News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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Donald Trump: Jim Jordan ‘Will Be a Great Speaker … Will Have the Votes Soon’

“I think he’s going to be confirmed sometime soon,” Trump said from a New York City courthouse. “As you know, many people have now supported him. Twenty-four hours ago, he was supporting somebody else. There seems to be great unification.”

Public support for Jordan surged among House Republicans in the hours before a vote, eclipsing the conference vote held Friday.

Breitbart News reported Monday evening that public support behind Jordan from Monday afternoon quickly increased by 14 members to 146. That number increased Tuesday morning by more than 16 members to the mid-160s.

“I think Jim Jordan will be a great speaker,” Trump reiterated. “And I think he will have the votes soon, if not today, in the next day or two. I think he’ll be a great speaker.”

Judge Gags Donald Trump from ‘Publicly Targeting’ Prosecutor, Judge in J6 Case

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with prosecutors on Monday to place a gag order on former President Donald Trump in the case related to January 6.

The gag order blocks Trump from comments “publicly targeting” the judge, special counsel Jack Smith, and “any other court personnel.” Trump is “absolutely prohibited as well” from issuing statements about their families, the Washington Post reported:

Even before the order was issued, Trump’s lawyer John Lauro said they would appeal any such order, as it would affect important free speech principles, particularly for a leading candidate for president.

Trump “can argue that this prosecution is politically motivated,” the judge said, but he cannot disparage the prosecutor by calling him a thug or “vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants who are simply doing their jobs.”

She is also barring Trump and all parties from making statements about witnesses in the case.

Biden ‘Not Attempting to Decouple from China’

“We are not attempting to decouple from China,” Yellen told Sky News on Monday. “We have a deep economic relationship and that kind of competition, trade, and investment is beneficial to both sides and we want an environment in which it can continue.”

“We are deepening our relationship [with China],” Yellen continued, and said the Biden administration is not looking to “harm progress in China.”

Yellen’s comments come as a growing number of Republican lawmakers are backing a plan that would end U.S. free trade with China, which helped eliminate nearly five million American manufacturing jobs and 91,000 American manufacturing plants from 1997 to 2018.

In July, for example, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) introduced the “Ending Normal Trade Relations with China Act” which would effectively end U.S. free trade with China, thus imposing high tariffs on Chinese imports.

The bill was filed in the Senate by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in March.

Likewise, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Ted Budd (R-NC), Rick Scott (R-FL), and J.D. Vance (R-OH) have filed similar legislation, called the “China Trade Relations Act,” to end China’s normal trade relations status. Instead, presidential administrations would choose whether or not to authorize China’s free trade status with the U.S.

White House Confirms Hamas Is ‘Literally Throwing up Roadblocks’ to Stop Palestinians, Others from Evacuating

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that Hamas isn’t just blocking Americans from leaving northern Gaza, but is “literally throwing up roadblocks” to stop people of other nationalities and Palestinians who want to flee the fighting.

Kirby said the White House wants to get Americans out of Gaza, but “the only way to really do that is through the Rafah gate in the south, which is another reason why Secretary Blinken has been working on this very, very hard. I don’t know that we have a very specific fingertip feel of exactly what the number is, but it’s clearly in the hundreds at least. And again, we’re working at this. And it’s not just the Americans, Katty. It’s also so many other people that live there, of foreign nationality, but also Palestinians, who want to get away from the fighting. And Hamas is literally — and I heard your guest previously — they are literally throwing up roadblocks. It’s — so, it’s, Egypt, certainly, we’ve got to work with Egypt to get that gate open, but Hamas is actually making that travel to the south much, much harder.”

Tara Strong Says She Lost Animation Job After Strong Support of Israel and Condemnation of Hamas

Tara Strong has been fired from the lead role in the upcoming Boxtown cartoon series after she irked social media users with her strong support of Israel and her explicit condemnation of Hamas.

Strong, who has been featured in a long list of animated projects including an animated part in Loki, as well as series The New Batman Adventures, Teen Titans, Rugrats, The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, and many more, says that she was unaware that she had been fired until she saw the recasting notice posted by the cartoon series on X.

“Hello all! Just wanted to offer a quick update on Boxtown,” the notice on the official Boxtown X page reads. “We will be recasting the role of Bill (previously played by Tara Strong). We’ll have more info soon on open auditions.”
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Strong, 50, told her more than 430,000 followers that she found out about being fired when she saw the Boxtown post, adding “This is what happens when you help fans get shows made, I guess. Fired for being Jewish. Glad I helped you get your kickstarter money. Please lose my email address & pray for my family in Israel and in Gaza.”

OCEANIC NEWS

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Sam Neill ‘Not Afraid’ of Death As He Battles Blood Cancer

Sam Neill, who played Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park with a storied career spanning several decades, including a turn in the Academy Award-winning The Piano (1993) and the horror cult hit Possession (1981), announced he has no fear of death as he battles stage 3 blood cancer.

The Northern Ireland-born actor revealed earlier this year he has been battling cancer since March 2022, calling it “ferocious.”

Speaking with Australian Story, Neill said he has been in a fight for his life after going through months of “brutal” chemotherapy, which stripped him of “any kind of dignity.”

According to his doctor, the cancer became more aggressive after the treatment and Neill decided to keep up the fight. She then prescribed him a “novel” drug that appears to have been working.

“That was a year ago now, and I have been in remission ever since then, and I’m immensely grateful for that,” Sam Neill said, as reported by Fox News. “It’s not something I can finish, I will be on this for the rest of my life. Every two weeks I go in and get beaten up again. It’s like going 10 rounds with a boxer, but it’s keeping me alive. And being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative.”

The treatment even allotted the New Zealand-based actor some strength to do some acting work.

EUROPEAN NEWS

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Security Crisis in Europe

Alleged France School Attacker Pledged Allegiance to the Islamic State

France´s anti-terror prosecutor said Tuesday that a suspected Islamic extremist declared allegiance to the Islamic State group before fatally stabbing a teacher in a school attack last week.

The prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, said an audio recording in the suspect´s phone. In it, the alleged attacker declared allegiance to the Islamic State and expressed “his hatred for France, for the French, for democracy and the education he benefitted from in our country.”

The alleged attacker was a former pupil of the school in the northern town of Arras. A teacher was fatally stabbed in the neck and three other people injured in the assault that prompted France to raise its terror alert level and deploy extra security.

The prosecutor spoke at a press conference and took no questions.

Ricard said that shortly before the stabbing, the alleged attacker also recorded a 30-second video of himself in front of a war memorial.

France’s Palace of Versailles Evacuated Again After Receiving Another Bomb Threat

The Palace of Versailles in France has been evacuated for the second time since Saturday after receiving another reported bomb threat amid increasing threats of terrorism across Europe.

The former residence of the French Royal Family has been evacuated and will remain closed for the rest of the day after receiving another bomb threat on Tuesday, Le Figaro reported.

“For security reasons, the Palace of Versailles is evacuating visitors and closing its doors today,” the palace wrote on social media.

On Saturday, both the Palace of Versailles and the Louvre Museum in Paris were evacuated and shut down after receiving bomb threats. The threats came just one day after a French teacher was stabbed to death in the city of Arras by a suspected Islamist who allegedly yelled the Muslim war cry “Allah hu Akbar” during the attack.

Macron Calls for ‘Ruthless’ Deportation of All Migrants with Ties to Islamic Extremism from France

President Macron has tasked Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to carry out a “ruthless” examination of the files of those who “carry hatred and terrorist ideologies” over the next 48 hours in order to remove foreign-born Islamists from France, Le Figaro reports.
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Darmanin has said out of the over 20,000 S files — not all of which remain active — there are at least 489 extremist foreigners who are considered to be a danger to the country residing in France. A further 300 radical foreigners are currently in prison or under house arrest. The minister said that the government will seek to “systematically deport” them following the end of their prison sentence.

Darmanin is set to meet with officials on Tuesday “to re-examine the administrative situation of all foreign nationals followed by the intelligence services under radical Islamism, by systematically initiating procedures of removal and expulsion.” This will not only include illegal migrants but those who are legally in the country as well by the removal of residence permits and asylum protections.

Local governments will also be tasked with examining foreign family units, in particular, those from the Caucasus region, to “review the situation of reported minor aliens” suspected of holding radical Islamist beliefs. Both the alleged killers of Dominque Bernard and Samuel Paty — another French teacher who was beheaded three years ago in an Islamist attack — were said to be young men of Chechnian heritage.

Two Dead in Shooting in Brussels, Alleged Shooter Claims Affiliation with ISIS

According to the local De Standaard newspaper, Brussels police have confirmed at least two fatalities as a result of a shooting in the Saincteletteplein area of Brussels at around 7:15 pm local time Monday evening.

The two victims are believed to be Swedish nationals given that they were wearing soccer jerseys for the Swedish national team, which was playing the Belgium Red Devils on Monday evening in Brussels.
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The European Championship qualifier soccer match between Belgium and Sweden has been postponed after a suspected Islamist shooting that left two Swedish nationals dead in Brussels on Monday evening. Following the shooting, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced a tightening of immigration controls on the border with Belgium, Het Laatste Nieuws reported.
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Following a suspected Islamist shooting earlier on Monday evening, Belgium’s OCAD anti-terror centre has raised the terror threat level in the Brussels metropolitan area to the highest level of four, meaning that the threat is “very serious and imminent”. According to the Associated Press, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo suggested that the shooting was linked to “terrorism”.

 And here's the follow-up...

Belgian Police Shoot Dead Tunisian ‘Radical’ After Terror Killings in Brussels

The alleged Islamist perpetrator of Monday night’s terror attack who boasted of sacrificing “souls and blood” was shot dead Tuesday morning by Belgian police at a Cafe in Schaarbeek.

45-year-old Abdesalem Lassoued, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with a serious criminal history and known to be radicalised was shot dead in the frequently terror-linked Brussels neighbourhood of Schaarbeek on Tuesday morning. Lassoued is the main suspect in what police say was a terrorist attack in central Brussels on Monday night where three Swedish citizens visiting the city for a football game were gunned down.

As reported, two people were killed and a third injured critically in the attack, in which a man riding on a scooter fired at pedestrians with a Kalashnikov-type rifle...

Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reports of the slain suspect that he applied for asylum in the country in 2019 but was rejected the following year. Yet he was never deported. Lassoued posted videos to social media after the attack in which he stated he believed himself to be a “warrior” ... who had lived and would die in “the way of our faith” before proclaiming: “I killed three Swedes..."

Hundreds Protest Outside BBC Headquarters over Broadcaster’s Refusal to Call Hamas ‘Terrorists’

Hundreds of people descended upon the BBC’s headquarters in London on Monday evening to protest the British publicly-funded broadcaster’s continued insistence on refusing to refer to Hamas terrorists as “terrorists”.

The left-liberal BBC, which is funded by a licence fee on anyone who watches live television in the UK on pain of prosecution and potential jail time, has come under increasing scrutiny for its editorial decision to label Hamas terrorists in Palestine as merely “militants”, “fighters”, or “gunmen” in the wake of the largest terror attack against the Jewish people in Israel.

According to the Daily Mail, hundreds of protesters gathered outside of the broadcaster’s HQ in central London on Monday evening, waving Israeli flags and banners blasting the BBC including one which read: “If the King can call Hamas terrorists, so can you.”

Addressing the crowd, chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism Gideon Falter asked: “How many dead Israelis does it take before the BBC can find the courage to call terror by its name?”

Ukraine Uses American ATACMS For First Time, Claims Devastating Strikes on Russian Airfields

Ukraine has used U.S.-made cluster-bomb-tipped rockets from the ATACMS system for the first time, it is claimed, with the weapon said to have taken out nine Russian helicopters while they were still on the ground.

Ukraine claims to have taken out nine helicopters and associated support equipment on the ground in a series of coordinated strikes against Russian-occupied airfields overnight. Per a statement from the Ukrainian government the strikes in the early hours of Tuesday morning were against airfields in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine including Berdiansk and Luhansk and as well as the nine military helicopters Ukraine says ammunition stores and an “air defence” system were also destroyed.

The report stated the runways on the airfields were also hit and damaged, and the ammunition cooking off in the supply dump hit caused a blast that lasted for some several hours until mid-Tuesday morning.

MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS

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U.S. Secretary of State Blinken Forced into Bomb Shelter in Israel During Hamas Rocket Attack

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced to take cover in a bomb shelter during a visit to Israel on Monday when Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward the country’s major cities.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were forced to seek shelter in a bunker after rocket sirens went off in Tel Aviv on Monday, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
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Miller said Blinken, Netanyahu and other officials have since relocated to an Israel Defense Forces command center to continue their discussions.

Blinken came to Israel last week to offer U.S. support in the wake of a devastating terror attack by the Palestinian terror group Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed 1,400 Israelis and wounded over 4,100.

He also toured several Arab capitals in the region to urge opposition to terror, and to discuss humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

Hamas rocket attacks also forced Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to descend into a bomb shelter briefly before resuming deliberations. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were both present.

A Very Explosive Situation in the Region

Israeli Forces Found ‘Iranian-Made’ Mortars that Show ‘Iran Is Directly Supplying Weaponry to Hamas in This Fight’

PBS Special Correspondent Leila Molana-Allen reported that Israeli soldiers located “Iranian-made mortar rounds” in villages that were attacked by Hamas terrorists, and that these are “the first material evidence that Iran is directly supplying weaponry to Hamas in this fight.”

Molana-Allen stated, “Having beaten back hundreds of Hamas fighters after a long, brutal fight on the border with Gaza, as Israeli soldiers carried out the grim job of clearing victims’ homes, they found a new source of terror. In the villages that were attacked by Hamas on Saturday, the Israel[i] Defense Forces found a huge cache of weaponry, thousands of pieces, and they suspect that Hamas planned a much longer fight. Scattered amidst the carnage, hand grenades, anti-tank mines, artillery rounds, North Korean-manufactured rocket-propelled grenades, improvised rocket launchers, and, vitally, Iranian-made mortar rounds, the first material evidence that Iran is directly supplying weaponry to Hamas in this fight.”

She then played a clip of an IDF soldier saying, “This is made in Iran, no doubt about it. We knew they had those. We knew they had mortars, but these Iranian mortars, this is the first time that we’ve seen it [in] this battle.”

Hamas Kills Palestinian Civilians Trying to Flee; Won’t Let Americans Leave

Reports are emerging that the Hamas terrorist group is preventing civilians from evacuating northern Gaza, killing innocent Palestinians who try to leave, and preventing American citizens from using the Rafah border crossing to escape to Egypt.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus has been warning for days that Hamas is preventing civilians from leaving Gaza ahead of an anticipated ground war. He cited both Israeli and international sources in an interview on CNN Sunday:

Hamas is actively stopping the evacuation of civilians to safety in the south, because they want to use them as human shields.

IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus says a strike on a convoy of Gazans fleeing to the southern part of the Strip Friday appears to have been a false flag operation carried out by Hamas.
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At least 70 people, most of them children, were killed in the strike, which occurred on a route that Israel said should be used for fleeing Gazans. Another 200 were injured.
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On Sunday morning, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union that while Egypt and Israel were trying to help the U.S. evacuate American citizens from Gaza, Hamas was preventing them from leaving:

The Egyptians have, in fact, agreed to allow Americans to depart, to get safe passage through the Rafah Crossing. The Israelis agreed to ensure that the area around there would be safe, at least as far as they were able to do so.

The question when we tried to move a group yesterday was actually Hamas taking steps to try and stop that from happening. But we are continuing to work this around the clock. And we are doing all that we can to make sure that American citizens who are in Gaza can get through that border crossing.

IDF: Palestinian Islamic Jihad Rocket Misfire Caused Hospital Explosion

The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization was responsible for an explosion at the Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, due to a misfired rocket intended to kill Israeli civilians, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The explosion, which reportedly killed hundreds of people, sparked outrage, with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas pulling out of a meeting Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden over the issue. Biden has backed Israel’s war of self-defense against the Hamas terror group, which rules Gaza and which killed over 1,400 Israelis in a massive terror attack on October 7.

Hamas and critics of Israel rushed to blame an Israeli airstrike. News wires, like the Getty photo service, published unproven claims Israel had “attack[ed]” the hospital, citing the “Gaza Health Ministry,” which is run by Hamas.

From the analysis of the IDF’s operational systems, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed in the vicinity of the hospital, at the time of the hit. According to intelligence information, from a number of sources we have, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital.

As Breitbart News has noted, a significant portion of Palestinian casualties in previous conflicts in Gaza have been caused by misfired rockets launched by Palestinian terror groups — up to one-third of Palestinian casualties in a conflict last year.

Other sources are weighing in:

#BREAKING: One minute before the Baptist Hospital in Gaza was hit, Hams announced on its own Telegram channel that they were launching their strongest rockets at the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
However, no interceptions or impacts were detected near Haifa. pic.twitter.com/rDihUomrHH
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) October 17, 2023

Breaking: IDF Spokesperson
From the analysis of the operational systems of the IDF, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit.

Israel PM Netanyahu Tells Germany That Hamas ‘Are the New Nazis’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood alongside his German counterpart Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Tel Aviv on Tuesday and declared in their massive terrorist attack against Israel earlier this month, Hamas had become the Nazis of the 21st century.

Describing the brutal massacre of over 1,300 Israelis and tourists by Hamas terrorists, Netanyahu said per The Times of Israel: “The decapitation of people; the shooting of little children with bound hands; the murder of children in front of their parents… this is the savagery that we only remember from the Nazi crimes of the Holocaust.”

Hamas had proven their evil, Netanyahu declared. He continued: “Hamas are the new Nazis, Hamas is ISIS… And just as the world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the world united to defeat ISIS, the world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas”.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who stood behind Netanyahu as he spoke, replied that Germany’s place was beside Israel. Scholz reciprocated Netanyahu’s point about Nazism when the Germany of nearly a century ago elected an antisemitic national socialist government led by Adolf Hitler which led to the Holocaust.

Neither Jordan nor Egypt Will Accept Refugees Fleeing Gaza Strip

The Jordanian king said the humanitarian situation must be dealt with inside Gaza and the West Bank and not be pushed into neighboring countries.

He told reporters “this is a red line … no refugees to Jordan and also no refugees to Egypt.”

“This is a situation that has to be handled within Gaza and the West Bank,” he said, AP reports “And you don’t have to carry this out on the shoulders of others.”

Abdullah also said everything needs to be done to prevent a further escalation of the conflict, speaking ahead of the departure of Scholz for Israel.

“The whole region is on the brink,” Abdullah said. “This new cycle of violence is leading us towards the abyss.”

Jordan has previously refused to accept Gazan refugees through a strict non-admittance policy.

The head of Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court told Human Rights Watch in May 2013 any influx of Palestinians would alter Jordan’s demographic balance and potentially lead to instability.