a half. In the absence of any serious US drug policy — especially on the vital issues of consumption or money laundering — the satellite imagery of small boats being blown up in the Caribbean serves Trump’s agenda well, albeit with tragic consequences for the boats’ unidentified occupants and their families.

But today, the sheer scale of the US military build-up does not align with the idea of a cynical political stunt, nor does Trump’s decision to cut off all diplomatic backchannels with the Venezuelan government and deauthorise special envoy Rick Grenell’s outreach to Maduro. The more we look at the military deployment and the increasingly belligerent rhetoric from Trump officials, the more the pursuit of regime change through military means appears to be the most plausible explanation.

Rubio and his fellow Florida Republicans have, of course, been ardently advocating for a more aggressive approach towards Venezuela for years. For Rubio, toppling the Venezuelan president — and perhaps, if he can ride the momentum, even overthrowing the Communist Party in Cuba — is a generational objective, more symbolic than strategic, and rooted in political passions and fantasies of return and revenge.

Given that US sanctions, coup attempts and the support of a parallel Venezuelan government in 2019, all measures strongly backed by Rubio, failed to overthrow Maduro, it appears that the secretary of state has concluded that direct military intervention is the only way to achieve this end, and that he is weighing heavily in favour of this outcome inside the administration.

The prospect of US boots on the ground, however, still feels incongruous, especially given Washington’s many more pressing geopolitical interests and Trump’s repeated promise, to the applause of his MAGA base, that he will not drag the country into new “forever wars”. But this is the Western Hemisphere, not the distant Middle East. And in this new multipolar reality, which even Rubio now acknowledges, the return to traditional spheres of influence means the US is once again wielding a big stick in its hemisphere, openly reverting to the gunboat diplomacy that so often rocked the Caribbean in the early 20th century before the US was a global power.

There is no understating the extent of the asymmetry of a potential war between the United States and Venezuela, nor the US capacity to easily overwhelm Venezuela’s conventional forces. But it would be mistaken to think an invasion of Venezuela would be a replay of Panama in 1989–1990 or Haiti in 1994, the last occasions the US occupied countries in its hemisphere. The 20th and 21st centuries were, of course, marred by constant overt and covert US meddling in the national politics of South American states. But unlike Central America and the Caribbean, where smaller and less powerful states became the testing ground for the rise of the US Marine Corps, Washington has never carried out an outright military intervention on the South American landmass. Venezuela, with about 28 million inhabitants, has roughly the same population as Iraq had in 2003 and more than 10 times that of Panama in 1990.

It’s also important to bear in mind that even a weakened chavismo still commands a sizable and ardent base of support. Opposition to any US military intervention would likely be fierce, regardless of how the pro-government militias that have been mobilised over the last few weeks ultimately perform. Violent, US-supported regime change would almost certainly result in a long, protracted resistance and insurgency.

Given the high risks of a land invasion, another scenario — one involving air strikes but without the amphibious landing of US soldiers on Venezuelan shores — appears more likely. Trump would surely prefer a one-off air strike along the lines of the June attack on Iran. But there is no reason to believe that such an attack would result in the mass uprising and military putsch that Rubio and his allies have been hoping for.

The Venezuelan military has so far proven remarkably loyal to the Maduro government. It has weathered two decades of regime change attempts, including a brief coup in 2002, the 2019–2023 Guaido fiasco, which included an overt coup attempt in April 2019, and an ill-conceived mercenary incursion in 2020, each with fewer defections from its ranks than the last. In institutional terms, years of draconian US sanctions and destabilisation have hardened the Venezuelan security state and fostered a resilience that has taken many by surprise.

We also shouldn’t be surprised if, when the first attack fails to produce the promised uprising, regime-change advocates demand another strike, then another. Convinced the government is on its last legs and needs just one more push, they would likely pressure Trump to keep bombing, and perhaps even support the formation of some form of armed opposition, currently nonexistent in Venezuela.

Such a Libya-style proxy war would flood an already volatile region with more weapons and money. Criminal organisations and irregular armed groups already operating on Venezuela’s western border — and beyond, in neighbouring Colombia — would thrive in the chaos, swelling their ranks and profiting from arms and human trafficking: a nightmare scenario for Latin America.

Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/10/24/the-us-warships-off-venezuela-arent-there-to-fight-drugs

DONALD Trump is “disappointed” in Vladimir Putin and has ruled out meeting the tyrant until he stops “wasting his time”.

The US president says there will be no in-person summit unless the Russian despot can prove he is serious about wanting peace in Ukraine.

Speaking on Air Force One on Saturday during his visit across Asia, Trump said: “We’re going to have to know that we’re going to make a deal.

“I’m not going to be wasting my time.

“I’ve always had a great relationship with [Putin], but this has been very disappointing.”

The Republican strongman added that he is shocked there is yet to be a resolution despite months of attempts to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table.

Trump has been a key player in resolving several conflicts across the globe since he returned to the Oval Office in January.

He has been commended for helping broker peace in longlasting wars in Europe, Africa, Asia and most notably the Middle East in Gaza.

Trump explained: “I thought [the Hamas-Israel ceasefire deal] would have been more difficult than Russia and Ukraine, but it didn’t work out that way.

“There’s a lot of hatred between the two — between Zelensky and Putin. There’s tremendous hatred.”

Just two days earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said a Trump–Putin summit is “not completely off the table”.

She said that Trump has seen “not enough interest and enough action” from Russia to hold talks yet.

“The President and the entire administration hopes that one day that could happen again,” Leavitt said.

“But we want to make sure that there’s a tangible, positive outcome out of that meeting, and that it’s a good use of the President’s time.”

It comes after a turbulent week has pushed back any hopes of ending the bloodshed in Ukraine.

Trump slapped punishing sanctions on two Russian oil companies on Wednesday after the Kremlin was all but ostracised by Washington for its refusal to accept a peace deal in Ukraine.

When announcing the sanctions, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the companies are responsible for “funding the Kremlin‘s war machine”.

Trump says he hopes the sanctions will be a wake-up call for Putin to become more “reasonable” over what it will take for a deal to be made.

The move was a stark reminder of how fragile peace negotiations are proving to be for Kyiv, Moscow and Washington.

At the start of the week hopes were high of Putin finally coming to the negotiating table.

He and Trump had held a phone call some days earlier where they agreed to meet in Hungary to discuss the next steps.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a phone call of their own to iron out details ahead of the meeting.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15398322/trump-refuses-meet-putin-ukraine-peace/

Search-and-rescue organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that many children and youths are venturing across the Mediterranean, along one of the world’s most dangerous refugee routes, on their own.

“No one would risk their life at sea if there were a better way. But there’s no alternative. That’s why we risk our lives.”

These are the words of a 15-year-old boy from Guinea rescued as an unaccompanied minor at sea by the Berlin-based NGO, SOS Humanity.

The organization, which has been saving refugees and migrants at sea for the last decade, warns that more and more children and minors are setting out alone from Libya or Tunisia to Europe in overcrowded boats that are often not seaworthy. Around a fifth of those rescued have been minors.

Esther, a German clinical psychologist, volunteered as a mental health officer on Mediterranean rescue missions in November and December 2024.

During a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday, where Esther did not give her surname, she said that during her time at sea six boats carrying 347 people were rescued. Among them were 43 young people, mostly unaccompanied minors, in poor physical and mental health.

“They’d often been at sea without food or drink for several days and nights, were dehydrated, seasick and often had burns from fuel and salt water. Many also had scabies or other infections and wounds, because they had been held in camps in Libya for long periods. All of them were emotionally exhausted,” she said.

Children at grave risk in Libya’s camps

Conditions in Libyan detention camps — where those intercepted by the the country’s coast guard are returned after failed attempts to cross the Mediterranean — are catastrophic, especially for young people.

For years, Libya — which, under a multimillion-euro agreement with the European Union, is meant to take over border control and drastically reduce migrant numbers — has faced intense criticism for serious human rights violations.

“Young people told me about extreme sexual violence, torture, child labor, losing relatives and cases of human trafficking involving women,” Esther recounted. “Some of these young people showed me physical evidence of what they’ve been through. Some had scars from torture, as well as photos and videos taken at the Libyan camps showing them tied up and beaten.”

Over 3,500 minors reported dead or missing

Minors who manage to escape from the camps face even greater danger during the crossing.

According to UNICEF estimates from April, around 3,500 children have died or disappeared in the last 10 years while attempting to reach Italy via the central Mediterranean route. That means nearly one dead or missing child per day for an entire decade.

This statistic has SOS Humanity calling for an immediate end to the EU’s cooperation with Libya and Tunisia.

“The proportion of minors among those fleeing has actually been rising steadily over the last 10 years. Around one-fifth of all arrivals in Italy are minors. In our rescues, the average is even more than one-third,” said Till Rummenhohl, managing director of SOS Humanity.

“We recently had a whole boat of just minors, 120, on board. They were completely panicked young people who were traveling alone and jumped into the water out of fear of the Libyan coast guard,” he added.

Trump’s USAID cuts have dramatic consequences

The growing number of children and adolescents embarking on the dangerous journey to Europe may worsen in the future, warned Lanna Idriss, the head of SOS Children’s Villages Worldwide. The reason: the US government under President Donald Trump has dissolved the development aid agency USAID, with dramatic consequences.

In a study published this summer, the medical journal The Lancet calculated that USAID cuts could result in more than 14 million deaths globally over the next five years, including up to 5 million children under the age of 5. Germany has also cut its development aid by almost €1 billion ($1.2 billion).

“We are entering a vicious cycle that will lead to more children taking this route,” said Idriss, citing Somalia as an example. “The country was 80% dependent on USAID. Last year, we reached 4.5 million children and adolescents in Somalia; this year, only 1.3 million. Why? Because the camps intended to support these children have been empty since the summer.”

Vera Magali Keller heads a law firm in Berlin that specializes in supporting humanitarian organizations, including those that carry out sea rescues.

Children and young people must be given priority protection and evacuation during sea rescues, the lawyer told DW, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which all UN member states have committed themselves.

“In several European countries, there are special prospects for obtaining residence, protection entitlements and rights to family reunification. In Italy, for example, these often apply until the age of legal adulthood. As a general rule, children and adolescents must be accommodated separately from adults and given special protection. Detention should be avoided wherever possible,” said Keller.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/alone-at-sea-unaccompanied-refugee-minors-in-mortal-danger/a-74477433

US President Donald Trump has “continued to demonstrate leadership and commitment to global efforts for peace and engagement”, says Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.

The United States remains vital to the “continued peace, stability and prosperity” of the world and Southeast Asia, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Sunday (Oct 26) at a meeting held on day one of the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking at the 13th ASEAN-US Summit where he welcomed United States President Donald Trump back to the region, Mr Wong noted that Mr Trump has “continued to demonstrate leadership and commitment to global efforts for peace and engagement”.

This includes his role in securing a ceasefire plan for Gaza, de-escalating border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, and his “personal attention to combating transnational crime, online scams and drugs”.

Thailand and Cambodia had been locked in a border dispute, with tensions escalating in July into their deadliest military clashes in decades, killing more than 40 people and forcing around 300,000 to flee their homes.

The two sides agreed to a ceasefire – brokered in part by Trump – after five days of fighting, and have since repeatedly traded accusations of truce violations.

Earlier on Sunday, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to cease all hostilities at the disputed border area and release captured soldiers, as part of an agreement inked on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit.

Mr Trump presided over the signing of the agreement by Thailand Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet. The deal was also witnessed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the bloc’s rotating chair.

MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL TIES

Describing the relationship between ASEAN and the US as “mutually beneficial”, Mr Wong noted how stability and security not only create the conditions for ASEAN to grow, but for America and its companies to benefit from being in Southeast Asia as well.

US investment and trade links with the region have supported more than 600,000 “good American jobs”, he said. ASEAN, with a combined population of nearly 700 million, is also a growing market for American goods and services, he added.

“Our region buys US exports from all 50 states in America – from corn to Boeing planes to some of the best military equipment in the world,” said the Singapore prime minister.

“In short, the ASEAN-US relationship is mutually beneficial and it has made our countries safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

More can be done together, said Mr Wong. For example, even as ASEAN continues on its digital transformation journey, there will be opportunities for American companies to grow their software and digital systems, especially when many of these companies already have a well-established presence and strong reputations.

Beyond the digital economy, opportunities also lie in helping ASEAN to grow its energy security as the bloc develops its energy infrastructure, including a cross-region power grid.

Towards the end of his speech, Mr Wong noted that Southeast Asia is one of the most diverse regions in the world, and one that has historically been geographically fragmented and unstable.

“But it was Americans’ actions, sacrifices, and efforts that contributed to Southeast Asia’s peace and stability. We will never forget these sacrifices,” he said.

“It is America’s continued actions and leadership that will enable Southeast Asia to thrive. So, we look forward to working closely with you, Mr President, to take our region forward, to strengthen our partnership.”

ASEAN-US relations will mark its 50th year in 2027 when Singapore takes over the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, said Mr Wong, adding that he hopes to welcome Mr Trump back in Singapore and the region.

Mr Trump was last in Singapore in 2018, during his first term of presidency, for a historic meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

Mr Trump’s visit to Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN summit will be the first time a US president has visited Malaysia in a decade, the last being Barack Obama in 2015.

He had attended the 2017 ASEAN Summit in the Philippines during his first term in office but skipped subsequent gatherings.

The US President arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s Bunga Raya terminal at around 10am on Sunday morning, where he was welcomed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar at the tarmac in a pomp ceremony with music and dancers.

Mr Wong on Sunday also attended two other ASEAN meetings with external partners – Japan and India.

The 28th ASEAN-Japan summit was attended by Japan’s newly sworn-in Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, while India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the 22nd ASEAN-India Summit virtually.

On the sidelines of the summit, the prime minister had bilateral meetings with the leaders of Brazil, South Africa and the European Council.

In a social media post, Mr Wong said he was happy to meet Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after last meeting him at the Group of 20 summit in Rio last year.

Brazil is Singapore’s largest Latin American trading partner and a key partner in food security, the prime minister wrote.

“We look forward to working closely on climate action, carbon markets (and) sustainable fuels ahead of COP-30 in Belém in Nov 25,” he added, referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conferences scheduled for November in Brazil.

Mr Wong said he had a good discussion with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, noting that they discussed ways to deepen cooperation in areas such as trade and innovation, as well as strengthening ASEAN–Africa links.

He also thanked Mr Ramaphosa for the invitation to the G-20 Summit happening in Johannesburg next month.

With President Antonio Costa of the European Council, the meeting touched on ways to deepen cooperation between Singapore, the European Union (EU) and the wider region, especially in trade and the digital economy.

“Singapore and the EU are like-minded partners with shared values and a strong commitment to a rules-based multilateral order. There’s much we can work together on in this evolving global landscape,” Mr Wong said.

TIMOR LESTE AS NEW ASEAN MEMBER

Another milestone at the summit, to be held for three days at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre beside the Petronas Twin Towers, is the admission of Timor-Leste as ASEAN’s 11th member.

Timor-Leste’s formal inclusion marks the end of a 14-year process since its initial application to join the bloc. This is also ASEAN’s first expansion since 1999.

In a Facebook post, Mr Wong said Timor-Leste’s membership is the “result of years of patient engagement and thoughtful deliberation”.

“While there is much work ahead, Singapore will do our part to support Timor-Leste’s integration, so that we can all benefit from a stronger, more united ASEAN.”

Noting that the bloc’s focus has turned to strengthening unity and resilience, there were discussions on “practical ways” to do so. These include expanding intra-ASEAN trade and tapping new opportunities in the digital and green economies, he said.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/us-remains-vital-continued-peace-stability-and-prosperity-southeast-asia-lawrence-wong-5425861

In the complex mosaic of the new Syria, the old battle against the group calling itself Islamic State (IS) continues in the Kurdish-controlled north-east. It’s a conflict that has slipped from the headlines – with bigger wars elsewhere.

But Kurdish counter-terrorism officials have told the BBC that IS cells in Syria are regrouping and increasing their attacks.

Walid Abdul-Basit Sheikh Mousa was obsessed with motorbikes and finally managed to buy one in January.

The 21-year-old only had a few weeks to enjoy it. He was killed in February fighting against IS in north-eastern Syria.

Walid was so keen to take on the extremists that he ran away from home, aged 15, to join the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They brought him back because he was a minor, but accepted him three years later.

Generations of his extended family gathered in the yard of their home in the city of Qamishli to tell us about his short life.

“I see him everywhere,” said his mother, Rojin Mohammed. “He left me with so many memories. He was very caring and affectionate.”

Walid was one of eight children, and the youngest of the boys. He could always get around his mum.

“When he wanted something, he would come and kiss me,” she recalls. “And say ‘can you give me money so I can buy cigarettes?'”

The young fighter was killed during days of battle near a strategic dam – his body found by his cousin who searched the front lines. Through tears, his mother calls for revenge against IS.

“They broke our hearts,” she says. “We buried so many of our young. May Daesh (IS) be wiped out completely,” she says. “I hope not one of them is left.”

Instead, the Islamic State Group is recruiting and reorganising – according to Kurdish officials, taking advantage of a security vacuum after the ousting of Syria’s long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad last December.

“There’s been a 10-fold increase in their attacks,” says Siyamend Ali, a spokesman for the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – a Kurdish militia, which has been fighting IS for over a decade, and is the backbone of the SDF.

“They benefited from the chaos and got a lot of weapons from warehouses and depots (of the old regime).”

He says the militants have expanded their areas of operation and methods of attack. They have graduated from hit-and-run operations to attacking checkpoints and planting landmines.

His office walls are lined with photos of YPG members killed by IS.

For the US, the YPG militia is a valued ally in the fight against the extremists. For Turkey, it is a terrorist group.

In the past year, 30 YPG fighters have been killed in operations against IS, according to Mr Ali, and 95 IS militants have been captured.

Kurdish authorities have their hands – and jails – full with suspected IS fighters. Around 8,000 – from 48 countries including the UK, the US, Russia and Australia – have been held for years in a network of prisons in the north east.

Whatever their guilt – or innocence – they have not been tried or convicted.

The largest jail for IS suspects is al-Sina in the city of Al Hasakah – ringed by high walls, and watch towers.

Through a small hatch in a cell door, we get a glimpse of men who once brought terror to around a third of Syria and Iraq.

Detainees in brown uniforms – with shaven heads – sit silent and motionless on thin mattresses, on opposite sides of a cell. They appear thin, weak and vanquished, like the “caliphate” they proclaimed in 2014. Prison officials say these men were with IS until its last stand in the Syrian town of Baghouz in March 2019.

Some detainees wear disposable masks to prevent the spread of infection. Tuberculosis is their companion in al-Sina, where they are being held indefinitely.

There’s no TV or radio, no internet or phone, and no knowledge that Assad was toppled by the former Islamist militant, Ahmed al-Sharaa. At least that’s what the prison authorities hope.

But IS is rebuilding itself behind bars, according to a prison commander who cannot be identified for security reasons. He says each wing of the prison has an emir, or leader, who issues fatwas – rulings on points of Islamic law.

“The leaders still have influence,” he said. “And give orders and Sharia lessons.”

One of the detainees, Hamza Parvez from London, agreed to speak to us with prison guards listening in.

The former trainee accountant admits becoming an IS fighter in early 2014 at the age of 21. It cost him his citizenship. When challenged about IS atrocities including beheadings, he says a lot of “unfortunate” things happened.

“A lot of stuff happened that I don’t agree with,” he said. “And there was some stuff that I did agree with. I wasn’t in charge. I was a normal soldier.”

He says his life is now at risk. “I’m on my deathbed… in a room full of tuberculosis,” he said. “At any moment I could die.”

After years in jail, Parvez is pleading to be returned to the UK.

“Me and the rest of the British citizens who are here in the prison, we don’t wish any harm,” he said. “We did what we did, yes. We did come. We did join the Islamic State. It’s not something that we can hide.”

I ask how people can accept he is no longer a threat.

“They are going to have to take my word for it,” he says with a laugh.

“It’s something that I can’t convince people about. It’s a huge risk that they will have to take to bring us back. It’s true.”

Britain, like many countries, is in no hurry to do that.

So the Kurds are left holding the fighters and about 34,000 of their family members.

The wives and children are arbitrarily detained in sprawling desolate tented camps that amount to open-air prisons. Human rights groups say this is collective punishment – a war crime.

Roj camp sits on the edge of the Syrian desert – whipped by the wind, and scorched by the sun.

It’s a place Londoner Mehak Aslam is keen to escape. She comes to meet us in the manager’s office – a slight veiled figure, wearing a face mask and walking with a limp. She says she was beaten by Kurdish forces years ago and injured by a fragment of a bullet.

After agreeing to an interview, she speaks at length.

Aslam says she came to Syria with her Bengali husband, Shahan Chaudhary, just “to bring aid”, and claims they made a living by “baking cakes”. He is now in al-Sina prison, and they have both been stripped of their citizenships.

The mother-of-four denies joining IS but admits bringing her children to its territory, where her eldest daughter was killed by an explosion.

“I lost her in Baghouz. It was an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] or a small bomb. She broke her leg, and she was pierced with shrapnel from her back. She died in my arms,” she says, in a low voice.

She told me her children had developed health problems in the camp, including her youngest, who is eight. But she admits turning down an offer for them to be returned to the UK. She says they didn’t want to go without her.

“Unfortunately, my children have pretty much grown up just in the camp,” she said. “They don’t know a world outside. Two of my children were born in Syria, they have never seen Britain, and going to family who again they don’t know, it would be very difficult. No mother should have to make the choice of being separated from her children.”

But I put it to her that she had made other choices like coming to the caliphate where IS was killing civilians, raping and enslaving Yazidi women, and throwing people from buildings.

“I wasn’t aware of the Yazidi thing at the time,” she said, “or that people were being thrown from buildings. We did not witness any of that. We knew they were very extreme.”

She said she was at risk inside the camp because it is known that she would like to go back to Britain.

“I have already been targeted as an apostate, and that’s in my community. My kids have had rocks thrown at them at school.”

I asked if she would like to see a return of an IS caliphate.

“Sometimes things are distorted,” she said. “I don’t’ believe what we saw was a true representation, Islamically speaking.”

After an hour-long interview, she returned to her tent, with no indication that she would ever leave the camp.

The camp manager, Hekmiya Ibrahim, says there are nine British families in Roj – among them 12 children. And, she adds, 75% of those in the camp still cling to the ideology of IS.

There are worse places than Roj.

The atmosphere is far more tense in al-Hol – a more radicalised camp where about 6,000 foreigners are being held.

We were given an armed escort to enter their section of the camp.

As we walked in – carefully – the sound of banging echoed through the area. Guards said it was a signal that outsiders had arrived and warned us we might be attacked.

Veiled women – clad head to toe in black – soon gathered. One responded to my questions by running a finger across her neck – as if slitting a throat.

Several small children raised an index finger – a gesture traditionally associated with Muslim prayer but hijacked by IS. We kept our visit short.

The SDF patrol outside the camp and in the surrounding areas.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cze6y5x8np8o

Vishal Kalita’s collection of music cassettes has turned his residence in India’s Assam state into a private museum.

For more than a decade, the 30-year-old has been travelling across the country buying obsolete tapes, which he has carefully stored at his home in Guwahati city.

The collection, which was opened to the public last month, also includes hundreds of CDs and rare posters of musicians from around the world.

But it’s the discography of Zubeen Garg, a singer and composer from the state, that has been drawing the most number of visitors.

A cultural icon in Assam, Garg died in Singapore last month, leaving his millions of fans heartbroken.

Mr Kalita has some 38,000 songs of the singer in his collection, including songs that cannot be found anywhere else today, he says.

On 16 September, just days before his death, Garg had even visited Mr Kalita’s residence and said the collection reminded him of some of his “long-forgotten” creations.

Mr Kalita is now part of a larger network of Garg’s fans and friends who are trying to make his oeuvre more accessible through online streaming platforms and ensure royalties for his family.

“Some of these cassettes are too old and can get damaged. I want to bring them back to public memory,” he says.

But can he do it?

Many of Garg’s songs cannot be uploaded online without risking copyright violation owing to a lack of clarity over their ownership, which is scattered among a complicated network of producers, distributors and music labels.

It’s not just him – music ownership is a long-debated subject globally.

For instance, 14-time Grammy winner Taylor Swift had to re-record her albums to own all her music, while several other musicians have started their own labels to retain full or partial control over their work. In India, too, music ownership has long been mired in tensions around contracts tilted in favour of producers and labels over creators.

Garg’s fans got a glimpse of this complicated universe soon after his death, when many of them went searching for one of his most popular songs, Mayabini Ratir Bukut, on a popular music streaming platform, but found it missing. The song was later uploaded by a user but removed within a week due to licensing issues.

“There are hundreds of his songs whose ownership is either difficult to trace or remains contested,” Manas Barua, filmmaker and Garg’s friend, told the BBC.

In India, the Copyright Act, 1957, governs music ownership, with separate copyright for lyrics, musical composition and sound recording, says Delhi-based intellectual property rights lawyer Neel Mason.

The “first owners” of the lyrics and musical composition are the “authors” – the lyricists and composers, respectively. But when it comes to the sound recordings, “the producer is deemed to be the author”, so they are the first owner, says Mr Mason.

Owners can transfer ownership or choose to grant rights to third parties, exclusively or non-exclusively, through licensing, which can lead to a complex and often untraceable network unless paperwork is meticulously maintained.

In a career spanning 33 years, 52-year-old Garg sang in more than 40 languages and dialects. Some of his songs are owned by his own label, while many from the 1990s and 2000s belong to producers and distributors that pay him royalties.

The producers transferred the copyright to distributors, says Mr Barua. “For decades, such copyright transfers were done without charging money. There was no way for producers to monetise music other than through cassettes and CDs. So, they were dependent on distributors.”

New economic prospects around music ownership opened up only after private radio stations started acquiring licences from music owners for hefty amounts, and grew manifold with online streaming.

The music licensing ecosystem in India has evolved over the years, with focus moving from royalties to ownership, says music journalist Anurag Tagat. “The online streaming revolution has highlighted the importance of ownership and the economic opportunities that can emerge in the future.”

In Garg’s case, several songs have uncertain or contested ownership, and some of them can be found online, uploaded by random users only to be repeatedly removed. Also, many of Garg’s older tracks were never digitised and risk being lost.

Shyamantak Gautam, a producer of Assamese films and an associate of Garg, has engaged a team to draft a list of songs written, sung and composed by Garg.

“At least 1,033 of his songs are registered with the [Indian Performing Right Society] IPRS so far, and we are trying to register more of them,” Gautam told the BBC.

IPRS – India’s sole government-authorised organisation that collects and distributes music royalties – says it is ensuring that creators or their families are paid when their work is used commercially.

“The rapid rise of digital platforms has made ownership tracking more complex, with diverse licensing models, multiple stakeholders and music use,” IPRS chief executive officer Rakesh Nigam told the BBC, adding that Garg’s songs registered with them will “remain protected for 60 years beyond his lifetime”.

This is a great initiative, and it should have been done years ago, popular Bollywood singer Shaan told the BBC. “Tracking distributors at a regional level to fix music ownership can be a challenging prospect. But if they can do it as a team, that’s great.”

The producers of Garg’s songs were all from Assam, so it was not difficult to identify them, says Mr Gautam, adding that the challenge begins after that.

Mr Barua says, “We are building a chain to determine how licences changed hands among distributors. In his [Garg’s] case, several distributors who last held a licence or owned his songs are either dead or have wound up their business.”

Garg’s case is a window to the massive oeuvres of several Indian singers and issues of ownership right and compensation associated with them.

For instance, SP Balasubrahmanyam, who sang more than 40,000 songs, got into a legal dispute with legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja. Lata Mangeshkar, who lent her voice to more than 30,000 melodies, was a vocal advocate of artists’ royalties – an issue over which she fell out with producers and fellow artists in the industry.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn97g9718nzo

Lefty New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani says NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will fall behind his vision for criminal-justice reforms, insisting that if he wins the race, “everyone will follow” his lead.

Speaking on the Hell Gate podcast Friday, Mamdani, 34, was confronted with concerns that Tisch would stand against the type of reforms the Democratic Socialist and his supporters are pushing for, given her previous positions.

“Lots of people who support your candidacy care about criminal-justice reform and reforming the NYPD, and for the past year, she has stood to thwart that,” host Christopher Robbins reminded Mamdani as the host asked for an explanation as to why the frontrunner said he would keep Tisch on board if elected.

Mamdani quickly defended his decision by claiming that Tisch had already been working to accomplish some of the ideas he was pushing, including the formation of a Department of Public Safety.

But Robbins still appeared skeptical, as Tisch has been a vocal opponent of some criminal-justice reforms, claiming last month that spikes in crime were due to the changes passed by ex Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The police commissioner has also backed the decision to keep the city’s controversial gang database active, as well as pushed for a crackdown on low-level offenses and opposed bail and judicial-discovery reform, as Robbins and his fellow hosts pointed out.

“So she’s going to reverse her position on all those things?” Robbins asked Mamdani skeptically. “She’s going to follow your lead in City Hall?”

Mamdani replied, “I think everyone will follow my lead.

“I’ll be the mayor.”

Mamdani also tried to shut down worries that his relationship with Tisch would be a repeat of the fallout between former Mayor Bill De Blasio and ex-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, the latter of whom resigned after a series of spats over policing policies.

Despite Mamdani’s claim that Tisch would be on board with his leadership, the candidate admitted he had yet to directly speak to the police commissioner about continuing under his administration if he wins.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/10/26/us-news/mamdani-insists-tisch-will-follow-my-lead-on-criminal-justice-reform/

Japan’s space agency successfully launched Sunday its most powerful flagship H3 rocket, carrying a newly developed unmanned cargo spacecraft for its first mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the HTV-X1 spacecraft successfully lifted off atop the No. 7 H3 rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in the country’s south and confirmed it entered targeted orbit 14 minutes after liftoff.

The spacecraft was separated and placed into a planned orbit, JAXA said. If everything goes smoothly, it is expected to arrive at the ISS in a few days to deliver supplies. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, currently at the ISS, is set to catch the craft with a robot arm in the early hours of Thursday.

The HTV-X is the successor to JAXA’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle, known as Kounotori, or stork in Japanese, which flew nine missions to the ISS between 2009 and 2020.

The new freighter can carry a bigger payload and supply power during flight, enabling the transport of lab samples that require storage at low temperatures.

The HTV-X is designed to be connected to the ISS for up to six months to deliver supplies and retrieve waste from the ISS, then conduct technical missions while making an orbital flight after leaving the station, this time for three months.

Sunday’s launch also marks a successful debut for H3 rocket’s most powerful version, with four rocket boosters and a bigger fairing, a top compartment for payloads, officials said.

JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa called Sunday’s launch “a major step forward” that demonstrated Japan’s capability of delivering supplies to space, which serves as “the basis of autonomous space activity.”

Iwao Igarashi, head of the Space Business Department at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, responsible for developing H3 with JAXA and operating rocket launches, said Japan’s track record of on-time launch and accuracy in delivering payloads and the newly modified rocket prove they can accommodate a range of customer needs. He said his company plans to expand its launch facility.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/japan-space-rocket-h3-iss-6b4384acb177c6b8f9c41fa7005b6691

Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, justice and police officials said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt.

The Paris prosecutor said that investigators made arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

A police official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, told The Associated Press that two men in their 30s, both known to police, were taken into custody. He said one suspect was arrested as he attempted to board a plane bound for Algeria. The official added that one of the suspects was identified through DNA traces. Beccuau said earlier this week that forensics experts were analyzing 150 samples at the scene.

Special police unit

Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the world’s most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. In her statement, she rued the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

The thieves slipped in and out, making off with some of France’s crown jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

The thieves escaped with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/france-louvre-heist-arrests-2e78cbea4bc44c39348eedf8baf138ed

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on.

The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.

The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say Democrats must first agree to reopen the government before negotiation.

Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s benefits.

But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things such as helping people in disaster areas.

It cited a storm named Melissa, which has strengthened into a major hurricane, as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster.

The prospect of families not receiving food aid has deeply concerned states run by both parties.

Some states have pledged to keep SNAP benefits flowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/food-aid-government-shutdown-snap-trump-democrats-8a52a63b26a707ea676962226b090bb1

A US Navy F-18 jet and an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter crashed separately into the South China Sea while operating from the USS Nimitz. All personnel were safely rescued with no injuries reported.

A US Navy F-18 fighter jet and a Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopter crashed separately into the South China Sea while operating from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on Sunday, as per Reuters report.
According to Navy officials, both incidents happened during routine operations, though they occurred at different times. Immediate rescue efforts were launched from nearby ships and aircraft, and all crew members involved were safely recovered from the water.

Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama announced AI minister Diella is “pregnant” with 83 AI “children” to assist Socialist Party MPs.

Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama has announced that the country’s first AI-generated government minister, Diella, is “pregnant”, and is expected to “give birth” to 83 AI “children,” one for each Socialist Party member of parliament.

While addressing the Global Dialogue (BGD) in Germany’s Berlin, Rama said, “We took quite a risk today with Diella here and we did very well. So for the first time, Diella is pregnant and with 83 children.”

Rama explained that the “children,” or assistants, will document all parliamentary proceedings and update legislators on any discussions or events they were unable to attend.

“Each one…will serve as an assistant for those who will participate in parliamentary sessions, and will keep a record of everything that happens, and will suggest members of parliament. These children will know their mother,” he said.

He anticipated that the system would be completely functional by the close of 2026.

All About Diella

Albania, in September, officially appointed an artificial intelligence-powered minister to ensure that the country’s public procurement framework operates with complete transparency and without corruption.

Initially introduced as a virtual assistant in January on the e-Albania portal, she has been assisting citizens and businesses in acquiring state documentation. The AI minister is depicted as a woman dressed in traditional Albanian costume.

Introducing her to the public, Rama described Diella as “the first member of the cabinet who does not physically exist but is created virtually through AI.”

According to Rama, Diella will play a central role in removing decision-making around tenders from government ministries and transferring that responsibility to an incorruptible AI system. “She is the servant of public procurement,” he stated, emphasising that Albania is taking a “step-by-step” approach to ensure public tenders become “100 percent incorruptible” and that every public fund involved is “100 percent legible.”

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/albanias-ai-minister-pregnant-with-83-children-pm-edi-ramas-bizarre-announcement-ws-l-9659877.html

The police confirmed that the woman was assaulted because of her racial identity. They released a picture of the suspect and appealed to locals for active cooperation.

A 20-year-old woman of Indian heritage was allegedly raped in the United Kingdom’s (UK) West Midlands. As per the West Midlands Police, the attacks on the woman were carried out because of her racial identity.

“This was an absolutely appalling attack on a young woman, and we are doing absolutely everything we can to arrest the person responsible,” senior police officer Ronan Tyrer, who is overseeing the investigation, said on Sunday.

The incident came to light on Saturday, when the police went to the Park Hall area of Walsall, upon receiving the news of a woman being distressed and sitting in the middle of the street, following a sexually-aggravated attack on her.

From the CCTV footage, the West Midlands police released a picture of the perpetrator in an attempt to trace him. They also appealed to the local inhabitants to cooperate with the officials to find the accused.

“We have teams of officers recovering evidence and building a profile of the attacker so that he can be brought into custody as soon as possible. While we are following multiple lines of enquiry right now, it’s vital that we get to hear from anyone who saw a man acting suspiciously in the area at the time,” Tyrer added.

“It may be that you were driving through the area and have dashcam footage, or you have CCTV that we have not yet recovered. Your information could be the vital breakthrough that we need,” he further noted.

The incident has drawn the attention of several UK politicians. Condemning the incident, Zarah Sultana, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Coventry South, wrote on X, “On Saturday, a woman of Punjabi heritage was raped in a racist attack in Walsall. Last month, a Sikh woman was raped in a racist attack in Oldbury. These horrifying attacks show how racism and misogyny feed each other — fuelled by the rise of fascism and hate. As a woman of colour, I know how real and frightening this threat is. We must stand together — against racism, fascism and misogyny — and fight for a socialist society built on equality, justice and solidarity.”

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/uk-news/story/indian-origin-woman-raped-in-uk-police-call-it-racially-motivated-2808772-2025-10-27

The official statement was issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday. The fresh clashes erupted amid peace talks between Islamabad and Kabul in Turkiye.

The Pakistan Army reported fresh cross-border clashes near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in which five soldiers and 25 militants were killed during intense fighting in Kurram and North Waziristan districts. The official statement was issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday. The fresh clashes erupted amid peace talks between Islamabad and Kabul in Turkiye.

According to the official statement issued by ISPR, two large groups of armed militants, referred to as Khwarij, attempted to infiltrate from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s border areas on the night of October 24-25. The infiltrators were spotted in the Ghaki area of Kurram District and Spinwam area of North Waziristan.

Security forces engaged the militants in heavy gunfire, resulting in the deaths of 15 insurgents, including four suicide bombers, in North Waziristan and another 10 militants in Kurram. The Pakistan Army also recovered a large cache of weapons, ammunition and explosives from the site.

Five Soldiers Killed During Operation

The External Affairs Minister also met the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, Cho Hyun, on the sidelines of the summit and discussed cooperation in automotive, electronics, semiconductor, defence and shipbuilding sectors.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday held talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit and conveyed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s best wishes for the successful event.

“Honoured to meet Prime Minister @anwaribrahim of Malaysia. Conveyed the best wishes of Prime Minister @narendramodi for a successful ASEAN Summit,” Jaishankar, who is in Kuala Lumpur to attend the annual ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit, posted on social media.

“Value his thoughts on strengthening our bilateral cooperation and people-to-people linkages,” he added.

The External Affairs Minister also met the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, Cho Hyun, on the sidelines of the summit and discussed cooperation in automotive, electronics, semiconductor, defence and shipbuilding sectors.

“Delighted to meet @FMChoHyun of RoK, on the sidelines of ASEAN meetings in Malaysia. Appreciate the deepening of our Special Strategic Partnership. Discussed cooperation in automotive, electronics, semiconductor, defence and shipbuilding,” he posted on social media.

Jaishankar discussed the global and regional scenario with Singapore Counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan and deliberated on strengthening bilateral cooperation.

“Good to meet FM @VivianBala of Singapore. A very useful exchange on the global and regional scenario, as well as opportunities for strengthening India-Singapore cooperation,” the minister posted.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/47th-asean-summit-eam-s-jaishankar-meets-malaysian-pm-anwar-ibrahim-conveys-pm-modis-wishes

Israeli forces carried out a “targeted strike” on an individual in central Gaza who was planning to attack Israeli troops, Israel’s military said on Saturday.
A U.S.-backed ceasefire is in force between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas just over two years since the war in the Gaza Strip began, but each side has accused the other of violations.

Israel said it had targeted a member of Islamic Jihad. On Sunday, the Palestinian militant group said in a statement that the Israeli military’s claim of a planned attack by the group was a “mere fallacious allegation”.

It did not say whether one of its members was killed in the Israeli strike.
Witnesses told Reuters they had seen a drone strike a car and set it ablaze. Local medics said four people had been wounded, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.
Witnesses said separately that Israeli tanks had shelled eastern areas of Gaza City, the Gaza Strip’s biggest urban area. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several Israeli media sites said Israel, in a reversal of a policy of barring entry to foreign forces, had allowed Egyptian officials into the Gaza Strip to help locate the bodies of hostages taken captive in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, that triggered the war.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-it-conducted-targeted-strike-central-gaza-2025-10-25/

Kim Kardashian is ready to give up her “Kim K” persona 10 years from now.

The reality star said she wants to be a trial lawyer after taking the bar exam in July during her appearance on “The Graham Norton Show” Friday.

“I will be qualified in two weeks. I hope to practice law,” she shared.

“Maybe in 10 years I think I’ll give up being Kim K and be a trial lawyer,” she continued. “That’s what I really want.”

Kardashian, 45, celebrated earning her law school degree after six years in May. During a private commencement ceremony hosted by family and friends, a mentor spoke about the mother of four’s hard work.

“Six years ago, Kim Kardashian walked into this program with nothing but a fierce desire to fight for justice. No law school lectures, no ivory tower shortcuts, just determination,” the mentor shared in footage Kardashian posted on her Instagram Story.

The mentor noted Kardashian dedicated “18 hours a week, 48 weeks a year for six straight years.”

“That’s a total of 5,184 hours of legal study,” she said. “That’s time she carved out while raising four children, running businesses, filming television shows and showing up in courtrooms to advocate for others.”

The “Kardashians” star first revealed she was studying law in a 2019 interview with Vogue. She shared that she felt inspired by “seeing a really good result” with Alice Marie Johnson, the prisoner she helped get released.

“I had to think long and hard about this,” she said.

“The White House called me to advise to help change the system of clemency, and I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there, like,’Oh, s–t. I need to know more,’” she recalled. “But I had attorneys with me who could back that up with all the facts of the case.”

“It’s never one person who gets things done; it’s always a collective of people, and I’ve always known my role, but I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society,” she continued. “I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/25/celebrity-news/kim-kardashian-shocks-fans-with-bombshell-confession-about-her-career/

Joe Jonas was seen leaning in for what appeared to be an intimate chat with a mystery woman at a private party thrown by Bad Bunny.

The singer was seen in video footage obtained by the Daily Mail sitting closely to the long-haired, brunette woman while enjoying a dimly-lit reserved corner table at Miami’s Gekko on Thursday.

Jonas — who helped celebrate Bad Bunny’s Billboard Latin Artist of the 21st Century Award at the bash — rocked a laid-back leather bomber jacket as the unidentified woman appeared to attentively look at his face while they conversed.

The clip also showed the pair sharing a couple of hearty laughs while hanging out at the upscale venue — though the Daily Mail reported there was no overt PDA.

The singer was said to have arrived with friends at the soirée at around 11:00 p.m. local time, while the woman seemingly arrived solo and later joined Jonas’ table.

A source for the Daily Mail alleged that the duo “got up together to go into a separate room in the restaurant, where a bathroom and bar are located,” and “came back to the table together a few minutes later.”

A rep for Jonas did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment.

The sighting comes days after the hitmaker, 36, gave a rare update on his dating life after his split from Sophie Turner in Sept. 2023.

“Five shows in a row doesn’t make it easy to meet someone for coffee,” the father or two told Esquire for an interview published Oct. 20 — referring to the ongoing Jonas20: Greetings From Your Hometown Tour.

Though he denied using dating apps, the singer did confess to having met via other online methods.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/25/celebrity-news/joe-jonas-seen-with-mystery-woman-at-bad-bunnys-miami-party/

Kim Kardashian has responded after her daughter North West’s fake face tattoos and piercings received backlash online.

West, 12, recently shared a bold look on TikTok, sporting ink consisting of a star under her right eye and her name written in cursive on her left cheek. She styled her long blue hair in braids and also rocked a faux septum ring and black grillz over her teeth.

After Daily Mail Australia shared a TikTok video with the headline “North West, 12, worries fans with new look,” Kardashian responded with a comment from the kimandnorth joint TikTok account.

“This is such a non-issue 😭,” she wrote.

Fans also defended West in the comments, with one user writing, “So glad social media wasn’t around when i was going through my teen experimental discovering myself phase.The internet is crazy man.”

Another commenter wrote, “Big news for unemployed childless people: north west is going through a pre teen phase.”

“She’s a kid playing dress up w her friends…. where is the problem,” another supporter wrote.

In the TokTok videos West shared, she and two of her friends were styled similarly as they rode in a private jet together.

Despite the negative comments on the look, it hasn’t stopped the mother-daughter duo from having fun on the app. On Friday, they posted themselves dancing while sporting wigs. Kris Jenner also got in on the fun, shooting water guns with Kardashian and West.

Kardashian previously defended her eldest child’s right to express herself — though she acknowledged they made a “mistake” — when she received criticism for West wearing a corset top and a miniskirt while on a family vacation in Italy.

“It’s really hard and it’s really interesting because all the kids are wearing the same things,” Kardashian said during her “Call Me Daddy” appearance earlier this month. “But then my daughter tries to wear it, and then I’m like, ‘OK, we’re never wearing that again.’ Unfortunately, we made that mistake in front of the whole world.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/25/parents/kim-kardashian-defends-daughter-north-wests-fake-face-tattoos-piercings/

Tomas Anez Dos Santos was working in a small clearing in the Peruvian Amazon, when he heard footsteps approaching in the forest.

He realised he was surrounded, and froze.

“One was standing, aiming with an arrow,” he says. “And somehow he noticed I was here and I started to run.”

He had come face to face with the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas – who lives in the small village of Nueva Oceania – had been practically a neighbour to these nomadic people, who shun contact with outsiders. However, until very recently, he had rarely seen them.

The Mashco Piro have chosen to be cut off from the world for more than a century. They hunt with long bows and arrows, relying on the Amazonian rainforest for everything they need.

“They started circling and whistling, imitating animals, many different types of birds,” Tomas recalls.

“I kept saying: ‘Nomole’ (brother). Then they gathered, they felt closer, so we headed toward the river and ran.”

A new report by the human rights organisation, Survival International, says there are at least 196 of what it calls “uncontacted groups” left in the world. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. The report says half of these groups could be wiped out in the next decade if governments don’t do more to protect them.

It claims the biggest risks are from logging, mining or drilling for oil. Uncontacted groups are extremely vulnerable to basic disease – as such, the report says a threat is posed by contact with evangelical missionaries and social media influencers looking for clicks.

Recently, Mashco Piro people have been coming to Nueva Oceania more and more, according to locals.

The village is a fishing community of seven or eight families, sitting high on the banks of the Tauhamanu River in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, 10 hours from the nearest settlement by boat.

The area is not recognised as a protected reserve for uncontacted groups, and logging companies operate here.

Tomas says that, at times, the noise of logging machinery can be heard day and night, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest disturbed and destroyed.

In Nueva Oceania, people say they are conflicted. They fear the Mashco Piro’s arrows but they also have deep respect for their “brothers” who live in the forest and want to protect them.

“Let them live as they live, we can’t change their culture. That’s why we keep our distance,” says Tomas.

The people in Nueva Oceania are worried about the damage to the Mascho Piro’s livelihood, the threat of violence and the possibility that loggers might expose the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no immunity to.

While we were in the village, the Mashco Piro made their presence felt again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a young mother with a two-year-old daughter, was in the forest picking fruit when she heard them.

“We heard shouting, cries from people, many of them. As if there were a whole group shouting,” she told us.

It was the first time she had encountered the Mashco Piro and she ran. An hour later, her head was still pounding from fear.

“Because there are loggers and companies cutting down the forest they’re running away, maybe out of fear and they end up near us,” she said. “We don’t know how they might react to us. That’s what scares me.”

In 2022, two loggers were attacked by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was hit by an arrow to the gut. He survived, but the other man was found dead days later with nine arrow wounds in his body.

The Peruvian government has a policy of non-contact with isolated people, making it illegal to initiate interactions with them.

The policy originated in Brazil after decades of campaigning by indigenous rights groups, who saw that initial contact with isolated people lead to entire groups being wiped out by disease, poverty and malnutrition.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau people in Peru made initial contact with the world outside, 50% of their population died within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very vulnerable – epidemiologically, any contact could transmit diseases, and even the simplest ones could wipe them out,” says Issrail Aquisse from the Peruvian indigenous rights group, Femanad. “Culturally too, any contact or interference can be very harmful to their life and health as a society.”

For the neighbours of uncontacted tribes, the reality of no-contact can be tricky.

As Tomas shows us around the forest clearing where he encountered the Mashco Piro, he stops, whistles through his hands and then waits in silence.

“If they answer, we turn back,” he says. All we can hear is the chatter of insects and birds. “They’re not here.”

Tomas feels the government has left the residents of Nueva Oceania to handle a tense situation by themselves.

He plants food in his garden for the Mashco Piro to take. It is a safety measure he and other villagers have come up with to help their neighbours and protect themselves.

“I wish I knew the words to say, ‘Here have these plantains, it’s a gift,'” he adds. “‘You can take them freely. Don’t shoot me.'”

The White House reacted to Harris’ comments over Trump with a very dismissive reply

KAMALA Harris has hinted she may run for the US presidency again in 2028 despite her crushing defeat to Donald Trump.

The Democratic former vice president vowed “I am not done,” as she also hit out at Trump by labelling her political foe a “tyrant”.

Speaking in her first UK interview since the election thumping by Trump last year, Harris said she would “possibly” be president one day.

She also told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she was confident that one day there will be a woman in the Oval Office.

The two leading female candidates in the past – Harris and Hillary Clinton – both lost to Trump on election night.

The polls currently have Harris as a clear outsider to make a triumphant return to politics and become the Democrats’ pick for 2028.

But a defiant Harris vowed: “I am not done.

“I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.

“If I listened to polls I would have not run for my first office, or my second office – and I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Harris made it clear she hasn’t yet decided if will definitely run in 2028 or in the future.

Some of the names currently stated on various betting sites to be more likely to be the next president include Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump Jr.

Harris also gave a scathing review of Trump’s first 10 months in the White House.

During the election run-up she labelled her rival a fascist as she warned a vote for him is a vote an authoritarian government.

She believes these statements still ring true today.

Harris said: “He said he would weaponise the Department of Justice – and he has done exactly that.

“You look at what has happened in terms of how he has weaponised, for example, federal agencies going around after political satirists.”

The defeated Democrat was referring to how the Trump administration handled the comments made by Jimmy Kimmel after the Charlie Kirk assassination.

Pressure from the US government led to the suspension of the late-night comic from ABC airwaves after he made a joke on his show.

“His skin is so thin he couldn’t endure criticism from a joke, and attempted to shut down an entire media organisation in the process,” Harris fumed.

Harris also hit out at business leaders and institutions in America who are “bending the knee at the foot of a tyrant”.

The White House reacted with a dismissive reply to the “absurd lies”.

“When Kamala Harris lost the election in a landslide, she should’ve taken the hint – the American people don’t care about her absurd lies,” said US spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.

“Or maybe she did take the hint and that’s why she’s continuing to air her grievances to foreign publications.”

Harris and the Dems were dealt a hammer blow on November 5, 2024 when America went to the polls.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15396576/kamala-harris-run-president-trump-defeat/

Treasure hunter Cornelia Ostler found a tantalising clue and says she is ‘definitely’ closing in on a major discovery

IN the final weeks of Hitler’s life, convoys carrying the last loot of the Nazis left Berlin, bound for Bavaria in a desperate attempt to keep the riches out of Allied hands.

The treasure trove ultimately comprised hundreds of gold bars, dozens of boxes and bags of gold coins, and several millions of dollars worth of foreign cash.

Worth potentially billions in today’s money, it was buried in the mountains around Walchensee, a pristine Alpine lake, where some was later recovered.

But in the chaos of post-war Germany, much of the stash was never accounted for – and now one treasure hunter thinks she’s closing in on it.

Cornelia Ostler, 40, said: “I do believe that some of the Reichsbank gold is still hidden somewhere in Bavaria.

“There was so much chaos in the final days of the war, and many things were moved or buried in haste.

“It’s quite likely that not everything was recovered later – and perhaps some finds were even kept secret.

“History is full of gaps, and those gaps are exactly what I’m trying to explore.”

The story of the treasure is recounted in Nazi Gold, by historian Ian Sayer and his co-author Douglas Botting.

In April 1945, more than 93 per cent of the Reich’s gold reserves were captured by the Allies at Merkers Mine in Thuringia, central Germany.

And with Berlin on the brink, Hitler reluctantly agreed to let most of the remainder be smuggled down to Bavaria.

So the gold and cash were dispatched by road and rail respectively, making their perilous way south through the shrinking corridor between the two fronts.

“When they got to Munich, they didn’t really know what to do,” Mr Sayer said.

“They’d lost contact with everybody. They couldn’t just phone up Heinrich Himmler or Hitler and ask.”

With time running out, the hoard was taken to a training facility for mountain troops in Mittenwald, scarcely a mile from the Austrian border.

From there, commanding officer Colonel Franz Wilhelm Pfeiffer sent it to Einsiedl, on the shores of the Walchensee, where it was stashed in the home of the chief forester.

In total, over 11 tons of treasure was piled high in what is now a shooting range in a youth hostel.

Then, on the night of April 26, the loot was loaded on to mules, taken into the mountains, and buried in several holes on the Steinriegl.

Days later, with paranoia growing, the cache was dug up and buried in new holes, further obscuring its location.

American forces would ultimately recover some of it, but with few reliable records as to the size of the stash, it’s unclear just how much they got.

In any case, the few records we do have suggest there’s a lot of loot unaccounted for.

“I think that’s very fair to say,” said Mr Sayer.

“There were so many people involved, bringing different amounts of gold from different places and entities.”

He continued: “We know there were discrepancies. Nobody knew how much there really was – I mean there was some paperwork, but not for all of it.

“It wasn’t until years later that somebody realised in the Foreign Exchange Depository that the figures weren’t adding up – and that was just for the stuff where they actually had records.”

For her part, Cornelia believes she is “definitely” closing in on a big discovery.

One tantalising clue she’s found is a Nazi party badge dated 1934.

“Over the years, I’ve gathered many puzzle pieces that are slowly starting to fit together,” she said.

She’s corresponding with Mr Sayer too.

“That gives me motivation and confidence,” she said.

“I truly believe I might be closer to a discovery than many would expect.”

Mr Sayer actually tracked down two bars of the missing gold in the 1990s, and was photographed with them at the Bank of England.

Those particular bars had first disappeared from the hoard at Mittenwald half a century before.

But Ian believes that much of the lost loot has been stolen.

In Nazi Gold, he cites a “persistent rumour” in the Einsiedl area that a “considerable quantity… had escaped the Americans”.

One person involved, interviewed in 1978, told the author that “several million dollars” and a “large quantity of gold coins” were smuggled into Switzerland.

Mr Sayer also described how “residents of dubious character” in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 11 miles west of Einsiedl, “were soon seen driving about in expensive Porsche and BMW motor cars”.

But the historian concedes that some might still be buried.

He said: “Are there caches of gold or other loot out there?

“There probably are, but why would you bury them and not come back for them?

“The only thing that’s going to stop you from getting it later is if you’re incapacitated, or sent to prison, or you forget where you put it – that’s a possibility.

“Those are the types of things that could contribute to their still being gold or currency out there.”

For Cornelia, the hunt for the Reichsbank treasure is a lifelong quest, inherited from her dad, Reinhold Ostler.

She said: “My father was one of Germany’s most renowned treasure hunters, and he was especially fascinated by the mystery of the Reichsbank gold.

“He lived in Munich at the time, and the Walchensee was not far away.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15371007/location-hitler-buried-gold-discovery/

THE man behind the $130 million donation to the Pentagon to pay the military during the ongoing federal shutdown has been identified.

Billionaire Timothy Mellon was named as the deep-pocketed private donor who President Donald Trump described earlier in the week as “a friend”.

The Trump ally was named by two sources close to the anonymous donation in a report by The New York Times.

The President confirmed the generous donation on Thursday night without naming the person behind it.

Trump simply called them a “patriot” and friend who “loves the military and loves the country”.

Mellon, who was identified by two anonymous sources, told the President he “doesn’t want publicity”.

Trump called him “a great American citizen” and a “substantial man” saying the anonymity behind the donation is “pretty unusual in the world I come from…you want your name mentioned”.

The donation comes as the federal government shutdown is set to enter its fourth week.

They already risked missing payments due to them on October 15, hitting 1.3 million service members as well as hundreds of thousands of active National Guard members and civilians who work for the Defense Department.

Due to the essential nature of their jobs for national security, they continue to work despite the shutdown.

On October 15, Trump allowed the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use funds to ensure troops were paid – this money largely came from the Pentagon‘s research and development budget.

In a statement, The Pentagon confirmed that it had accepted the anonymous donation under the “general gift acceptance authority”.

“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” the Pentagon’s chief spokesman Sean Parnell said.

“We are grateful for this donor’s assistance after Democrats opted to withhold pay from troops.”

However, it is unclear if the Pentagon can spend the funds as the Anti-deficiency Act blocks the use of donated cash not appropriated by Congress during a government shutdown.

Other rules from the Department of Defense dictate that donations over $10,000 that benefit military members have to be reviewed to ensure the donor “does not have interested that may be affected substantially” by the gift.

On Thursday, the Senate blocked a move to pay active troops and members of the military, 54 to 45, as service members are unsure of if they will get their next paycheck due on October 30.

Democrats say they blocked the measure as it excluded other furloughed workers.

Even if Mellon’s donation is used by the Pentagon, it is unlikely to cover much of the shortfall caused by the shutdown.

The Congressional Budget Office states that Trump’s 2025 military budget calls for $600 billion in military compensation.

Mellon’s donation divided by the 1.3 million active-duty troops equates to just $100 per service member.

Mellon is the grandson of former US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who served from 1921 to 1932 and is heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

As of June last year, his estimated net worth was reported to be $14.1 billion, according to Forbes.

The 83-year-old is somewhat of a recluse, living in Wyoming, and has donated huge sums to the Republican Party since Trump emerged on the scene by backing the President’s various campaigns.

Just last year, he made one of the largest single disclosed contributions to a super PAC by donating $50 million to Make America Great Again.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15397154/timothy-mellon-net-worth-donald-trump-military-pentagon/