GAZA STRIP
New evacuations ordered
The Israeli military yesterday issued new evacuation orders for residents of Khan Yunis, after retrieving the bodies of five Israelis and warning of new operations. The UN said that more than 180,000 Palestinians have already fled fierce fighting in Khan Yunis since the military began an operation in the area last week. The evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilized aid operations,” the UN said, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” in the Palestinian territory. Israel ordered residents “to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in al-Mawasi” — the second such adjustment made to the safe zone within a week.
CHINA
Gaemi brings heavy rains
More than 27,000 people in the northeast were evacuated and hundreds of factories were ordered to suspend production as Typhoon Gaemi brought heavy rains, the official Xinhua news agency reported on yesterday. Gaemi on Friday lashed towns in Fujian Province with heavy rains and strong winds as the most powerful storm to hit the country this year began its widely watched trek from the southeastern coast into the populous interior. Heavy rains caused water levels to rise in 40 reservoirs across Liaoning Province. The area is expected to experience torrential rain from early on today to Tuesday, the report said. Hundreds of chemical and mining companies across the province have suspended operations and nearby residents have been relocated to avoid flood risks, Xinhua said.
UNITED STATES
FBI confirms Trump shot
Nearly two weeks after former president Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI on Friday confirmed that it was indeed a bullet that struck the presidential candidate’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally. “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement. The one-sentence statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from FBI Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet. The comment drew fury from Trump and his allies and further stoked conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a dearth of information following the July 13 attack.
POLAND
Divers find Champagne haul
A team of Polish divers has discovered the wreckage of an old sailing ship loaded “to the brim” with luxury goods including porcelain items and about 100 bottles of Champagne and mineral water about 58m deep off the Swedish coast. They believe the precious goods could have been on the way to the royal table in Stockholm or the Russian tsar’s residence in St Petersburg when the ship sank some time in the second half of the 19th century, team leader Tomasz Stachura said. The private Baltictech group of divers, who searches for shipwrecks on the Baltic seabed, made the discovery on July 11 while checking spots of interest about 37km south of the isle of Oland. “I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that we find a bottle or two in a wreck, but to discover so much cargo, it’s a first for me,” Stachura said. He said he believes the contents are still in good condition.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
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