News of the World
Yesterday, 09:12 AM
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Quote:The pharmaceutical industry is scrambling with scenario planning as U.S. President Donald Trump's 200% tariff proposal threatens to drive up drug prices and rip out corporate profit margins.
The president once again warned on Tuesday that long-awaited industry-wide tariffs would be announced "very soon" after the administration launched a so-called 232 investigation into the sector in April.
Trump suggested that those levies would not go into effect immediately, but get a grace period of "about a year, year and a half to come in."
Analysts nevertheless warn that such a rate — even with a delay — will have a detrimental effect on drug prices and profit margins.
"A 200% tariff would inflate production costs, compress profit margins, and risk supply chain disruptions, leading to drug shortages and higher prices for U.S. consumers," Barclays wrote in a note Wednesday.
UBS analysts cited a "significant negative impact" on margins, where goods are manufactured outside of the U.S. Meanwhile, the hit for patients could be "disastrous," Afsaneh Beschloss, founder and CEO of investment firm RockCreek Group said Tuesday, in reference to an estimated 100% levy.
"That would be potentially disastrous for every person because we need those pharmaceuticals, and it takes those companies a long time to produce them here in the U.S.," Beschloss told CNBC's "Closing Bell."
It is estimated that a tariff of just 25% on pharmaceutical imports would drive up U.S. drug prices by almost $51 billion annually, increasing domestic prices by as much as 12.9% if passed on, according to research from industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which on Wednesday lambasted the president's proposals as "counterproductive" to health outcomes.
Delay brings little relief
Pharmaceutical products have typically been excluded from trade tariffs due to their critical nature. However, Trump has repeatedly targeted the industry for what he deems unfair pricing practices, and has urged firms to reshore manufacturing to the U.S.
In response, global pharma firms — including Novartis, Sanofi and Roche and U.S.-headquartered Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson — have made commitments to invest large sums in the U.S.
UBS dubbed the administration's tariff grace period of 12 to 18 months as "insufficient time" for firms to relocate their manufacturing stateside.
"We would usually think of 4 to 5 years as the timeline to move commercial scale manufacturing to a new site," the analysts wrote.
The industry is now awaiting further details at the end of this month, when the final Section 232 investigation report is due. But in the meantime, firms have little choice but to plan for various potential outcomes.
Yeap, Hunter Biden hates not being the First Son anymore.
Quote:Hunter Biden went off on actor George Clooney and other high-profile Democrats in an expletive-filled response to their calls for his father, former President Biden, to drop out of the 2024 election.
Appearing on YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan’s web series “Channel 5,” Hunter Biden lashed out at Clooney and other members of the party who publicly criticized the former president after his disastrous debate against President Trump last summer.
“F‑‑‑ him. F‑‑‑ him. F‑‑‑ him and everybody around him,” Hunter Biden said during the interview released Monday, in response to an anecdote about Clooney’s political involvement. “I don’t have to be f‑‑‑ing nice. No. 1, I agree with Quentin Tarantino. … F‑‑‑ing George Clooney is not a f‑‑‑ing actor. He is a f‑‑‑ing, like … I don’t know what he is. He is a brand.”
Clooney was among the first prominent Democrats to call on the then-president to drop out, warning in an op-ed in The New York Times last July that the party would lose the election otherwise.
Within two weeks, the elder Biden announced he was dropping his reelection bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to fill his place. Clooney thanked him “for saving democracy once again” in response and endorsed Harris.
The former president’s son also lashed out at other high-profile figures in the party.
“What do you have to do with f‑‑‑ing anything? Why do I have to f‑‑‑ing listen to you?” Biden asked. “What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f‑‑‑ing life to service of this country and to decide you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f‑‑‑ing New York Times. … To me — and James Carville, who hasn’t run a race in 40 f‑‑‑ing years, and David Axelrod who had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama and that was because of Barack Obama, not because of f‑‑‑ing David Axelrod and David Plouffe and all of these guys … and the Pod Save America Guys, who were junior f‑‑‑ing speechwriters on Barack Obama’s Senate staff who had been dining out on their relationship with him.”
Hunter Biden, who was pardoned over multiple federal charges by his father during the last months of the former president’s administration, has reemerged in public in recent weeks to slam the Democratic Party’s handling of the election.
He is slated to appear on former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison’s new podcast, a trailer for which shows him blaming the Democratic Party’s loss on its lack of loyalty to his father.
“You know what, we are going to fight amongst ourselves for the next three years until there’s a nominee. And then with the nominee, we better as hell get behind that nominee,” Biden told Harrison on “At Our Table.”
Tommy Vietor, one of the hosts of “Pod Save America,” responded to Biden’s comments in a post on the social platform X.
“It’s good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward, and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say, arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with,” he wrote.
Quote:Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg failed to replace outdated air traffic control systems while in office — with his agency instead shelling out tens of billions of dollars on a DEI agenda, according to federal spending records and airline industry insiders.
In one meeting, Buttigieg — who is said to be eyeing a 2028 presidential run — told industry executives that air traffic control upgrades would just allow them to fly more planes, “and so why would that be in his interest?” sources said.
What his department was really interested in was handing out hundreds of diversity, equity and inclusion grants totaling more than $80 billion over four years — at least half of the DOT’s entire budget for a typical fiscal year, records show.
“He was definitely pushing an agenda,” an air industry official said, noting the transportation secretary had “little to no interest” and took “definitely zero action” toward air traffic control modernization.
Buttigieg spent his time in President Joe Biden’s cabinet blaming the airlines for their delays and “vilifying” the industry as a whole while denying his department’s DEI agenda led to any air traffic control staffing shortages or was maintaining an ailing safety system that hasn’t been updated since the Carter administration, sources told The Post.
The flying public paid the price, insiders said.
“At first, [the Department of Transportation] and he were reluctant to say there was an air traffic controller shortage or that the shortage had anything to do with flight delays or flight cancellations,” the air industry official said.
Chris Meagher, a spokesman for Buttigieg, rejected both claims and pointed to increased air traffic controller hiring under the former transportation big, as well as software changes to improve efficiency at airport runways, new flight routes projected to cut up to 100 hours off travel time annually and the development of communications technology to decrease flight delays.
Biden’s infrastructure law also provided $5 billion to improve air traffic facilities’ towers and power systems, he noted.
“Suggesting that Secretary Buttigieg chose not to pursue air traffic control modernization is absurd,” said Meagher, adding that Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2025 included another $8 billion in funding that congressional Republicans blocked.
“Secretary Buttigieg’s focus was always on safety — not just in aviation, but also on roads and bridges, where 40,000 Americans die on our country’s roads each year. Fixing issues with air traffic control was a priority.”
Is the FBI corrupt down to its very core?
Quote:FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino boldly declared Saturday that he made recent discoveries about government corruption and weaponization that shocked him down to the core.
Without elaborating on what he found out, Bongino teased that investigations into those discoveries are ongoing and being done “by the book.”
“What I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core,” Bongino said in a shocking announcement on X.
“We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”
Bongino did not provide a timeline for when the public might learn what he’s talking about, and underscored that while he is not as visible as he once was during his podcast days, “things are happening.”
“We are going to conduct these righteous and proper investigations by the book and in accordance with the law,” he stressed.
“We are going to get the answers WE ALL DESERVE. As with any investigation, I cannot predict where it will land, but I can promise you an honest and dignified effort at truth. Not ‘my truth,’ or ‘your truth,’ but THE TRUTH.”
Quote:Notorious sex criminal Ghislaine Maxwell answered questions from Justice Department officials about “100 different people” linked to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, an attorney for the disgraced socialite claimed Friday following two days of interrogation led by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche during which she was reportedly granted limited immunity.
David Oscar Markus told reporters that his client, currently serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in Manhattan of federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in December 2021, was “asked about every possible thing you could imagine – everything.”
“This was the first opportunity she’s ever been given to answer questions about what happened,” Markus added. “The truth will come out about what happened with Mr. Epstein and she’s the person who’s answering those questions.”
Blanche had “every single question” answered during the sitdown, Maxwell’s attorney also said, with the British-born convict declining to plead the Fifth Amendment.
“If she lies they could charge her with lying,” Markus noted.
“They did charge her with lying,” a reporter challenged him, referring to two perjury counts that Markus noted were dropped by the feds after her conviction.
“No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits,” Blanche posted on X Tuesday in announcing he would speak with Maxwell.
Maxwell, 63, is appealing her conviction and sentencing, and legal observers have speculated her willingness to answer questions is tied to a potential clemency grant by President Trump.
Her attorney described the commander in chief Friday as “the ultimate dealmaker” and claimed his client had “been treated unfairly for the past five years” and “didn’t get a fair trial.”
“We hope he exercises that power in a right and just way,” Markus added.
Trump, 79, told reporters after landing in Glasgow, Scotland that “I don’t know anything about the conversation” between Blanche and Maxwell because “I haven’t really been following it.”
“This is no time to be talking about pardons,” the president added after saying hours earlier while leaving the White House that “I haven’t thought” about the idea.
Maxwell reportedly initiated the sitdowns with the DOJ and answered questions for roughly nine hours, according to ABC News.
The proffer immunity granted to Maxwell allowed her to answer questions without her responses later being used against her in a criminal case, sources told the outlet.
Proffer immunity is typically granted to individuals prosecutors want cooperation from in a criminal case.
In 2022, the Department of Justice expressed doubts that Maxwell could be truthful, writing in court filings that she displayed a “significant pattern of dishonest conduct” and failed to take responsibility for her heinous crimes.
Court papers the prior year revealed that prosecutors never seriously entertained the prospect of offering the women dubbed “Epstein’s madam” a plea agreement after the financier was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting his own federal trial on Aug. 10, 2019.
Quote:Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired back at former President Barack Obama, accusing him of deflecting from his administration’s “absolute failure” to vet intelligence reports used to fuel narratives of Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign.
“The treasonous conspiracy that we have now released to the American people — the complicity, the deflection, and the silence of politicians, of the mainstream media, and of those directly implicated into this speaks volumes,” Gabbard said on Fox & Friends Saturday.
On Tuesday, President Trump called for criminal charges against Obama, 63, for allegedly ordering an intelligence report saying Russia meddled to help him win the White House in 2016.
Trump was referring to documents Gabbard declassified last week.
Obama’s office responded, calling the claims an attempt at distracting from the scandal over the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for Obama said.
“But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” he said, referring to the mounting pressure on Trump to release the Epstein files.
“Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”
Gabbard lashed out at Obama’s answer during her Fox appearance.
“President Obama’s very carefully worded response that came from his office, again, deflects away from addressing any of the truth that was revealed,” she said.
“They would have to admit and actually address the details of their complicity in this or their absolute failure in conducting the most basic responsibilities of, again, asking, where is this intelligence coming from?
Gabbard sent a criminal referral to Attorney General Pam Bondi Friday against Obama.
Quote:The star-studded benefit concert that raised more than $100 million dollars for wildfire victims in California is itself under fire for how the money was spent.
"I have not seen any benefit from the FireAid money, and I am very involved here and neither have my neighbors," said David Howard, who lost two homes in Pacific Palisades.
FireAid billed itself as "a benefit concert for wildfire victims." Aside from music by the likes of Lady Gaga, Jelly Roll, Katy Perry and Olivia Rodrigo, the five-hour show featured multiple stories from victims of the Altadena and Palisades fire who'd lost their homes.
"My house is gone," Altadena fire victim Mark Jones told the audience. Six months later, Jones told Fox 11 in Los Angeles he expected someone to reach out and provide help, but that didn't happen. Did Jones believe he would receive money? "I did, and I am sure with most Altadenians. The fire aid was for us. So, we figured where is the money? Where is it going?"
Fox News asked that question Wednesday of FireAid and the Annenberg Foundation, which helped put the concert together.
Did any non-profits receive money? If so, how much did each receive?
How many fire victims received aid?
How much aid or financial assistance was paid to the victims?
What accounting practices were adopted to prevent FireAid money from being co-mingled with other operating funds among those non-profits receiving money?
We have yet to receive a response, but officials acknowledged receiving our inquiry.
The FireAid website says the concert raised an estimated $100 million designated for "direct relief".
During the concert, host and actor Miles Teller told viewers "all the money raised will go directly to people who need it now and long-term efforts to build it back."
That was echoed by host and actor Samuel L. Jackson, who said, "Go to the website and give what you can. All the money will go directly to people who need help in the short term and the long-term effort to get this city back on its feet."
But last week, in a statement to the Fox affiliate in Los Angeles, the charity said, "FireAid does not have the capability to make direct payments to individuals and that was never the plan. We partnered directly with trusted local non-profits...to reach communities in need."
Fox News contacted more than 70 of those non-profits. Some replied. Others declined. Some are well known like the Boys and Girls Club, YWCA and Meals on Wheels.
Others are more obscure or promised to help specific ethnic groups or artists.
One that promoted "self-determination in the Latino community" vowed to use their FireAid grant to create "a more humane and democratic society by responding to the needs and problems of disenfranchised people."
Another claimed to use natural helpers or 'promotores' to "cultivate egalitarian relationships based on trust and respect."
At least $6.5 million in donor money also went to the County of Los Angeles.
All told, FireAid says it has granted $75 million so far to 188 non-profits. The remaining $25 million should go out in August and will focus on "long-term wildfire mitigation, environmental resilience, and sustainable rebuilding," according to the group.
The LA Times this week published an extensive piece on FireAid funding, contacting 100 non-profits receiving aid. It said the money provided a lifeline to many groups, allowing them to provide food, shelter, mental health services and animal care.
So who exactly who is responsible for how the money is spent? That's not entirely clear. The Annenberg Foundation helped organize the concert but claims only an advisory role in how the money is spent.
An Annenberg spokesperson says spending decisions are made by the FireAid Advisory Committee made up of respected philanthropists. They make recommendations to the FireAid Board of Trustees. It includes several executives from the LA Clipper basketball team, a businessman and wife of a prominent media executive.
While there is no evidence of fraud, California Congressman Kevin Kiley wants U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate "where these donations went and who benefited."
Quote:Bryan Kohberger has been transferred to one of America’s worst hellhole prisons overnight — where inmates chowed down on hot dogs and vegan casserole for dinner, The Post has learned.
The monstrous killer was sent to the notorious Idaho Maximum Security Institute after he was jailed for life Wednesday for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, prison records show.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the 30-year-old made it in time for dinner.
But if he did, the Wednesday night menu included hot dogs, salad and Jello pie, a prison official told The Post.
For vegan inmates like Kohberger, vegan barley casserole, baked beans and canned fruit were on offer, the official added.
Kohberger, who was previously being held at the Ada County Jail in Boise during his trial, is now expected to live out his days at IMSI — the state’s only max-security prison.
The lockup, which has been plagued by claims of feces-smeared cages, brutally violent guards and rioting inmates, currently houses “Doomsday” cult mom Lori Vallow’s child-murderer husband, Chad Daybell.
Two of Idaho’s most notorious serial killers — Gerald Pizzuto and Thomas Eugene Creech — are also serving time there.
IMSI was named one of the “15 Worst Prisons in America” by Security Journal Americas in 2024.
Quote:At least 11 people were stabbed in a bloody scene inside a Michigan Walmart Saturday night — causing terrified shoppers and employees to flee — before a brave armed citizen helped detain the knife-wielding maniac, according to police, witnesses and harrowing video.
The terror unfolded around 5 p.m. when the alleged 42-year-old male attacker began randomly stabbing shoppers with a “standard” folding knife in various sections of the big-box chain store in Traverse City, about 255 miles northwest of Detroit, Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea said.
“Based on the information that we have at this time, they were random acts,” Shea told reporters at a press conference Saturday night, adding that the violent knifing is “very uncommon” for the city.
“Eleven [victims] is too many, but thank God it wasn’t more.”
Six of the victims are in critical condition, with the other five in serious condition.
Shea said the disturbing episode started near the store’s checkout counter.
“The whole store started screaming and running,” employee Tasha Nash told Channel2 Now.
“There was a guy with a knife — he stabbed six people. I saw someone stabbed in the eye.”
The knife-wielding monster was ultimately taken down by a pair of brave shoppers, including one who was armed, before authorities arrived and took him into custody, according to police and witnesses.
Video of the chaotic scene showed the unidentified suspect surrounded by shouting bystanders, including the armed good Samaritan.
Photos from Channel 2 Now show the sadistic suspect being placed into a Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office vehicle after the attack.
A shopper, who arrived at the superstore moments after the violent rampage, said she was shocked by the number of first responders on the scene.
“We were getting ready to go into Walmart as this was happening,” one witness wrote on X shortly after investigators asked the public to avoid the area.
Quote:The city Board of Elections asked Brooklyn prosecutors to open an investigation into possible voter fraud Friday after The Post revealed two absentee ballots in a close primary council race were cast on behalf of deceased people.
The BOE said it was asking the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office to look into two incidents surrounding the District 47 race, including the votes cast in the name of people who died over a decade ago and another 22 ballots that were deemed as “potentially fraudulent.”
The BOE didn’t say what made the more than two dozen ballots suspicious, but that the votes had been invalidated following an internal investigation, which was then referred to the Brooklyn DA.
The razor-thin margin primary between Brooklyn Republican Party Chair Richie Barsamian and entrepreneur George Sarantopoulos could be decided by only a handful of votes. Unofficial election night tallies had a mere 32-vote difference between the two candidates.
The 22 ballots were discovered during a manual recount process earlier this week a source told The Post, adding that lawyers from the BOE had been reviewing them in recent days.
Sarantopoulos was maintaining a 16-vote lead as of Friday, gaining two ballots in a manual recount that started Tuesday, sources said.
He had been maintaining a 14-vote lead as of Wednesday, according to a statement from his campaign.
A source who spoke to Barasamian — who as head of the Brooklyn GOP gets to appoint BOE employees — about The Post’s original reporting Tuesday, said that the candidate confided he was “very worried.”
The Barasamian campaign did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Sources said multiple people from the Brooklyn BOE who were involved in the south Brooklyn GOP primary had been reassigned from their roles during the internal investigation.
“The workers from that section were reassigned pending the results of the investigation,” Brooklyn Democratic BOE Commish and retired NYPD detective Frank Seddio told The Post.
Personal devices and computers were seized from BOE employees as part of the probe, sources said.
The BOE previously the election would be certified next week after the manual recount of votes is completed.
Quote:A grenade is missing from the scene of an explosion that killed three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, authorities said Friday.
The July 18 blast at a sheriff’s department training facility killed three experienced deputies on the arson and explosives team.
The deputies were working on two grenades that had been taken into custody by authorities. One of the grenades detonated, and the other is unaccounted for, Sheriff Robert Luna said, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is investigating the explosion.
Luna said authorities X-rayed special enforcement bureau vehicles, searched all around the blast area and examined office spaces and even the gym and haven’t found it.
“You get the drift. We have looked at everything out there that we possibly could,” he said, adding that no one from the public has had access to the area.
Quote:A Democratic congressional candidate was forcibly removed from the Texas State Capitol Thursday and arrested after he filibustered a hearing on redistricting in the Lone Star State.
“It is a shame. It is horrific. For what you have … “ Isaiah Martin shouted as he was dragged out of the House Redistricting Committee meeting in Austin, just before a capitol security official fell on top of the 27-year-old House hopeful.
Martin is seeking to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), who died on March 5, as the Texas’ 18th Congressional District representative.
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Martin was arrested and booked into Travis County Jail on charges of criminal trespass, disrupting a meeting or procession and resisting arrest, according to local outlet KVUE.
All charges against Martin were dropped Friday, and he was expected to be released from jail, his brother said in a social media post, arguing that the state was trying to make “an example” out of Isaiah.
Republican state Rep. Cody Vasut ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Martin from the hearing after he went over his allotted two minutes to speak and refused to stop talking — even after his microphone was shut off.
It took three men to wrestle Martin out of the room.
“Jesus! Get off of him!” a woman in the crowd demanded after the candidate fell to the ground with the sergeant-at-arms on top of him.
“He tripped,” one of the security members assured the woman.
“America will rise up against you!” Martin screamed as he was finally pulled into the hallway, where it appeared he fell, or was taken down, once more.
Quote:A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden on Friday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit challenging sanctuary city policies in Chicago and the state of Illinois.
The Justice Department sued Illinois, Cook County and the city of Chicago — along with several state and local officials, including Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson — in February, arguing their sanctuary laws “interfere” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to arrest and deport illegal migrants.
District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins concluded that sanctuary policies — which prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement — are protected by the 10th Amendment.
“[T]he Sanctuary Policies reflect Defendants’ decision to not participate in enforcing civil immigration law — a decision protected by the Tenth Amendment and not preempted by [federal immigration laws],” Jenkins wrote in her 64-page ruling.
“Finding that these same Policy provisions constitute discrimination or impermissible regulation would provide an end-run around the Tenth Amendment,” the judge continued. “It would allow the federal government to commandeer States under the guise of intergovernmental immunity — the exact type of direct regulation of states barred by the Tenth Amendment.”
Jenkins also determined that the Trump administration lacked standing to sue the “individual defendants” named in the case, such as Pritzker and Cook.
She dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning the Trump administration may amend its complaint if it wishes to continue litigating the issue.
In their lawsuit, the Trump administration singled out the Illinois Trust Act and Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance.
Quote:New York was hit with an air quality alert Saturday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted across the state.
The warning, issued by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health, covers the five boroughs, Long Island, the Lower and Upper Hudson Valley and the Adirondacks.
Officials advised New Yorkers to stay indoors and skip strenuous outdoor activity.
Pollution from fine particulate matter — PM2.5 — is expected to push the Air Quality Index over 100, hitting levels considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, older adults and people with heart or lung conditions.
The tiny particles can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, along with coughing, sneezing and shortness of breath. They can also worsen asthma and heart disease.
The alert is expected to remain in effect until Sunday.
It’s the latest smoke surge to cloud city skies this year. An alert was also issued in early June, when ozone pollution and wildfire haze from Canada triggered warnings across the tri-state.
As of July 23, Canada has seen 3,345 fires in 2025 — scorching over 14 million acres, more than double the 10-year average. More than 50 remain out of control.
Quote:Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday blasted rival Andrew Cuomo for stepping down as governor as he was being investigated over sexual harassment allegations — and swiping his political “playbook” by running for mayor as an independent.
“Listen, he comes from a popular name. His dad was a great governor. His dad stood for three terms and did a great job. In the midst of his obligations to the state, he stepped down,” Adams told The Post while attending the 75th anniversary celebration of NYCHA Bronx River Houses at the Bronx Community Center.
“Personal strife should not cause you to leave office. During my personal strife, I stepped up. I continued to deliver for the city,” said Hizzoner, who had his historic bribery and fraud charges dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this year.
Cuomo, who has long disputed allegations of sexual harassment by multiple women, has been fiercely criticized over his administration’s disastrous March 2020 decision to send infected COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, which resulted in as many as 15,000 deaths.
Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent himself, also accused Cuomo of repeatedly trying to sabotage black politicians to claw back power.
“This is his history, and he’s using the same playbook in my mayoralty,” Adams said.
“He ran in the primary, he lost by double digits. He knew I was gonna run in a general election. Why would he throw his name in as an independent as well, unless he thought he was gonna do to me what he did to others, and it just did not happen.”
Cuomo quickly tossed his hat into the race as an independent after a humiliating loss to socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in last month’s Democratic primary election.
CANADA
Quote:The leaders of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” are facing up to eight years in prison, an “abusive” sentencing recommendation critics are ripping as “political vengeance.”
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber sat in an Ottawa courtroom for their sentencing hearings this week after being found guilty in April of mischief for organizing the trucker protest against then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ultra-strict vaccine mandate.
The protest paralyzed the Great White North’s capital for three weeks in 2022.
The Crown is seeking seven years for Lich, 51, of Alberta, and eight for Barber, of Saskatchewan — who was also found guilty of counseling others to disobey a court order.
“It seems like a considerable overreach,” Lich told The Post Friday, during a stop on her three-day drive back to Alberta. “They’re trying to deter others, I believe, from ever protesting something like this again.”
Prosecutors are also pushing to seize Barber’s truck, “Big Red,” which was used in the protest — through a forfeiture order they filed three years after the fact.
“I’ve owned this truck for 21 years,” said Barber, 50, who runs a family trucking business and co-owns “Big Red” with his son. “This is how I make a living. And the Crown wants to remove that from me and destroy it, which is absolutely disheartening to see that they will go to such a level of vileness.”
“It’s just this vindictive vendetta of pettiness,” Lich added.
Quote:This news must have been a hard pill to swallow.
There is a nationwide shortage of common prescription pain medications in Canada — and it could last until early August.
Opioids that contain acetaminophen with codeine or oxycodone — better known as Percocet and Tylenol No. 3 — are in short supply, according to Health Canada, the department in charge of the country’s national health policy, which made the dire announcement last week.
Manufacturing disruptions and increased demand are behind the sudden scarcity, Health Canada said.
“We’re communicating with health care providers, provincial and territorial governments, and distributors to coordinate the sharing of information about this shortage,” the department said.
“We’re also working with manufacturers and stakeholders to monitor the supply of acetaminophen with codeine or oxycodone and looking at options for increasing access to these products.”
The Canadian Pharmacists Association is limiting the amounts of pills it dispenses.
“Usually pharmacists have to dispense the amount that is being written on the prescription unless it is being limited by the drug plan,” Sadaf Faisal, senior director of professional affairs at the CPA, told Global News.
“In a situation like these, pharmacists are documenting on their prescriptions that we are only supplying 30 days right now because we don’t have enough supply.”
MEXICO
Quote:The United States and Mexico have signed an agreement outlining specific steps and a new timetable to clean up the longstanding problem of the Tijuana River pouring sewage across the border and polluting California beaches, officials from both countries announced Thursday.
Billions of gallons of sewage and toxic chemicals from Tijuana have polluted the Pacific Ocean off neighboring Southern California, closing beaches and sickening Navy SEALs who train in the water.
That’s despite multiple efforts and millions of dollars that have been poured into addressing the problem over decades, including under the first Trump administration.
“There is a great commitment by the two countries to strengthen cooperation,” Mexico’s Environmental Secretary Alicia Bárcena said Thursday after meeting with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in Mexico City for the signing of the memorandum of understanding.
The accord comes three months after Zeldin flew to San Diego to meet with Mexican officials and visit the border.
“I smelled what a lot of residents in the community lived through and have to deal with,” he said Thursday.
“I saw the degradation of the Tijuana River valley. I heard about the beaches that were closed. I met with the Navy Seals, who have had their training impacted. It was a powerful visit all around for me.”
Under the agreement, Mexico will complete its allocation of $93 million toward infrastructure projects, including adhering to a specific schedule for priority projects spanning through 2027.
The 120-mile-long (195-kilometer) Tijuana River runs near the coast in Mexico and crosses into Southern California, where it flows through Navy-owned land and out to the Pacific.
Quote:Twenty bodies were discovered — including four decapitated corpses hanging from a bridge near a plastic bag of human heads — after a bloody day of cartel violence in Mexico over the weekend.
All 20 of the victims were male and had gunshot wounds, the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office said.
Five of the bodies were decapitated, with four of those corpses left strung up by their feet along a highway bridge near Culiacán, the largest city in Sinaloa state, authorities said.
The 15 other bodies, including the fifth missing his head, were discovered just yards away in a van.
A plastic bag containing five human heads was found close to the bridge, officials said.
The van was plastered with a banner referencing the ongoing wars between rival drug cartels in Sinaloa, authorities said.
The victims were part of a total of 27 murders reported in Sinaloa on Sunday, including a young man and two women in an armed attack in Culiacán.
The recent upsurge in Mexican drug violence is blamed on clashes between the warring gangs Los Chapitos and La Mayiza, which are fighting over strategic drug trafficking routes in Sinaloa, security sources said.
A bloody power struggle broke out between the two factions in September, triggered by the dramatic kidnapping of one of the group’s leaders by the son of infamous narco boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. The kidnapped man was handed over to US authorities by way of a private plane.
Since then, Culiacan, previously one of the more peaceful Mexican cities, has been torn apart by violence as the Sinaloa Cartel has lost control.
Mexican authorities insist they are on top of the violence and are working to crack down on organized crime.
“Military and police forces are working together to reestablish total peace in Sinaloa,” said Feliciano Castro, a Sinaloa government spokesperson, in a statement Monday.
UKRAINE WAR
Quote:Kyiv and Moscow will hold a new round of peace talks — the first in seven weeks — on Wednesday in Turkey, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov is in Istanbul to meet with his Russian counterparts to discuss the war and hash out the terms for another prisoner of war exchange, Zelensky said.
Despite Kyiv’s push to reach a cease-fire deal, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the world not to expect a “miraculous breakthrough” from the meeting.
“We intend to pursue our interests, we intend to ensure our interests and fulfil the tasks that we set for ourselves from the very beginning,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
A Turkish foreign ministry source told Reuters that the meeting at the Ciragan Palace would begin at around noon EST, with all eyes set on how Russia would proceed.
“The Ukrainian delegation has come to Turkey prepared to take significant steps toward peace and a full ceasefire, but everything will depend on whether the Russian side is willing to take a constructive approach,” the source said.
Quote:Ukraine’s top military commander called on President Trump to provide long-range missiles capable of attacking deep into Russia to cripple Moscow’s war machine.
Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky said that along with the new Patriot air defense systems Washington and NATO have promised, Ukraine needs more long-range weapons, like the US-made ATAMCS system, to directly target Russia’s arms production plants, the Washington Post reported.
Syrsky told the outlet that taking out Moscow’s war infrastructure would send a direct message to the Kremlin and hinder Russia’s ability to fire hundreds of drones every night — attacks that have been escalating and killing civilians.
“They are targeting virtually everything — airfields, populated areas, infrastructure facilities,” Syrsky said.
“So, of course, we need supplies of ballistic missiles in order to be able to give the enemy a fitting rebuff.”
“The availability of any missile weapons is in itself a deterrent,” he added.
“I hope that thanks to President Trump’s position, this process will be much easier and … we won’t have any of the difficulties we had before.”
Syrsky was referencing the Biden-era ban on most deep strikes against Russian military targets, which has kept Kyiv on the defensive and largely relying on its own, home-made drones to attack targets hundreds of miles over the border.
It remains unclear if Trump would greenlight deep strikes against Russia, with reports revealing he had asked Zelensky earlier this month if Ukraine was capable of attacking Moscow or St. Petersburg.
Trump has since said Kyiv should avoid any direct attacks on the Russian capital.
The US and UK only allowed Ukraine to use their long-range missiles under limited circumstances last year, prompting backlash from the Kremlin who accused Western powers were getting directly involved in the war.
It led Russian President Vladimir Putin to update Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, opening the door for retaliation against any nuclear superpower that props up an enemy nation that fires into Russia.
Quote:Thousands are marching across Ukraine for the first time since Russia’s invasion to protest President Volodymyr Zelensky after he signed a bill to curb the country’s top anti-corruption agencies.
The controversial move allows a politically appointed prosecutor general to have more power over Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), threatening the independence of the two agencies tasked with weeding out decades of corruption in Kyiv.
Critics have now taken to the streets to protest the bill, which may even threaten the people’s dream of joining the European Union.
Zelensky, who has enjoyed popular support since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, is facing his first wartime protest at home after the bill was fast-tracked through parliament and presented before him on Tuesday night.
The president has defended the move as a necessary step to rid the two agencies of “Russian influence” and to address why some cases have been stalled for years.
“There is no rational explanation why criminal proceedings worth billions have been ‘hanging’ for years,” Zelensky said in a statement. “And there is no explanation why the Russians can still get the information they need.”
The approval of the law came following federal raids against NABU employees and an investigation into SAPO’s handling of state secrets, with two people arrested on Monday over “suspicion of working for Russian special services.”
Opponents, however, slammed the bill’s passage as a way of putting political pressure on what should be independent agencies that targeted some of Zelensky’s close allies, including former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov.
Critics have previously accused Zelensky of refusing to face the alleged corruption going on inside his inner circle, which opponents say has hurt Kyiv’s ability to fight back against the Russian invasion.
Quote:Russian intelligence obtained damaging information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health amid her 2016 presidential campaign — including evidence that she had “psycho-emotional problems” that were being treated with severe sedatives — but Vladimir Putin chose not to release it before that year’s election because he thought the Democrat would win.
The astounding revelations were contained in a Sept. 18, 2020, House Intelligence Committee report that reviewed Russia’s influence on the 2016 contest and was declassified and made public Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, “possessed DNC communications that Clinton was suffering from ‘intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression. and cheerfulness,’” stated the report, which the committee based on 20 interviews with intelligence officers and FBI agents, as well as a review of source material for the 2017 Obama-ordered report on Russian election meddling.
“Clinton was placed on a daily regimen of ‘heavy tranquilizers’ and while afraid of losing, she remained ‘obsessed with a thirst for power.’”
By September 2016, some of those communications showed then-President Barack Obama and Democratic party bosses found the state of Clinton’s health “extraordinarily alarming” and fretted that it could have a “serious negative impact” on her ability to beat Trump that November.
Clinton, now 77, was apparently suffering from “Type 2 diabetes, Ischemic heart disease, deep vein thrombosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease” at the time.
A full picture of the former first lady’s condition was guarded by Clinton advisers with the “strictest secrecy.”
The SVR also “possessed a campaign email discussing a plan approved by Secretary Clinton to link Putin and Russian hackers to candidate Trump in order to ‘distract the [American] public’ from the Clinton email server scandal.”
Dozens injured, including child, in Russian strikes using new type of bomb being tested on civilians
Quote:Thirty-three civilians — including a 10-year-old and two teenagers — were wounded in strikes Thursday in Kharkiv, where Russian forces are testing out a new type of “glide bomb” on innocent people.
The Post was on scene as war crimes investigators, firefighters, humanitarian and emergency services arrived just minutes after the back-to-back strikes, which hit a residential apartment building and a textiles factory around 11:15 a.m. local time.
“The Russians are striking everywhere. Homes, school and children. They won’t stop,” a building resident named Tatiana said, tears welling in her eyes. “This is World War III happening right here.”
“I was just coming from my kitchen when I heard the bomb,” another building resident, Svetlana Shevcheko, said. “I never thought about leaving Kharkiv before, but I am thinking now.”
The northeastern Ukrainian city is just 15 miles from the Russian border, so bombs and missiles can strike into the city before residents are alerted to an incoming air raid.
The strike used a new kind of glide bomb, which is a repurposed Soviet-era weapon outfitted with aerodynamic wings for more targeted precision and range.
The new bombs used on Kharkiv have a range of somewhere between 90 and 100 km — an increase of about 10 to 20 km — allowing Russia to strike that much further into the city.
“They are testing this out on civilians,” chief war crimes prosecutor for the Kharkiv district Spartak Borisenko told The Post.
While Ukraine is building interceptor drones and other technologies to knock Russian Shaheds out of the sky, the only thing capable of protecting Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities from ballistic missiles and glide bombs are Patriot air-defense systems, which the US produces, Borisenko added.
President Trump announced this month that the US will ship Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine and insisted that the European Union would pick up the tab and reimburse the US for the associated costs.
Quote:Russia is forcing the children that it’s kidnapped from Ukraine to fight against their own country once they turn 18 as part of a direct order from President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv officials said.
Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said soldiers on the battlefield are coming face-to-face with the young men, with one rescued 19-year-old recounting the Kremlin’s re-education process that he was made to endure for three years, the Times of London reported.
“We were made to sing the Russian anthem every morning, then physical training — jumps, squats, running, crawling — and we also learned how to shoot,” Vlad Rudenko told the outlet.
“The 16- and 17-year-olds were given dummy rifles and the older ones used live ammunition,” he added.
Rudenko was one of the many children who were taken from their homes when Russian soldiers stormed through the southern town of Kherson in October 2022.
He was only 16 when the foreign troops found him hiding in his mother’s apartment, taking the boy by gunpoint and transferring him to a re-education camp in occupied Crimea, where he and other children underwent combat training.
Rudenko, who was smuggled over the frontlines with the help of his mother last year, considered himself lucky when compared to some of the other 35,000 children Russia has kidnapped.
“The Russians didn’t manage to take anything from me though, they just deprived me of my childhood,” he said. “I am lucky, because there are Ukrainians now who are fighting against their own people.”
Yermak, who slammed Moscow as a “terroristic regime,” said the kidnapping and re-education of countless Ukrainian children serves two goals.
The first is for Russia to fill its ranks with expendable soldiers as Moscow continues to beef up its military numbers in the face of hundreds of deaths a week along the frontlines.
Quote:Russia pummeled Ukraine overnight, killing 10 and injuring as many as 61 civilians, in part of a ramped up aerial campaign to advance strongman Vladimir Putin’s war into the Eastern European country.
The Kremlin targeted Ukraine’s frontline regions with 208 drones and 27 missiles Saturday. In the southern Dnipro region, at least three Ukrainians were killed and six others wounded in the barrage, local officials on the ground reported.
The strikes shattered windows in a residential building, torched cars — and on the outskirts of the city flames engulfed an obliterated shopping center obliterated by a Russian missile, causing an apocalyptic-like scene on the streets of the war-torn country.
The Kremlin targeted Ukraine’s frontline regions with 208 drones and 27 missiles, according to officials.
“A scary night. A massive attack on the region,” Serhiy Lysak, Dnipro’s regional governor, said on Telegram.
In the northeastern Sumy region, another person was killed and three others injured, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said troops blocked Russian troops from gaining ground deeper into the battleground region.
Russia opened a new front in Sumy in early June, deploying 50,000 troops — three times the size of Kyiv’s forces in the key battleground — and capturing around a dozen border villages.
The region, a priority for the Kremlin, continues to face near-daily strikes. But, up until this point, Ukrainian forces have managed to maintain control over a bulk of the region.
Meanwhile, Kharkiv faced a sustained aerial bombardment on Saturday.
Ukraine’s second-largest city was pounded by four guided aerial bombs, two ballistic missiles and 15 drones over a three-hour period.
As many as 29 people were injured, including a child, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
EUROPE
Quote:France will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday.
“True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine,” Macron wrote on X.
France is the first major Western power to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state.
Macron teased the move earlier this year, arguing in April that it wouldn’t be done to “please anyone,” but because “at some point it will be right.”
The French president, at the time, also claimed that recognizing a Palestinian state may result in more Middle Eastern countries recognizing Israel in return.
Macron’s social media post Thursday included a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas informing him of his decision.
“In light of the commitments made to me by the president of the Palestinian Authority, I have therefore written to him of my determination to move forward,” he said.
“The urgency today is to end the war in Gaza and to provide aid to the civilian population.”
Macron further demanded an immediate cease-fire to the war in Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas terrorists and “massive humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
“It is also necessary to ensure the demilitarization of Hamas, secure and rebuild Gaza” and “essential to build the State of Palestine, ensure its viability, and enable it, by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, to contribute to the security of all in the Middle East,” Macron continued.
“There is no alternative.”
ASIA
Quote:President Trump has begun mediating the deadly conflict between Cambodia and Thailand over a border dispute and demanded that the two sides reach a ceasefire to avert a full-blown war.
Trump revealed that he held a call with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Saturday and is planning to speak with Thailand’s acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai in an effort to broker peace.
“We happen to be, by coincidence, currently dealing on Trade with both Countries, but do not want to make any Deal, with either Country, if they are fighting,” Trump announced on Truth Social Saturday.
“And I have told them so!” he added. “I am trying to simplify a complex situation! Many people are being killed in this War, but it very much reminds me of the Conflict between Pakistan and India, which was brought to a successful halt.”
Clashes between Cambodia and Thailand erupted on Thursday over the border between the two countries.
Quote:Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar claimed his country is “very close” to locking down a tariff deal with the US ahead of President Trump’s fast-approaching Aug. 1 deadline for the “Liberation Day” levies to take effect.
Dar met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and predicted a deal is just days away as the Trump administration scrambles to finalize agreements with countries before the deadline.
“I think we are very close to finalizing a deal with the U.S.,” Dar said during an appearance at the Atlantic Council think tank Friday. “Our teams have been here in Washington, discussing, having virtual meetings and a committee has been tasked by the prime minister to fine-tune now.”
“It’s not going to be months, not even weeks, I would say days.”
Since Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs, a deluge of countries have been negotiating with his team to cut lightning deals.
Trump repeatedly agreed to postpone the implementation rate for most of those tariffs, with the most recent deadline being Aug. 1 to give more time for negotiations to play out.
So far, he has locked down tariff deals with the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Trump administration also has a tariff truce with China, where there is an Aug. 12 deadline to ink a broader deal.
At the moment, Trump has imposed a 10% baseline tariff rate on almost all imports, tariffs on Chinese imports, 25% tariffs on automobiles, aluminum, and steel, as well as 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico that don’t comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Total US trade with Pakistan clocked in at about $7.3 billion last year, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
The State Department and Pakistan also confirmed the two sides held talks on trade issues, but didn’t reveal a timeline for a deal getting finalized.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, fighting erupted between India and Pakistan after the Pahalgam terrorist attack near India’s administered Jammu and Kashmir. The incident sparked a chain of events that led to India firing missiles into Pakistan.
MIDDLE EAST
Quote:A Syrian-American who was taking care of his ill father was among the eight Druze men kidnapped from their family home and executed in the middle of the street in Syria last week, harrowing video shows.
Viral video of the Druze-Bedouin conflict shows the final moments of Hosam Saraya, a 35-year-old from Oklahoma who flew back to his homeland to take care of his sick father in Sweida, where Syria’s Druze minority reside, CNN reported.
Saraya and seven of his relatives were hauled out of their house at gunpoint and forced to march to the middle of Tishreen Square, where they were made to kneel before the armed men opened fire on them.
The carnage occurred during a week of fighting across Sweida before a cease-fire deal with the country’s new government was struck.
Fighters for the new regime were also accused of assisting Bedouin gunmen in carrying out the sectarian violence against the Druze, with one of Saraya’s relatives claiming that a man from the government was involved in the massacre against her family.
“One of them was wearing a General Security uniform … the black one,” she told CNN. ““They told us, ‘We are the army of Ahmad Al-Jolani (the Syrian president).’”
“They threatened us, told us not to make a sound or we will kill you,” she added. “They threatened us with rape … he told me if you speak I will come and kill you.”
The Syrian government has denied any involvement in the killings, reiterating that its forces were deployed to Sweida to establish peace between the two groups.
A cease-fire was eventually struck on Friday after the Israeli military launched airstrikes in Syria, warning that it would not allow violence against the Druze to go on nor have Damascus’ forces be deployed so close to the border.
The State Department confirmed Monday that an American was killed in Sweida last week, with Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) later revealing that Saraya was the victim.
Quote:Terrified minorities under attack for weeks in Syria by the country’s new Islamist regime are wary of a fragile ceasefire — despite President Trump’s pronouncement this week calling for the groups to be protected, their relatives told The Post.
More than 1,000 Druze, the country’s third largest religious minority which makes up just about three percent of the population, and 25 Syrian Christians have been killed so far in the southern district of Sweida.
Safi, a Druze lawyer in Syria, described heinous violence, including the indiscriminate murders of children and elderly, while a Christian Syrian named Lama told The Post her father was shot to death while scavenging for food.
“We believe they will continue to attack us – and the fear is growing,” Safi said, calling al-Sharaa’s government “a dictatorship…that is brutal to everyone.”
“We can’t trust them. This is not a government we can make a deal with,” he added.
“Right now, we are besieged by the Islamists who don’t differentiate between Christians and Druze – they’re attacking everyone,” said Lama, 30, a pharmacist who just gave birth to a son.
Her father’s bullet-riddled body was found by members of her church days after he’d gone out and failed to return, said Lama, who is now in hiding.
“There are no guarantees this is all over. With every ceasefire, they go back again with the missiles and snipers to attack peaceful people,” she said, adding civilians are scrambling for shelter as homes are targeted by drones.
Quote:The widow of slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, was reportedly smuggled out Gaza with their kids using fake passports — and has already remarried.
Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar managed to slip out of the Palestinian enclave with huge chunks of cash in the early days of the war, Ynet reported Wednesday, citing multiple sources.
The Birkin bag-loving widow fled with the couple’s two young sons to Turkey, where she remained in hiding as Israeli forces hunted down her husband, the sources added.
Then, just months after her husband was wiped out by Israeli forces in a routine ground operation in southern Gaza last October, Abu Zamar remarried.
“She’s no longer here — she crossed through the Rafah border using a fake passport,” one source told the outlet, adding that the operation involved “high-level coordination, logistical support and large sums of money that regular Gazans don’t have.”
Her new marriage and resettlement was orchestrated by Fathi Hammad — a Hamas operative who is renowned for helping terrorists and their families disappear.
Details on her new husband weren’t immediately known.
It comes after footage emerged late last year of the terror kingpin’s wife fleeing into a Gaza tunnel while clutching what Israeli officials claimed was a $32,000 Birkin bag just hours before the Oct. 7 massacre unfolded.
“Did Sinwar’s wife enter the tunnel with him on October 6 carrying a Birkin bag estimated to cost around $32,000?!” an IDF spokesperson wrote on X, alongside a screenshot of the woman holding what appeared to be a super-luxe Hermes bag.
“While Gaza residents have no money for food, we see many examples of Yahya Sinwar and his wife’s special love for money.”
It wasn’t clear if that bag was a knockoff.
Quote:Hamas is planning to kill the remaining Israeli hostages if the Jewish state sends in troops to rescue them — the latest move by the terror group to undermine peace efforts in Gaza.
The terror group has reportedly reinstated its previously abandoned kill order on its captives if Israeli forces or anyone else closes in an attempt to retrieve the 50 remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip, according to the Times of Israel.
That policy had been scrapped after a short-lived cease-fire was reached in January, Hamas sources told the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat. Hamas also reportedly boasted that an Israeli military operation to free the hostages would fail, the outlet reported.
Of the 50 Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza, about 20 are still believed to be alive.
The plans come as the US walked away from the latest cease-fire talks in Qatar on Thursday, before slamming the terror group for showing no real interest in striking a deal with Israel.
President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said “alternative options” to bring the hostages home would now have to be considered, after the latest round of negotiations broke down.
His comments were echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said “together with our US allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home”
Neither the US or Israel have offered insight into what those alternative options might include.
But Trump said he would approve of Israel’s military finishing off Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal,” Trump told reporters Friday as he departed the White House for a trip to Scotland.
“I think they want to die.”
“Trump’s remarks are particularly surprising, especially as they come at a time when progress had been made on some of the negotiation files,” a Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.
Meanwhile, thousands of protestors in Tel Aviv marched to the US embassy on Saturday night, for the second week in a row, calling for a truce that releases the remaining hostages and puts an end to the war in Gaza.
Hamas captured 251 hostages during the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. Of those, 148 were released following negotiations — 140 alive, eight dead.
Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering “alternative options” to cease-fire talks with Hamas after Israel and the U.S. recalled their negotiating teams, throwing the future of the negotiations into further uncertainty.
Netanyahu’s statement came as a Hamas official said negotiations were expected to resume next week and portrayed the recall of the Israeli and American delegations as a pressure tactic. Egypt and Qatar, which are mediating the talks alongside the United States, said the pause was only temporary and that talks would resume, though they did not say when.
The teams left Qatar on Thursday as President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas’ latest response to proposals for a deal showed a “lack of desire” to reach a truce. Witkoff said the U.S. will look at “alternative options,” without elaborating.
In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu echoed Witkoff, saying, “Hamas is the obstacle to a hostage release deal.”
“Together with our U.S. allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home, end Hamas’s terror rule, and secure lasting peace for Israel and our region,” he said. He did not elaborate. Israel’s government didn’t immediately respond to whether negotiations would resume next week.
A breakthrough on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded the Trump administration as experts warn Gaza is being pushed closer to famine, after months of Israel entirely blocking food or letting in only limited amounts. This month, deaths related to malnutrition have accelerated.
More then two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out. The charities and rights groups said even their own staff were struggling to get enough food.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize Palestine as a state. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he said.
Jordan has requested to carry out airdrops of aid into Gaza “due to the dire situation,” a Jordanian official said. The official said the airdrops will mainly be food and milk formula.
An Israeli security official said the military was coordinating the drops, which were expected in the coming days. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-to-be-finalized plans.
Desperate Palestinians gathered at a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Friday, clutching empty pots waiting for a share of watery lentil soup. Such kitchens distributing cooked meals have been a main source of food for many Palestinians, but the number of meals they produce every day has plummeted to 160,000 from more than a million in April, according to the U.N.
“We’ve been living three months without bread,” said one woman in line, Riham Dwas. “We’re relying on charity kitchens, surviving on a pot of lentils and there are many times when we don’t even have that.”
When she can’t find food, she takes her children to a hospital to be put on saline IV drips for sustenance.
Hamas official Bassem Naim said Friday that the group was told that the Israeli delegation returned home for consultations and would return early next week to resume ceasefire negotiations.
Hamas said that Witkoff’s remarks were meant to pressure the group for Netanyahu’s benefit during the next round of talks and that in recent days negotiations had made progress. Naim said several gaps had been nearly solved, such as the agenda of the ceasefire, guarantees to continue negotiating to reach a permanent agreement and how humanitarian aid would be delivered.
In a joint statement, Egypt and Qatar also said progress had been made. “It is a natural to pause talks to hold consultations before the resumption of the dialogue once more,” they said.
AVIATION
Quote:Two flight attendants were injured after a commercial Southwest Airlines jet suddenly dropped 475 feet to avoid a “midair collision” shortly after takeoff at a Los Angeles-area airport Friday, with one frightened passenger saying the aircraft “was just in a freefall.”
Southwest Flight 1496 dove from 14,100 feet to 13,625 feet just six minutes after taking off from Hollywood Burbank Airport, according to FlightRadar24 data.
The pilot told concerned flyers that the drastic maneuver was carried out to avoid “a midair collision,” passenger Steve Ulasewicz told ABC News.
“The plane was just in a free fall. It was pandemonium,” he told NBC 4 Los Angeles.
Passengers screamed as the plane dropped for what felt like 10 seconds, according to Ulasewicz.
Comedian Jimmy Dore was on the flight, relaying that he and several other flyers were tossed about the cabin during the startling descent.
“Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport,” he wrote on X after landing in Sin City.
“Myself & Plenty of people flew out of their seats & bumped heads on ceiling, a flight attendant needed medical attention,” the California-based funnyman, 60, said.
Dore’s manager was also on the plane and was floored by the near-catastrophe.
“We’re driving home,” Stef Zamoramo said in a video posted on X from the cabin.
Tracking data showed that the plane — moving at 450 mph — proceeded to climb 20 seconds after the initial and sharp decline.
Southwest said two flight attendants were injured during the desperate life-saving swerve, but no passengers were injured.
Another plane, a Hawker Hunter aircraft, was near the Southwest plane at approximately 14,633 feet, according to ABC News.
Quote:At least one person was injured when a plane departing Denver International Airport was forced to abort takeoff due to a landing gear failure — causing passengers to flee the flaming and smoking aircraft on an inflatable emergency slide in a chaotic scene captured on harrowing video Saturday.
American Airlines Flight 3023 had a landing gear incident as it was taking off for Miami around 2:45 p.m. local time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Flight 2023, you got a lot of smoke,” an air traffic controller can be heard telling the pilot in cockpit audio from Live ATC, 9News reported.
“There was some flames. Looks like the smoke is dying down a bit,” they said.
“You are actually on fire,” the controller quickly added moments later.
Video showed passengers frantically sliding down an inflatable safety slide as thick black smoke billowed from flames engulfing the rear left side of the aircraft.
The Denver Fire Department announced it had extinguished the blaze in a social media post at 5:10 p.m. local time.
The airline said there was an issue specifically involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8’s tire, Denver 7 reported.
All 173 passengers and six crew members evacuated the plane “safely,” American Airlines said in its statement.
Six people were evaluated for minor injuries, with one transported to a local hospital after deplaning, according to Denver 7.
“All customers and crew deplaned safely, and the aircraft was taken out of service to be inspected by our maintenance team,” American Airlines said in a statement.
“We thank our team members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for their experience.”
Passengers were expected to depart for Miami on another aircraft Saturday, the carried added.
Quote:The head of the NYPD’s Aviation Unit was booted from the elite squad this week after trying to block the feds from probing his dangerous mishaps, The Post has learned.
Aviation’s Commanding Officer Winston Faison was an “incompetent boob” who had numerous breaches in safety as he attempted to make himself the unit’s head helicopter instructor, whistleblowers revealed.
When FAA inspectors made a surprise visit to the base on July 16 because of internal complaints to the agency, Faison flipped his lid, police sources said.
“Do not give them anything!’” he barked at his cops, an insider said. “Who let them on the base?”
Members have complained to the FAA and to NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau about Faison, 52, who took over in 2023 after stints at Youth Strategies, Community Affairs and two Brooklyn precincts. Complaints included:
Nearly crashed at the Brooklyn home base while flying the unit’s pricey Bell 407 training helicopter with a student next to him during a hard landing in the last week in June. “He and the student hit the ground hard,” the first source said. Neither was hurt.
Took the same helicopter for a solo jaunt up the Hudson River on April 25, flying in the wrong seat against manufacturer’s rules. “There are emergency procedures that can only be performed sitting in the right (hand) seat,” said a second police source.
The helicopter’s tail rotor leaked oil and Faison didn’t catch it because he doesn’t do pre-flight checks as required by the FAA, the sources said. “When he landed the tail of the aircraft was covered in oil,” the second source said.
Hired new employees without the oversight of the NYPD, the sources said. “He’s working around department rules to get his people in,” a third source said.
Oversped his rotor and “could have torched a half-million engine we just got,” the first source said. “Drooped”(cq) the rotor system down to dangerously low speeds, nearly crashing, the sources said.
Caused structural damage to a $40,000 tail rotor while practicing a “quick stop” maneuver over rocks on July 4. “If that goes, you’re going to spin around like a top,” the first source said.
Quote:French authorities are trying to establish whether a group of young French citizens was removed from a plane bound for Paris from Spain this week because they are Jewish.
The airline, Vueling, has denied the claims.
Several dozen French passengers on Wednesday were kicked off a flight leaving the Spanish city of Valencia for Paris, for what Spanish police and the airline described as unruly behavior.
France’s ministry for Europe and foreign affairs said in a statement on Saturday that the minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, contacted the CEO of Vueling, Carolina Martinoli, to express his deep concern “about the removal of a group of young French Jews from one of the company’s flights.”
Barrot also requested more information to “determine whether these individuals had been discriminated against on the basis of their religion.”
A similar request has been made to the Spanish ambassador to France.
“Ms. Martinoli assured Mr. Barrot that a thorough internal investigation was underway and that its findings would be shared with the French and Spanish authorities,” the ministry said.
Vueling previously denied reports that the incident, which involved the removal of 44 minors and eight adults from flight V8166, was related to the passengers’ religion.
Some Israeli news outlets reported that the students were Jewish and that their removal was religiously motivated, a claim that was repeated by an Israeli minister online. Spain’s Civil Guard said the minors and adults were French nationals. A Civil Guard spokesperson said the agents involved were not aware of the group’s religious affiliation.
A Vueling spokesperson said the passengers were removed after the minors repeatedly tampered with the plane’s emergency equipment and interrupted the crew’s safety demonstration. A Civil Guard spokesperson said the captain of the plane ordered the removal of the minors from the plane at Valencia’s Manises Airport after they repeatedly ignored the crew’s instructions.
On Thursday, the Federation for Jewish Communities of Spain expressed concern about the incident. The group said that Vueling needed to provide documentary evidence of what happened on the plane.
Quote:A small plane nosedived into an Italian highway, crashing into the pavement and killing its pilot and passenger, harrowing video shows.
Footage from the freeway in Brescia captured the moment the Freccia RG aircraft swoops in from the sky nose-first on Tuesday and slams into the road, erupting into a plume of fire and black smoke.
The horrific crash killed pilot and lawyer Sergio Ravaglia, 75, of Milan, and his partner, Ann Maria De Stefano, 60, according to the local Giornale di Brescia.
Two drivers were also injured in the blast, officials said. Video shows several cars driving in and out of the burning crash site.
Ravaglia appeared to be attempting to complete an emergency landing on the highway but failed to regain speed, causing the aircraft to nosedive and spin out of control, witnesses told the local outlet.
First responders rushed to the scene to contain the fire, but found the plane already completely destroyed.
A consultant from Italy’s National Agency for Flight Safety is set to arrive in Brescia on Wednesday as officials begin to investigate the cause of the crash.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Brescia has opened a manslaughter investigation regarding the incident, but the subject of the charge has not been publicly named.
The prosecutor’s office will request a preliminary assessment of the wreck and look into the state of maintenance of the plane Ravaglia was flying.
The Freccia RG is an Italian ultralight plane built from carbon fiber with a wingspan of nearly 30 feet.
Quote:All 48 passengers and crew onboard a passenger plane that crashed in Russia’s Far East have died, the head of the country’s Amur region said in a statement Thursday.
Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said earlier that it had found the burning fuselage of the Soviet-designed twin turbo prop plane on a hillside south of its planned destination in the town of Tynda, more than 4,350 miles east of Moscow.
The plane, which was operated by the Siberia-based Angara Airlines, had initially departed from Khabarovsk before making its way to Blagoveshchensk on the Russian-Chinese border and onwards to Tynda.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash. Russia’s Interfax news agency said there were adverse weather conditions at the time of the crash, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services. Several Russian news outlets also reported that the aircraft was almost 50 years old, citing data taken from the plane’s tail number.
Images of the reported crash site circulated by Russian state media show debris scattered among dense forest, surrounded by plumes of smoke.
Regional Gov. Vasily Orlov said rescuers struggled to reach the site due to its remote location, 9 miles south of Tynda.
The transport prosecutor’s office in the Far East said in an online statement that the plane was attempting to land for a second time when it lost contact with air traffic control and disappeared from radars.
Orlov announced three days of mourning in the Amur region to mark the disaster, which he described as a “terrible tragedy.”
A previous statement from the govenor said that 49 people had been onboard the flight. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The authorities have launched a probe on the charge of flight safety violations that resulted in multiple deaths, a standard procedure in aviation accidents.
Aviation incidents have been frequent in Russia, especially in recent years as international sanctions have squeezed the country’s aviation sector.
The plane, whose tail number showed it was built in 1976, was operated by a Siberia-based airline called Angara.
Quote:Air India said Tuesday that preliminary inspections found no issues in the locking mechanism of fuel control switches for select Boeing aircrafts.
The announcement followed a preliminary investigation into last month’s Air India plane crash that the switches shifted and flipped within seconds, starving both engines of fuel.
Air India operates a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners for long-distance operations, while subsidiary and low-cost unit Air India Express operates the Boeing 737 jets for short-haul flights.
The airline inspected its entire fleet of both types of aircraft. “In the inspections, no issues were found with the said locking mechanism,” the airline’s statement said.
The investigation by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau into the London-bound plane that crashed in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad on June 12, killing 260 people, is centered around the fuel control switches on the Boeing 787 jetliner. One person survived the crash.
Last week, India’s aviation regulator ordered all airlines operating several Boeing models to examine fuel control switches and submit their findings to the regulator by July 21.
Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet, and Air India Express operates 75 Boeing 737 jets.
In the past few weeks, the airline has faced disruptions in services amid heightened scrutiny and additional safety inspections, leading to flight delays, cancellations and growing passenger anxiety.
On Monday, an Air India Airbus 320 flight veered off the runway as it landed during heavy rainfall at Mumbai International Airport, partially damaging the underside of one of the plane’s engines and leading to a temporary runway closure.
The flight had flown from Kochi in the southern state of Kerala. The airline said in a statement that all passengers and crew members disembarked safely and the aircraft was grounded for checks.
In another incident, an Air India flight from Hong Kong had a fire in its auxiliary power unit Tuesday while passengers were exiting the aircraft after it landed in New Delhi.
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Maranatha!
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My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
