Gabriel Silva, 17, was saved by his family's dog, who alerted his parents that he was having a stroke in the early morningA quick-thinking dog saved the life of a teenage boy having a potentially deadly medical emergency in Texas.Gabriel Silva, 17, was saved by his family's border collie, Axel, who alerted the teen's parents that he was having a stroke, the Today Show first reported. Continue reading...
In an extract from his weekly newsletter, Jonathan Wilson answers your questions on club ownership, Manchester United's midfield and the Saudi Pro League
Last time I visited from Australia, Ibtisam remained calm as I trembled through an Israeli attack. This time it is very differentWe are not special," Ibtisam, my mother-in-law says, and it is as if I am beside her, trembling, while she calmly pours the summakiya into the plates. The smell of it brings some comfort. It is the smell of home.I remember my mother's summakiya as if its smell and taste suffuse my kitchen now, although it, and she, are lost to me. I regret not writing her recipe before she died. It is 10 years since I left home in Gaza and settled in Perth, where I became a mother and learned to make all her dishes - but not her summakiya. The whole neighbourhood of Tuffah knew Huwayda's summakiya was the best! She was invited to make the dish at every wedding. Despite being a refugee, her family displaced to Gaza in 1948, she perfected the Gazan traditional dish. Continue reading...
Former officer and man she shared apartment with arrested on charges of conspiracy and narcotics distribution in the BronxA former New York City police department officer has been arrested on charges of selling fentanyl and heroin, allegedly negotiating deals while on the job in the Bronx.The charges against Grace Rosa Baez, who is 37 and has been a member of the NYPD since 2012, included conspiracy and three counts of narcotics distribution, according to prosecutors with New York's southern federal district. Continue reading...
A new law puts strict limits on how hosts use the site in the city. What does it mean for residents and tourists?It was once a popular way to visit New York City: book someone else's entire apartment for a few hundred dollars a night on a site like Airbnb, and briefly play resident in America's most expensive metropolis.In a city where one in three renters spend nearly half their income on rent and lines for apartment viewings snake around the block, the practice infuriated tenants struggling to find housing. Continue reading...
Delano is in the heart of a district won by Biden but held by a Republican. Will David Valadao's vote to impeach Trump help him hang on?When customers come in for a cut and a conversation at Miguel Navarro's barbershop, there's one topic they raise more than any other: gas prices.A gallon of regular goes for about $5 in Delano, a farming town in California's Central Valley where in 1965, grape pickers staged a historic strike over bad pay and working conditions that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, led by Cesar Chavez. Today, everyone in the city who can afford to do so drives, which means feeling the pain of California's pump prices, the highest in the nation. Continue reading...
White House says there will be continued flow' of aid, after Biden speaks with Netanyahu. Plus, far-right populist Javier Milei comes second in the first round of Argentina's presidential election
As part of Kenneth Chesebro's plea deal he could incriminate Trump in Georgia, but he could also incriminate him in the federal criminal caseDonald Trump's chances of being convicted in the federal 2020 election subversion case may have increased after his top election lawyer took a plea deal in the 2020 election case in Fulton county and admitted to a felony that the effort to create fake slates of electors was fraudulent.The immediate consequence of Kenneth Chesebro's plea deal is that he could incriminate the former president in Georgia, given one of his plea conditions involved testifying truthfully against other defendants. Continue reading...
Hour by hour, they are being killed, maimed and traumatised, while the leaders of our nations fail to interveneThe screams of children are difficult to hear over the noise and fury of the Gaza maelstrom. So it's doubly important to listen out for their cries, because what is happening to them, right now, is truly terrible. No, don't look away. Don't close this tab. This is your problem, too.Long after this war is over, the violent deaths of at least 1,750 children - the total rises daily - and the maiming of the minds and bodies of thousands more will be remembered as an epic failure of human decency for which all may eventually pay a price.Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator. He has been a foreign leader writer, foreign editor and US editor for the GuardianDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
After seven albums and multiple awards, I realised I much preferred acting the clown to singing for my supperOn Christmas Eve 2017, I told my wife that eight years into a successful 10-year music career, I wanted to quit and tell jokes instead. She told me she supported me and - crucially - that she believed I was funny enough to make a go of it. I was elated ... until we pulled a cracker and she almost died laughing at the joke inside. Fair to say her comedy barometer was a bit buggered.I recorded music for a decade under the stage name Tall Dark Friend. Don't ask me what it means - I didn't know then and I don't know now. Seven albums, two European tours, a proverbial shelf of awards" (the awards were real, I just never got around to putting up an actual shelf) - and no plan B. Everything culminated with a memorable stint on The Voice in 2016, signing to a label, bringing out a rubbish single, being unceremoniously dropped from said label, and dragging my arse across the Pride circuit for a year as my heart scabbed over. I turned my head one day to find the muse on my shoulder had long since flown away. Continue reading...
by Andrea Bernstein and Andy Kroll for ProPublica on (#6FSHP)
The conservative strategist and dark money organizer has worked to place ideologically sympathetic judges at state level and all the way up to the US supreme courtIn July 2015, Wisconsin's supreme court shielded Governor Scott Walker, then a rising Republican star with aspirations to the presidency, from a criminal investigation.The court's conservative majority halted the investigation into what prosecutors suspected were campaign finance violations. One of the deciding votes was cast by Justice David Prosser, a conservative who had won re-election a few years earlier in a heavily contested race. Continue reading...
Despite pressure from environmentalists to halt Louisiana construction, the US president touts gas exports to EuropeJoe Biden's administration is under mounting pressure to block construction of what would be one of the world's largest gas export hubs, and which would be perched near the rapidly eroding Louisiana shoreline, due to concerns over its impact on the climate and communities living amid an unprecedented expansion of new gas infrastructure along the Gulf of Mexico.The $10bn project, known as Calcasieu Pass 2 (or CP2), is being planned for Cameron parish, on Louisiana's coast. It would involve bringing gas extracted via fracking through a new pipeline to a terminal where it would be condensed into liquid, chilled to -260F (-162C) and sent on ships for export to other markets, including in Europe. Continue reading...
The Baltimore Ravens already had one of the best defenses in the league but their powerhouse offense clicked into place on Sunday against DetroitAt 4-2 heading into their game against the 5-1 Detroit Lions, the Baltimore Ravens hadn't fully taken flight. They had the league's second-best defense but were struggling to put together a consistent offense. Unfortunately for the Lions, Baltimore were clicking on both sides of the ball on Sunday, putting together a 28-0 halftime lead and eventually winning 38-6. With the victory, the AFC North leading Ravens made a case for being potential Super Bowl champions while bringing the Lions back down to earth.The key to the Ravens' offense remains Lamar Jackson, who was boosted in the offseason by the arrival of receivers Odell Beckham Jr, Nelson Agholor and first-round pick Zay Flowers. Under new offensive coordinator Todd Monken, Jackson came out flat-footed in his regular-season debut, going without a passing or rushing touchdown in a Week 1 win over the Houston Texans. He regained his rhythm with a four-touchdown game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 4 but his team had red zone struggles as recently as last week's win against the Tennessee Titans. Continue reading...
The tradition of NBA teams playing exhibitions with international clubs goes back decades, offering opportunities for prospects to showcase their skillsThe first time an international club played an exhibition against an NBA team was in 1978, when European powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv beat the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets in Israel as part of the inaugural NBA Global Games.When the late David Stern became the commissioner of the NBA in 1984, he set out to make basketball a global game in part by increasing the frequency of inter-league matches, bringing them to Asia, Africa, South America and, eventually, North America for the first time in 1987. Now, international clubs travel to North America every preseason to test themselves against NBA competition. Continue reading...
Ex-president lashes out at fake news' amid reports Pratt used wealth to cultivate close relationship between the pairDonald Trump has described Anthony Pratt, one of Australia's richest men, as a red haired weirdo" as he lashed out at extraordinary reports about their personal conversations.Earlier this month, reports suggested Trump had shared top-secret details of US nuclear submarines with Pratt, an Australian billionaire who runs the paper and packaging giant Visy.In private conversation, Pratt claims Trump had told him in 2019 of ordering an airstrike on Iranian-linked militants in Iraq, before it hit the headlines, and said that Iraq's president had called him to complain. Pratt says Trump responded: I [Trump] said to him [Iraq's leader], OK, what are you going to do about it?'"Pratt said Trump also told him about a phone call he made to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy asking for him to investigate Joe Biden's son Hunter. Trump said: You know that Ukraine phone call, that was nothing compared to what I usually do."Pratt also said Trump pushed the boundaries in his dealings as president and that he knows exactly what to say and what not to say so that he avoids jail ... but gets so close to it ... that it looks like to everyone that he's breaking the law".Pratt boasted of paying about a million bucks" to Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, to attend his birthday party. Giuliani didn't attend but the pair spoke regularly on the phone. The recordings suggest Pratt said: Rudy is someone I hope will be useful one day."Pratt had made a payment to then Prince Charles of $182,000 in 2021, according to documents cited by the Nine papers, and said: My superpower is that I am rich. So I am useful to him [Prince Charles], right?" He also said of Charles: What I'm trying to do is network with people who can be useful. Prince Charles said when he introduced me to Camilla, He's [Pratt] been very useful.' And I thought, that's an insult. And then I thought, it is better than being irrelevant" and I see him as an undervalued political stock. It is just that he is a laughing stock now. But when he is king, [they] won't be laughing."Pratt made consulting payments to former Australian prime ministers Tony Abbott and Paul Keating. Abbott was hired after losing his seat in 2019 on a retainer of $8,000 a month, the Nine newspapers reported, and Keating was receiving $25,000 a month. Continue reading...
As a child, I saw what follows ethnic cleansing. That's why I am speaking out about my new home's silence over Palestinian deathsWhen I moved to Berlin, I developed a habit of stopping by the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones" memorials) and reading about Jewish people who were taken from their homes and transported to the concentration camps. There is one building on my way to the U-Bahn from which 16 people were taken. But it was Lucie's stone that chilled me to the core. Hers is a single memorial stone in front of a large building. One little Stolperstein. All that is known of Lucie is that she was taken away at the age of 61. It made me think about all the other people who lived in the building and may have watched it happen. What were they doing? Did they just look the other way?My family comes from Croatia, and as non-Croats we left the country during the nationalist frenzy of the early 1990s, which the late Dubravka Ugrei described in her work as the fight for pure Croatian air". Having been persecuted in Croatia since the early 1940s - my grandpa managed to leave the Jasenovac concentration camp alive at the age of 11 - we found ourselves in the north of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There the victim was different. Our Bosniak neighbours, whose only difference from us was their Muslim names, were now publicly vilified by almost every Serbian media outlet. People who lived by our side, sent their children to the same schools, spoke the same language, were now portrayed as non-human, as jihadists who would kill us while we slept, as animals that would pull our teeth out and rape our women. All of these stories I heard at the age of six. I knew the word mujahideen before having learned the alphabet.Lana Bastai is the author of the novel Catch the RabbitDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Arnie's brand of hustle culture is taking a bashing online and I am all for it. Do less, enjoy more and take that napRest is for babies and relaxation is for retired people," barks Arnold Schwarzenegger in his new self-help book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life. I am definitely not the target audience for this tome: I get exhausted just trying to type his surname. It is interesting that Schwarzenegger is viewed as a relatively benign figure whose advice you might want to hear, despite the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. At least he apologised for it and, unlike many Republican politicians, he doesn't think the climate crisis is woke fiction, which is refreshing.I think he's got it very wrong with this rest thing, though. You would expect a man whose entire career was built on the burn to venerate sweating and grinding, but don't even the biggest biceps and ropiest calves need the odd day off? The concept of rest is enjoying a low-key fight back, gently insisting that hustle culture hushes and has a little lie down with its snuggly blanket. I am seeing an encouraging amount of it: Rest is productive" reads a widely shared post on my Instagram timeline, and the writer and illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson's newsletter, You're Doing a Good Enough Job, joyfully makes the case for doing less and enjoying more. Continue reading...
Moderate, whose opposition to former president had cost her a congressional seat, considers a 2024 presidential runDonald Trump is the single most dangerous threat" the US faces as he seeks a return to the Oval Office, according to Liz Cheney, the moderate Republican whose opposition to her party leader's presidency had cost her a congressional seat she held for six years.He cannot be the next president because if he is, all of the things that he attempted to do but was stopped from doing by responsible people ... he will do," Cheney - the daughter of former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney - said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. There will be no guardrails. And everyone has been left warned." Continue reading...
Officials say they have found no proof of antisemitism as Samantha Woll killing brings wave of grief to Jewish and Democratic circlesA funeral was held on Sunday for the president of a Detroit synagogue who was killed over the weekend, as police searched for a motive.Samantha Woll, an adviser to Democratic politicians and president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was found stabbed to death outside her home in the Lafayette Park neighborhood of Detroit on Saturday. Continue reading...
Nine congressmen had registered by Sunday's noon deadline following Jim Jordan's failed bid to claim the gavelAfter more than two weeks of failing to choose a speaker, Republicans in the US House plan to reconvene on Monday to begin the process of nominating a third candidate to try to get the 217 votes needed to secure the speakership.So far, Steve Scalise, the No 2 Republican in the House, and Jim Jordan, the far-right congressman, have both failed in their bids. Continue reading...
Republican Senate minority leader says he and president are in the same place' on support linked to both conflictsMitch McConnell offered a strong endorsement on Sunday of the Joe Biden White House's $106bn aid proposal to Israel and Ukraine, saying he and the president were essentially in the same place" on the issue.McConnell, the powerful Republican leader in the Senate, also rebuffed some of his GOP colleagues in the Senate who have called for a package separating assistance for the two countries, saying it would be a mistake" during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. Continue reading...
There is something about the protests that isn't really about Palestine: a rage that has been suppressed but could yet eruptA few years after the end of Lebanon's civil war, when the country seemed like one that had buried its past of conflict for ever, I heard an interview on the BBC with a Lebanese woman from Beirut that has stayed with me for 30 years. She was asked if the country, then a flourishing cultural hub that seemed to take over the Arab airwaves and satellite TV almost overnight, had healed the deep divisions that fuelled the war. They are buried," she said. But if you squeeze me very tight, it's all still there, deep inside me."Perhaps it was still too soon after the end of the civil war, and that woman would feel differently today. But her words instilled in me a formative awareness that, no matter how dormant grievances are, they can still, under pressure, for good or for bad, come alive. Little flashes and large upheavals have validated that view, over and over again. The Arab spring was an uprising of grievances that several strongmen and deep states thought had been put to sleep for ever. But even as the forces of the status quo regrouped and the Arab spring was consigned to the tragic file of history, rumblings in places such as Egypt show that no matter how strong the crackdown, the threat of eruption remains.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
John C Drake, 38, is estranged son of metro police chief; officers treated in hospital after incident in city of La VergneAuthorities in Tennessee were searching on Sunday for the estranged son of Nashville's police chief as the suspect in the shooting of two police officers outside a Dollar General store.Officers in La Vergne, a city about 20 miles (32km) south-east of Nashville, were investigating a stolen vehicle outside the store on Saturday afternoon when they struggled with the suspect, who pulled a handgun and shot them, said the local police chief, Christopher Moews. Continue reading...
A first-in-the-nation transparency act on Hochul's desk would name those involved in financial crimes and potential money launderingA corporate lobbying group backed by Koch Industries is quietly pressing the Democratic New York governor, Kathy Hochul, not to sign a landmark transparency bill unmasking the owners of shell corporations involved in financial crimes, wage theft and tenant abuses.High-profile real estate donors to Hochul's campaign also oppose new disclosure requirements for limited liability companies, or LLCs, a notoriously opaque corporate structure that can thwart attempts at both civil and criminal law enforcement by concealing owners' true identities. Continue reading...
Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders shook hands, talked and prayed together after killing of Wadea Al-FayoumeMuslim, Jewish and Christian leaders shook hands, talked and prayed together as they gathered in Chicago to urge unity across divides and denounce hate, while the region continued to reel from the savage killing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy in an alleged hate crime.Imams and rabbis had already attended the funeral earlier in the week of Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had only recently celebrated his sixth birthday with his family in Plainfield, on the outskirts of Chicago, when the landlord, shouting Islamophobic curses, stabbed the boy and his mother last weekend. Continue reading...
Let's be clear: one can support Palestinians' right to resist and end the occupation without supporting HamasOne thing that unites Palestinians is that our journey is never easy or smooth. To be a Palestinian citizen in Israel is exceptionally challenging - especially at the moment, when people expect you to take a clear, one-sided stance. I am forced to constantly question where I truly belong, feeling nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.I was born and raised in Nazareth in a Christian family. Later, I moved to Tel Aviv, living in a diverse community with Arabs and Jews. Although I was born in Israel, I struggle to identify fully with a country that views me as a second-class citizen, publicly speaks against Arabs, oppresses Palestinians - and the list goes on.Maria Rashed is a freelance journalistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Governor-elect Jeff Landry opposes minimum wage, pollution controls, protections for women, LGBTQ+ and Black peopleWhen Louisiana's attorney general, Jeff Landry, won the open gubernatorial primary on 14 October, it not only ended eight years of relatively productive bipartisan control of the state's government: it marked a hard-right shift in Louisiana's politics that could set back environmental policy and human and civil rights for decades to come.Landry's outright victory in the jungle primary - a system unique to Louisiana, in which all voters, regardless of party, vote on all candidates at the local, state and federal levels - shocked voters and pundits in the state alike. Landry was long favored to triumph, but it was expected he would be forced into a runoff. Ultimately, the state's Democratic party offered no meaningful resistance to Landry's campaign, and he cruised to a win, capturing more than 50% of the votes cast in a low-turnout race. Continue reading...
Annual report shows violent crimes dipped by 2% in 2022 but only 83% of US law enforcement agencies submitted dataAfter a spike of homicides in 2020 and 2021, the rate of violent crimes, including homicide, in the US fell last year to pre-pandemic levels, even as other types of crime increased, data released this week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) show.But experts say these findings should be viewed with caution, since much of it is based on incomplete data from local police departments. Continue reading...
Once, Karl Wenner's Oregon land leaked pollution into a nearby lake. Now, 70 acres are home to waterfowl, turtles and endangered fishBirdsong hums over the rumble of Karl Wenner's truck as it bounces along the dusty trails that weave through his property. For almost 100 years, this farm in southern Oregon grew barley, but now, amid the sprawling fields, there lies a wetland teeming with life.Wenner installed the wetland on 70 of the farm's 400 acres to help deal with phosphorus pollution that leaked into the adjacent Upper Klamath Lake after his land flooded each winter. With support from a team of scientists and advocates, the project has become a welcome sanctuary for migrating and native birds that are disappearing from the area. Continue reading...
Jason Warnick says police do not always get the right man' after Alabama prosecutors abandon case against himA man charged with stealing a Confederate monument during a bizarre ransom scheme that threatened to turn the relic into a toilet said he had shown how police do not always get the right man" after authorities recently abandoned the national headline-making prosecution against him.If anyone out there has had their position changed on that based on my ordeal, then I suppose at least something positive came from it," Jason Warnick, a New Orleans tattoo shop owner, said in a statement to the Guardian after Alabama prosecutors recently dismissed a theft case they had filed against him. Continue reading...
The lingerie brand's feminist makeover was not only hilarious but so late to the party and hypocritical that no one bought itWhat is the appropriate response when a feminist woke" rebrand not only fails but (whisper it) deserves to fail?For those who missed it, in 2018, lingerie company Victoria's Secret jettisoned its signature uber-sexy catwalk shows with supermodel Angels" to embrace a new direction more in keeping with the post-#MeToo climate.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
The late Colombian author didn't want his final book published, but his sons' decision to do so is inspiring to writers like meShortly before he died nine years ago, the highly acclaimed Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez requested that his final novel, Until August, should not be published. However, last week his sons announced that the work would be released in March next year. The rights and wrongs of going against their father's wishes are complicated by the fact that at the time of writing this final novel, Marquez was living with dementia.Perhaps Marquez, who won the Nobel prize in literature in 1982, compared the work with his earlier novels and found it lacking because of his dementia. Critics weren't too kind about the last book he did publish while he was alive and living with dementia, but they might have been unaware of his struggles. Perhaps that's why Marquez wanted this one to remain unpublished. Dementia strips away so much from you, that maybe the thought of another failure at his craft of writing was too much to bear. Continue reading...
At least one good thing came out of the disaster of Brexit - it is serving as a bulwark against populism in EuropeA year before Boris Johnson's Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, a little-known rightwing populist party won power again in Poland - using all the tricks that would become so familiar. It accused its political opponents of being enemies of the people; it would make Poland great again by restoring traditional virtues; it would resist the EU even though it was a member; and it would be unremittingly hostile to migrants and gays. At the time, it seemed a one-shot idiosyncrasy, but the Law and Justice party soon emerged as one of the leaders in Europe's apparently irresistible drive to the right.It won a second election in 2019 and began to menace Poland's hard-won post-communist freedoms. A stooge was already president, but now more stooges took over public television, ran the central bank but, most important of all, followed up the 2017 purge of the supreme court to take even more control of the judiciary. The party was using presidential decree, backed by puppet judges, to run Poland, not only hugely restricting abortion rights - sidestepping parliament - but trying to blacklist political opponents from public office. Continue reading...
As a member of Jewish-Arab peace coalition Standing Together, Alon-Lee Green says there is an alternative to the cycle of violenceTwo weeks ago, Israel experienced an unprecedented terror attack, when Hamas gunmen crossed the Gaza security fence, massacred more than 260 civilians attending a music festival, took control of several villages and kibbutzim in the area and murdered numerous among their residents, all while firing massive barrages of rockets. Overall, Israeli official sources estimate Hamas killed about 1,400 people, mostly civilians, including children and elderly people, and abducted more than 200, who are still being held hostage in Gaza.Israel responded by declaring a war on the Gaza Strip, launching airstrikes that have killed more than 4,000 people, according to the health ministry there, mostly civilians, including children, women and elderly people. Israel's military declared that the emphasis of the airstrikes is on damage" and not accuracy". Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, and homes destroyed, after the Israeli government urged 1.1 million people to evacuate their houses. Healthcare, electricity, water and food supplies have been cut, posing a death threat to countless civilians in the Gaza Strip, as Israel imposed a complete siege", cutting essential services and blocking humanitarian aid.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
An employee admitted he had the wrong address after he checked the permit, but the company has taken no other actionA homeowner is mulling the next step after a company mistakenly demolished a home she owned in south-west Atlanta.Susan Hodgson said in an interview Saturday with the Associated Press that she found a pile of rubble in place of what used to be her longtime family property when she returned from vacation last month. Continue reading...
Michigan police are investigating a possible motive to the death of Samantha Woll as friends showed an outpouring of supportThe president of a synagogue in Detroit was found stabbed outside her home Saturday morning, according to local newspaper reports.Samantha Woll, 40, had led the Isaac Agree Downtown synagogue since 2022. The Detroit Free Press reported that she had also worked for congresswoman Elissa Slotkin as well as the re-election campaign of Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel. Slotkin and Nessel are Democrats, and the latter quickly issued a statement lamenting Woll's slaying. Continue reading...
Leaders of US, Britain, EU and Arab states should unite in backing UN calls for a humanitarian ceasefireThe Middle East is on the verge of the abyss". That was the stark warning issued last week by Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, as he assessed the violent ramifications of the Hamas terrorist attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis two weeks ago. Like numerous diplomats and politicians in the Arab world, Europe and the US, Guterres is working frantically to prevent the fire lit on 7 October from spreading beyond the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where Hamas is based, to the wider region.The success of these efforts hangs in the balance. The release of two Americans among the roughly 200 people taken hostage by Hamas is the first good news to emerge since the crisis erupted. Behind-the-scenes mediation led by Qatar to free those still held captive is continuing. But this success has not halted Israel's round-the-clock bombardment of Gaza. It's plain the remaining hostages' fate is inextricably linked to other issues, principally a predicted, large-scale Israeli ground offensive. Continue reading...
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