Would you want to revisit your life and your past in order to share it all, both the good and the bad?
I certainly wouldn’t, but I’m not famous nor do I have famous people problems (knock on wood). Being a celebrity is something many people dream about, but while the riches certainly make life more comfortable, what comes a long with it probably isn’t what most of us would want.
Let’s talk about it.
Both Britney Spears and Jada Pinkett Smith grasp the concept that drama sells.
Before their memoirs – Spears’ book is titled “The Woman in Me” and Pinkett Smith’s is “Worthy” – were recently released, there were plenty of tabloid treats from them teased throughout the media landscape.
The two biggest revelations from the stars’ tomes both happened to involve their celebrity relationships.
Spears shared that she had an abortion during her time with Justin Timberlake in the early aughts, while Pinkett Smith went public with the news that she and Will Smith have been living separate lives since 2016.
While both of these revelations sparked conversation, they also showed how there’s a delicate dance when it comes to the art of publishing a celebrity tell-all.
On the one hand, you have to share enough to get people excited for the book. Yet at the same time you don’t want to reveal too much, because then what is the incentive to purchase said book?
It should be said, though, that both Spears and Pinkett Smith are most probably used to a lot of attention by now.
Another instance of a star laying it all out there for public consumption is the “Beckham” docuseries on Netflix.
I am far from a soccer fan, but I greatly enjoyed visiting the highs – and lows – of David Beckham’s stellar career. The series is really well done and filmmaker Fisher Stevens got both Beckham and his wife, Spice Girls member Victoria Beckham, to open up about difficult times.
One of those tough times featured in the doc is the decades-old alleged affair between David Beckham and his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos.
In a recent interview, Loos complained that Beckham was portraying “himself as a victim” in the series. That’s another tricky area when it comes to celebs telling their life stories – it affects others who were also there, and who are portrayed via the star’s lens and recollections.
At this point I am aiming to see how many newsletters in a row I can talk about Taylor Swift.
This time it’s the fact that she’s dropping “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” Swift’s latest rerecording of her old music after losing her masters.
Yes, much of the recent attention paid to Swift has more to do with her love life than her love of music, but if you know Swift you know that there is a direct correlation between the two.
I don’t even have to sell it here because it’s Taylor Swift, the star of the moment, and her music. Enough said – except that the new(ish) album debuted Friday.
Reader you know it’s true – Milli Vanilli was the duo to beat back in the day. Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had hits in the late 1980s/early 1990s and were flying high in the music industry.
Until they weren’t.
A new self-titled documentary traces their rise and eventual fall when the world learned they weren’t actually singing on those songs. It’s a more tender look at the pair than one might expect, given the vitriol that was spewed about the controversy at the time which resulted in their best new artist Grammy being revoked.
The “Milli Vanilli” documentary is streaming on Paramount+.
The California Department of Motor VehiclesTuesdayrevoked Cruise’s permits to test and operate fully driverless vehicles on the state’s roads. The California DMV said, in part, it was because Cruise, which is GM’s self-driving vehicle technology subsidiary, withheld video and information about a crash involving a pedestrian.
The suspension applies only to vehicles with no “safety driver,” meaning there is no one in the driver’s seat ready to take over the controls if needed.
The agency also indicated that Cruise had “misrepresented… information related to safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.”
For those reasons, the California DMV wrote, it was necessary to revoke the company’s permits. The DMV notice did not specify exactly what incidents or communications from Cruise led to the suspensions.
About three weeks ago, a Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco who had first been hit by another vehicle then and was propelled by this collision into the path of the Cruise driverless car. After striking the pedestrian a second time, the Cruise vehicle, attempting to pull off the road and out of the way of traffic, dragged the pedestrian along the road for 20 feet at a speed at about seven miles an hour, according to the DMV’s report.
“Our thoughts continue to be with the victim as we hope for a rapid and complete recovery,” Cruise wrote in an emailed statement. A San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson said at the time that victim had multiple serious injuries.
The DMV alleges that Cruise did not tell regulators that the car dragged the pedestrian across the roadway while attempting to pull over following the impact. Also, the DMV’s order of suspensions indicates that the video Cruise provided of the incident, taken by the self-driving car’s on-board cameras, stopped shortly after the car hit the pedestrian and did not show the dragging. Cruise did not provide a longer video showing the entire incident until 10 days later, after DMV had learned of the pedestrian being dragged “from another government agency.”
A video of the incident shown to a CNN reporter shortly after it occurred also did not show the pedestrian being dragged.
In a statement shared with CNN on Wednesday, Cruise denied that it had withheld any video from the DMV and said that it shared a full video with the agency when the incident was first reported.
“The DMV has provided Cruise with the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits, which the DMV will not approve until the company has fulfilled the requirements to the department’s satisfaction,” the agency sad in the notice posted to itsweb site.
Here is a look at the life of Britney Spears, pop singer and Grammy Award winner.
Birth date: December 2, 1981
Birth place: McComb, Mississippi
Birth name: Britney Jean Spears
Father: Jamie Spears, former building contractor and chef
Mother: Lynne (Bridges) Spears
Marriages: Sam Asghari (June 9, 2022 – present); Kevin Federline (September 18, 2004-July 30, 2007, divorced); Jason Alexander (January 3, 2004-January 5, 2004, annulled after 55 hours)
Children: with Kevin Federline: Jayden James, September 2006 and Sean Preston, September 2005
Number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart include: “Baby, One More Time” in 1999, “Womanizer” in 2008, “3” in 2009 (debut), and “Hold It Against Me” in 2011 (debut).
Six albums have reached #1 on the Billboard 200 chart: “Baby One More Time” (1999), “Oops!…. I Did It Again” (2000), “Britney” (2001), “In the Zone” (2003), “Circus” (2008), and “Femme Fatale” (2011).
1993-1994 – Cast member on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”
1997 – Signs a contract with Jive Records at age 15.
January 12, 1999 – Releases her debut album “…Baby One More Time.”
May 16, 2000 – Releases her second album “Oops!…I Did It Again.”
2002 – Is named Hollywood’s Most Powerful Celebrity by Forbes magazine.
November 17, 2003 – Receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
February 13, 2005 – Wins a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording for “Toxic.”
February 16, 2007 – Shaves her head at a beauty parlor in Tarzana, California.
October 1, 2007 – Temporarily loses physical custody of her children after failing to attend court hearings.
January 3, 2008 – Spears is hospitalized over issues involving the custody of her children. Kevin Federline, her ex-husband, is awarded sole custody on January 4, 2008.
February 1, 2008 – A Los Angeles court grants temporary conservatorship to Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, after Spears is taken to a hospital and deemed unable to take care of herself.
July 18, 2008 – In a custody agreement, Spears gives Federline sole custody of the children, but retains visitation rights.
August 2008 –Becoming Britney, a musical based on her life, debuts at the New York International Fringe Festival.
October 28, 2008 – Jamie Spears is granted permanent conservatorship of his daughter’s affairs.
February 3, 2009 – Sam Lutfi, Spears’ former manager, sues Spears and her parents for defamation and breach of contract in Los Angeles Superior Court. A judge dismisses the lawsuit on November 1, 2012.
September 8, 2010 – Is accused of sexual harassment and sued by her former bodyguard, Fernando Flores. The lawsuit is settled in March 2012.
January 11, 2011 – Her single, “Hold It Against Me,” is released and debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
March 30, 2011 – A $10 million lawsuit is filed by Brand Sense Partners against Spears and her father for breach of contract relating to a perfume deal between Spears and the Elizabeth Arden company. The lawsuit is settled in February 2012.
May 15, 2012 – “The X Factor USA” announces that Spears, along with Demi Lovato, will join Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid on “The X Factor” judging panel. On January 11, 2013, Spears announces that she will not be returning as a judge.
September 2014 – Releases her own lingerie line, “Intimate Britney Spears.”
November 5, 2014 – Clark County, Nevada, proclaims November 5th as “Britney Day” on the Las Vegas Strip.
September 9, 2015 – Spears announces that she has extended her residency at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas for two more years.
August 26, 2016 – Spears’ ninth studio album, Glory, is released.
April 12, 2018 – Spears is honored at the GLAAD Media Awards as the recipient of the Vanguard Award, an award that goes to a performer for making a difference in promoting and supporting equality.
November 10, 2020 – Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny declines Spears’ application to remove her father as her conservator, but says she would consider petitions “down the road” to remove her father as the head of her estate. The move comes amid the #FreeBritney social media movement, driven by some fans who believe she is a prisoner in her own home because of the court-ordered conservatorship.
June 23, 2021 – Spears appears remotely in court to request her court-ordered conservatorship be lifted, calling it “abusive.” During the hearing, she speaks for more than 20 minutes, saying she felt she had been forced to perform, was given no privacy and was made to use birth control, take medication and attend therapy sessions against her will.
July 14, 2021 – Judge Penny accepts Ingham’s resignation, along with the resignation of Bessemer Trust, a wealth management firm that had been appointed co-conservator of the singer’s estate. Spears is granted permission to hire her own attorney. During a hearing, Spears calls for her father to be charged with conservatorship abuse.
September 1, 2021 – The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office says in a press release they decline to file charges against Spears. Last month Spears’ housekeeper alleged that the singer struck a cell phone out of her hand during an argument over the veterinary care of her dog.
January 18, 2022 – Spears’ lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, sends a legal cease-and-desist letter to the singer’s younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, regarding her new memoir, “Things I Should Have Said.” In Rosengart’s letter, he calls the book “ill-timed” and that it makes “misleading or outrageous claims about her.”
January 19, 2022 – Judge Penny rules against a request from Spears’ father to set aside money from her $60 million estate in a reserve to potentially cover legal fees, which would include her father’s.
The suspect in the Maine mass shooting started making statements about hearing voices and wanting to hurt fellow soldiers while serving at a military base this summer, and spent a few weeks in a hospital, law enforcement officials told CNN.
But a relative of the suspect and two former colleagues in the Army Reserve told CNN they weren’t aware of him having any longstanding history of mental health issues – although one former colleague remembered him as a skilled marksman and outdoorsman who was among the best shooters in his unit.
Robert R. Card II, who police are searching for in connection with the fatal shooting of at least 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, made his troubling statements while he was at the Camp Smith training facility in New York, the law enforcement officials said. His command referred him to a military hospital, and he spent a few weeks under evaluation, they said.
In July, Army Reserve officials reported Card for “behaving erratically,” and he was transported to the nearby Keller Army Community Hospital at the United States Military Academy for “medical evaluation,” a National Guard spokesman told CNN.
“Out of concern for his safety, the unit requested that law enforcement be contacted,” said the spokesperson, Col. Richard Goldenberg. New York State Police responded and transported Card to the hospital, he said.
Card then spent a few weeks under evaluation at the hospital, the law enforcement officials said.
The 40-year-old Card also threatened to shoot up a National Guard base in Maine, law enforcement officials previously told CNN.
Card’s sister-in-law, Katie O’Neill, said in a brief conversation with CNN Thursday that Card does not have a long history of mental health struggles.
“This is something that was an acute episode. This is not who he is,” O’Neill said. “He is not someone who has had mental health issues for his lifetime or anything like that.”
Except for an arrest in 2007 for an alleged driving under the influence charge, the suspect is not known to ATF or in FBI holdings, according to law enforcement sources. He legally possesses multiple weapons and owns a home on hundreds of acres of land in Maine, the sources said.
Card is a petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve and first enlisted in 2002, according to records provided by the Army on Thursday. He has no combat deployments, according to the records.
Clifford Steeves of Massachusetts told CNN he knew Card when they served in the Army Reserve together, starting in the early 2000s until about a decade ago. He said he never witnessed any concerning behavior from Card.
“He was a very nice guy – very quiet. He never overused his authority or was mean or rude to other soldiers,” Steeves said. “It’s really upsetting.”
Steeves said the two served together around the country at different points, including in Wisconsin, Georgia and New York. He said he felt as though he “grew up” with Card because they entered the Army as young men and trained together.
Steeves said that while “aggressive leadership was very prominent” in the Army, Card stuck out for being a “rational, understanding person” who “led through respect rather than fear.”
Steeves said Card never saw combat but had extensive training, including firearms training and land navigation, “so he would be very comfortable in the woods.” He described Card as an “outdoors type of guy” and a skilled marksman who was one of the best shooters in his unit.
Another former Army Reserve member who served with Card also described him as a “nice guy” who “never had an issue with anybody.” The servicemember, who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation, did not recall Card showing any kind of violent behavior.
Card studied engineering technology at the University of Maine between 2001 and 2004 but did not graduate, Eric Gordon, a university spokesperson, told CNN.
Public records show addresses for Card in Bowdoin, Maine, a town near Lewiston. Card appears to have been a member of a local horseshoe-throwing club in the nearby town of Lisbon, Maine, according to a local news story and a Facebook photo that showed him wearing a t-shirt with the club’s logo.
An account on the social media platform X with Card’s name and a photo that appears to be him, which has been taken offline, had a history of liking right-wing and Republican political content.
When WNBA player Brittney Griner was released from Russian detention after a prisoner exchange for a convicted arms dealer, the account posted what appeared to be its only tweet. Responding to a CNBC story about the topic, the account wrote: “Mass murderer for a wnba player great job keep up the good work,” in an apparent jab at President Joe Biden.
The account liked a tweet earlier this year from right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza arguing against an assault weapons ban, as well as other tweets from political figures like Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson.
Most news organizations seem eager to sweep last week’s negligent coverage of the Gaza hospital explosion under the rug, moving on from the low moment covering the Israel-Hamas war without admitting any mistakes.
While The New York Times and BBC — both of which faced enormous scrutiny for their coverage of the blast — have in recent days issued mea culpas, the rest of the press has remained mum, declining to explain to their audiences how they initially got an important story of such great magnitude so wrong.
On Monday, I contacted the major news organizations that amplified Hamas’ claims, which immediately assigned blame to Israel for the blast that it said had left hundreds dead. Those organizations included CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and The Wall Street Journal.
Did these outlets stand by their initial reporting? Was there any regret repeating claims from the terrorist group? Since the explosion, one week ago Tuesday, Israel and the U.S. have assessed that the rocket originated in Gaza, not Israel. Additional analysis from independent forensic experts, including those contacted by CNN, have indicated that the available evidence from the blast was inconsistent with the damage one would expect to see from an Israeli strike.
But if there was even a morsel of contrition from news organizations that breathed considerable life into Hamas’ very different version of events, it hasn’t been shown. A spokesperson for The WSJ declined comment. Meanwhile, spokespeople for the AP and Al Jazeera ignored my inquiries.
Reuters, which initially reported that Israel had struck the hospital, citing a “civil defense official,” stood by how it covered the unfolding story, conceding no blunders in the process. A spokesperson told me that “it is standard practice for Reuters to publish statements and claims made by sources about news in the public interest, while simultaneously working to verify and seek information from every side.”
“We make it clear to our readers that these are ‘claims’ made by a source, rather than facts reported by Reuters,” the spokesperson for the wire service told me. “In the specific instance of the fast-breaking news about the attack on the hospital in Gaza, we added precise details and attribution to our stories as quickly as we could.”
CNN went even further. Not only did the outlet amplify Hamas’ claims on its platforms at the outset of the story, but its initial rolling online article definitively stated — with no attribution to any party — that Israel was responsible for the lethal explosion. The story was later edited, but the error was never acknowledged in a correction or editors’ note. While it is common for news outlets to update online stories as new information becomes available, when errors are made, standard practice is to acknowledge them in formal corrections. A CNN spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the online story when reached Monday.
In response to my larger inquiry on the network’s broader coverage, the CNN spokesperson pointed me to the forensic analysis it published over the weekend indicating the explosion was inconsistent with an Israeli strike. Like Reuters, CNN admitted no fault in its coverage of the blast.
Which makes what the BBC and The Times have done in recent days stand out. While the rest of the press has sought to move on from the journalistic fiasco, the British broadcaster and Gray Lady have charted a different course.
The BBC said in a statement posted online last week, “We accept that even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes and we apologise for this, although he did not at any point report that it was an Israeli strike.”
And The Times published a lengthy editors’ note on Monday, confessing its early coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”
“The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was,” The Times added.
Bill Grueskin, a renowned professor at Columbia Journalism School, told me Monday that he believes that each outlet that gave credence to Hamas’ version of events should put out similar notes explaining to their audiences precisely how things went awry behind the scenes. (I should note that Grueskin didn’t believe that The Times’ note went far enough, questioning, among other things, why it took almost a week to issue its mea culpa.)
“The notes should be signed; they should provide a more detailed understanding of how their newsroom managed to not just get it wrong at the first moment but why it took so long to scale back; and they should be more explicit about what they got wrong since most readers can’t be expected to recall all the details,” Grueskin said.
Indeed, one of the crucial differences between newsrooms and less reputable, unreliable sources of information is that newsrooms issue corrections and accept fault when it occurs. When news organizations err, it is expected that they own up to their mistakes.
Grueskin pointed out, however, that “newsrooms often find it easier to correct a misspelled middle name than a collapse in verification standards on a major, breaking-news story.”
“It’s easier to address a simple, common mistake than one that goes to the heart of how a news organization is built to handle breaking news in a contested environment,” Grueskin added.
That might be true. But it doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable.
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series profiling American youth killed this year by guns, a leading cause of death of children in the US. Read more about the project here.
CNN
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It’s been almost nine months since Brexi Torres-Ortiz and her mom sang together – hitting every note, feeling every emotion with every word of a gospel tune that happened to be the 11-year-old’s favorite song.
Take me to the King. I don’t have much to bring.
My heart is torn in pieces; it’s my offering.
Take me to the King.
“You will cry just listening to her sing it,” said Brexi’s mom, Brenlee “Bre” Ortiz. “It’s like, she was so young, how did she know what this song was saying?”
Back then, even Ortiz didn’t realize the depth of those lyrics, she said.
Sometimes she wishes she still didn’t.
The hymn’s power, though, has become clear, Ortiz said, since Brexi – short for Brexialee – was fatally shot while grabbing a gallon of milk from a corner store in Syracuse, New York – one of more than 1,300 youth killed by a gun this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, as firearms surpassed motor vehicles in 2020 as the nation’s No. 1 killer of children and teens.
January 16 was supposed to have been a cozy night at home for Brexi, with a movie on the projector and blankets covering the floor after her favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese made from scratch by her grandmother. Brexi’s two sisters and their mom, after she got home from work, would have been with them.
Instead, Brexi spent her last hours in a hospital bed on life support while Ortiz tried to make sense of how her middle daughter – while she was out to buy milk for the meal – got caught in what police described as a storm of bullets no more than 40 feet from her home.
Three suspects – then ages 16, 18 and 20 – were arrested within 10 days of the shooting, an Onondaga County senior assistant district attorney told CNN, and indicted by a grand jury on second-degree murder and other charges, a court record shows. Two have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and the third is due to go to trial early next year, according to prosecutor Anthony Mangovski and court filings.
As the justice system’s response to Brexi’s killing unfolds, Ortiz attends every hearing.
But still, she struggles.
Every day.
And every hopeless night.
“As soon as I open my eyes, it’s her on my mind,” Ortiz said. “And as soon as I’m finally able to close my eyes, I don’t fall asleep but my body turns off and she’s in my mind and I can see her in my dreams.
“But they’re not dreams; they’re nightmares.”
She was everybody’s ‘best friend’
The warmth of her smile, the way she made you feel after a hug and her ability to empathize with both her peers and adults are on the never-ending list of what made Brexi special, Ortiz said.
“You never get to know a person, even if it’s your own kid, until stuff like this happens,” she said. “I didn’t want to find out like this.”
At Brexi’s funeral, Ortiz received condolences from so many children, she said. “She was my best friend,” her mom heard more times than she could count.
Brexi “knew how to be a best friend to everybody and give each one of them what they needed,” Ortiz said. “She will be a way with you that she wouldn’t be with me because we don’t have the same needs.”
The middle schooler also was student council president of her sixth-grade class, a “shining star” on the after-school dance team and “always encouraged others to make the right choice,” educators from her school said.
Brexi’s death stole all that – while it also drove home her generation’s gun-violence reality, said her school’s psychologist, who discovered a broader horror as she went classroom-to-classroom to help the kids confront the killing.
“It was that every single child already knew what to do,” Kayla Gallagher said. “They had T-shirts, lanyards, hats, all sorts of clothing with her name and image. They created a shrine at her locker. They went to the vigils.”
More about Brexialee Torres-Ortiz
Died January 16
Age 11
Shot while out buying milk at a corner store as three people, each with a semi-automatic handgun, opened fire on another person, according to her mom and a grand jury indictment.
Two teens and a young adult were arrested in the shooting, an Onondaga County prosecutor told CNN. All were indicted by a grand jury with second-degree murder in her killing, second-degree attempted murder in the non-fatal wounding of their intended target, plus second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, the court record shows.
Both teens pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in return for 20 to 25 years in prison, according to the prosecutor and court records. The older suspect pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial in February
“The children are so used to this violence that they helped the adults in the building grieve,” Gallagher said.
Now, Brexi’s school community honors her life every month on “Brexi Day,” with activities like putting on a talent show, decorating the campus with flowers or enjoying an ice cream treat.
“We choose to remember her not for the sorrow of her passing but for the joy, determination and the sense of belongingness she brought to our school,” Leeza Roper, a teacher at Syracuse STEM at Blodgett Middle School told CNN.
“Her legacy lives on in the hearts of those she touched.”
At the Boys and Girls Club at Central Village where Brexi spent so much of her free time, her name was added to a sign outside the building and her photo hung in the entryway to commemorate the “wonderful impression” she left on the organization, said Stacey Nichols, spokesperson for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Syracuse.
“I want that all the kids that go there not be sad when they see her picture,” Ortiz said. “I want them to be motivated to do more and to be better.”
And the Syracuse Police Department worked with the Syracuse Housing Authority to purchase a bench that sits in front of the building in Brexi’s memory so her friends and family have a place to reflect and remember her, Syracuse Police Sgt. Brad Giarrussosaid.
“Brexi came from a forgotten community,” Gallagher said, “but she will not be forgotten by her community.”
On October 7, Brexi’s loved ones celebrated what would have been her 12th birthday. But there was no cake and no Brexi to blow out the candles after the birthday song.
Instead, relatives and friends gathered around her grave in the evening and released white balloons in her honor.
“I gotta go celebrate my baby’s birthday at the cemetery,” Ortiz said. “There is no justice. Justice will be bringing my daughter back.”
And though Ortiz would give anything for one more hug from Brexi or one more verse sung together, she takes an ounce of comfort, she said, knowing her daughter “finally made it to the King.”
New home sales in the United States surged higher in September from the month before, even as mortgage rates remained over 7%, making financing a home costlier and pushing people out of the market.
Sales of newly constructed homes jumped 12.3% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 759,000, from a revised rate of 676,000 in August, according to a joint report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau. Sales were up 33.9% from a year ago.
This represents the fastest pace of sales since February 2022 and easily exceeds analysts’ expectations of a sales pace of 680,000.
Sales of existing homes have been trending down since February and are down 20% year to date in September from a year ago. There is an ongoing inventory and affordability crunch that has homeowners with mortgage rates of 3% or 4% reluctant to sell and buy another home at a much higher rate. In August, rates topped 7% and have lingered there as the Federal Reserve continues to address inflation.
The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.63% last week, according to Freddie Mac, and there are indications it could continue to climb.
“With one more Fed interest rate hike expected for the year, interest rates are not anticipated to drop any time soon,” said Kelly Mangold of RCLCO Real Estate Consulting.
New construction has been an appealing alternative, attracting determined buyers frustrated by the historically low supply of existing homes. Still, affordability concerns remain.
“The constraints in the housing market have created a significant amount of pent-up demand, as more and more households are living in homes they may have outgrown and are deciding to buy despite current market conditions,” said Mangold.
According to the report, new home sales activity increased the most in the south, “a region that continues to outperform due to availability of land, population and job growth, and a relatively lower cost of living,” said Mangold.
While new home sales are a much smaller share of the overall sales market than existing home sales, the inventory picture is rosier for new construction homes.
The seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of September was 435,000. This represents a supply of 6.9 months at the current sales pace.
By comparison, there were 1.13 million existing homes for sale at the end of September, or the equivalent of 3.4 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace.
Typically, the ratio of existing homes to new homes has been closer to 5 to 1, but lately it has been closer to 2 to 1, according to the National Association of Realtors.
There are countless things about our homeland that Australians miss after moving abroad: the magnificent landscape, the laid-back lifestyle and that endless blue sky, to name a few.
But something as simple as a trip to the supermarket can leave us expats – according to some reports there are an estimated one million of us – feeling desperately homesick.
While some foods are the result of cultural influencessuch as the Chiko Roll,others are uniquely Aussie, like Golden Gaytime ice cream.
And who could forget the most famous of them all, Vegemite, which turns 100 on October 25.
According to the National Museum of Australia, it was invented by chemist CP Callister in Melbourne in 1923 when Australian food manufacturer Fred Walker asked him to create a product similar to British Marmite.
“During the Second World War, Vegemite captured the Australian market. Marmite was unobtainable and the Australian Army supplied Vegemite to its troops,” says the museum in a post highlighting defining symbols of Australia.
“In the 1950s and 60s, despite acquisition by the American company Kraft, Vegemite became a distinctively ‘Australian’ food. It featured in songs, on souvenirs and other popular culture ephemera. Vegemite returned to Australian ownership in 2017 when purchased by dairy company Bega.”
More on this famed brown spread below as we round up the A-Z of Aussie favorites:
Introduced in 1927, this simple dessert is an Australian classic.
Every Australian child grew up singing the famous 1930s jingle: “I like Aeroplane Jelly, Aeroplane Jelly for me!”
The brand’s “Bertie the Aeroplane” mascot was named after inventor Bert Appleroth – a Sydney tram driver who is said to have made the first batch in his bathtub.
Although now owned by an American company, Aeroplane Jelly has hardly changed since grandma was a girl.
Sure, there are plenty of brands of jelly available worldwide, but when it comes time to make a trifle or treat for the kids, Aussie parents can’t resist this familiar favorite.
An Australian variety of mango that isn’t grown anywhere else in the world, the Bowen is considered the best of the best.
It was first discovered in the northern Queensland town of Bowen, hence the name, but is also known as Kensington Pride.
Bigger and juicer than other varieties, Bowen mangoes account for 80% of mangoes produced in Australia. Some are exported but arguably not enough for the huge number of mango-loving expats.
To Aussies, mangoes are the taste of summer. No matter where we are in the world, the craving for a Bowen mango usually kicks in around Christmas.
This strange little deep-fried snack has been an Australian icon since 1950 when it was first sold by an enterprising boilermaker at football games.
Inspired by Chinese spring rolls, the exact recipe is a little unclear but the combination of meat, veg and some unknown spices hits the spot.
Best consumed with a couple of potato scallops and a soft drink, the Chiko Roll is the go-to for tradieson their lunch break or those 3 a.m. munchies on your way home from the pub.
And the only place to get them is a typical Aussie takeaway joint.
Dukkah – a humble blend of crushed Middle Eastern spices, herbs and nuts from Egypt – has been embraced by Australian foodies.
Its versatility is one of the reasons this condiment is so popular. Dukkah can be used as a garnish, a coating on a piece of meat or mixed with olive oil as a dip for bread.
A number of producers have given the basic dukkah recipe an Australian twist by adding native ingredients, such as lemon myrtle, macadamia nuts, wattleseed, saltbush and pepperleaf.
Expats can find many variations in Australian supermarkets and, fortunately, they’re often sold in packets small enough to sneak into a suitcase.
Australia is one of the few countries where it is considered perfectly acceptable to eat the coat of arms.
Exceptionally lean and gamey, emu and kangaroo tend to be popular among adventurous chefs in Australia.
But when living abroad, neither is easy to get your hands on.
A number of restaurants and specialty butchers offer native meats, but the expense involved in raising emus, in particular, means it’s harder to come by.
Thanks to the influx of Greek and Italian immigrants who brought “proper coffee” to Australia post WWII, we have become a nation of coffee snobs.
The flat white is almost Aussie enough to be called the national drink.
All over the world, café goers and baristas have been confounded as Aussie expats seek out their favorite brew abroad.
With less milk than a latte and without the froth of a cappuccino, the flat white requires special attention (it’s all in the pouring).
One of the first questions asked on expat forums: “Where can I get a decent flat white in this town?”
And it’s usually the first thing ordered at the airport café when back on home soil.
Ice creams feature highly on the most-wanted lists of expats, so it’s only natural we highlight them here.
Milky Paddle Pops and fruity Splice have been popular summer treats since the 1960s.
Likewise, Weis Bars have also been around for more than 60 years, and the mango and cream concoctions invoke memories of lazy summer afternoons.
But the number one, the crème de la crème, is the Golden Gaytime – a vanilla and toffee ice cream coated in chocolate and dipped in crunchy biscuit pieces that has inspired many a replica over the years.
While the burger itself is not an Australian invention, we have added some unconventional ingredients that make the Aussie version truly memorable.
Take the essentials – a beef patty, cheese, tomato, lettuce, grilled onions, tomato sauce (ketchup) – and add beetroot, pineapple, a fried egg and bacon, and you have yourself a massive mouthful.
A quick online search reveals variations that include pickled beetroot and spicy mayo, among others, but the classic Aussie burger celebrates simplicity.
It’s easy enough to replicate at home, but nothing beats the experience of ducking into the local milk-bar (café), or fish and chip shop, to enjoy a burger and a milkshake after a day at the beach.
The Iced VoVo – a biscuit covered in pink fondant, raspberry jam and shredded coconut – is a national treasure.
Produced by Arnott’s since the early 1900s, the iconic treat was mentioned by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in his victory speech after the 2007 election, leading to a spike in sales.
“Friends, tomorrow, the work begins. You can have a strong cup of tea if you want, even an Iced VoVo on the way through. But the celebration stops there,” Rudd said.
Not often found for sale overseas, this sweet treat is one to enjoy with a cup of tea when you’re home visiting mum.
Ask any Australian expat what they miss most about ‘home’ and their list is sure to include at least one type of junk food – the absence of which is felt most keenly at kids’ birthday parties.
Allen’s Lollies (candy) have been around for decades and Minties, Fantales, Jaffas, Snakes and the Classic Party Mix remain as popular as ever.
The Aussie public doesn’t seem to mind that they are all owned by Nestlé, which is headquartered in Switzerland.
Fairy Bread – essentially white bread covered in butter and sprinkles – is another party staple that manages to be devoid of nutrition but highly nostalgic.
On return trips to Australia, expats are known to bulk-buy chocolate bars like Cadbury Cherry Ripes, Caramello Koalas and ever-popular Violet Crumbles.
When it comes to savory junk foods, Smith’s Chips, cheesy Twisties and Nobby’s nuts are synonymous with snacking – and nothing produced overseas comes close.
We tend to lump all Middle Eastern meat-and-pita combos under the heading of “kebab” and be done with it.
Of course, there are subtle differences between doner kebabs, shawarma, souvlaki, and gyros – in both ingredients and quality – depending on the source.
Connoisseurs agree that pork gyros (Greek flatbread filled with rotisserie-roasted meat) found in more legitimate venues around Australia are the best.
Consider the sauce dripping down the front of your shirt an essential part of the experience.
Proving that Aussies love anything with jam and coconut, the lamington is the country’s favorite cake.
Named after Lord Lamington, Queensland’s eighth governor, these delightful squares of sponge cake – dipped in chocolate and coated with coconut – have become nothing short of a culinary icon.
There are entire websites (and an Australian Lamington Appreciation Society) devoted to the origins of the lamington and how to make them. Achieving the right ratio of chocolate, jam and coconut is essential.
There are pies, and then there are Aussie meat pies.
Synonymous with afternoons at the football pitch, brands like Four ‘N Twenty and Vili’s have cornered the market for mass-produced pies.
Small local outfits (like the Bemboka Pie Shop and Harry’s Café de Wheels) are institutions in their own right.
Everyone has a favorite type, whether it’s shepherd’s pie, a floater with peas, cheese and bacon or straight-up meat.
The only requirement? The pie is served piping hot with tomato sauce … and eaten one-handed.
With Four ‘N Twenty now exporting to the United States and parts of Asia, some expats can get their pie fix without venturing too far.
Australia’s love affair with Asian food is no secret, and our northern neighbors strongly influence what we put on our plates.
Even Aussies living in Asia admit to craving “Aussie Chinese” or “Aussie Thai” – dishes that give a nod to the original but are not as authentic as the real thing. In fact, some would say they’re potentially even better.
We’d argue the fresh, high-quality produce and quality meats available in Australia bring out the best in Asian dishes.
It’s fair to say that oysters are an acquired taste, but for those with a penchant for the salty mollusks, Australia produces some of the best in the world.
You’ll find two main species in Aussie waters: rock oysters and Pacific.
As bivalves, oysters filter the water around them and their location dictates their flavor.
The pristine waters along Australia’s coastline provide the perfect conditions for oysters, and they rarely need any accompaniment.
There’s nothing quite like eating these slippery snacks straight off the rocks – export just doesn’t do them justice.
The origins of this meringue-based dessert are hotly contested.
Recent research suggests that the Pav didn’t come from the antipodes at all, but nevertheless it remains a firm favorite.
Meringue, cream and plenty of fruit are the key ingredients, though there are no hard and fast rules about what has to be included.
Expats living in tropical climes often bemoan how challenging it is to get a decent meringue, given humid weather can turn it soft and sticky, so Pavlova is a rare treat.
Q: Quandong and quince
Both the native quandong and the foreign quince lend themselves to some of our favorite condiments and desserts.
Similar to a wild peach, the quandong is incredibly versatile and nutritious and can be made into juice, jam, filling for pies or eaten raw.
The quince is a relative of the apple and pear, and while several varieties are grown commercially in Australia the fruit is best known as the star in Maggie Beer’s quince paste – the only way to eat soft cheese.
Bundaberg Rum, to be more specific. Or just Bundy, as it’s known to locals.
This Australian beverage was created way back in 1888 to deal with an oversupply of molasses in Queensland’s sugarcane region.
Producers believe that it’s the sugar, grown in volcanic soil, that gives Bundy its distinct, rich flavor.
The distillery produces 60,000 bottles a day and the factory was the subject of a National Geographic documentary in 2013.
To say this drop has cult status would be an understatement.
There are so many foods starting with S – smashed avocado, SAO biscuits, sausages – that could represent the land down under.
But Australia’s best produce comes from the sea and expats fondly reminisce about mornings spent at the fish markets picking up the catch of the day before special occasions.
While we’re known to “throw a shrimp on the barbie” there are some creatures that are far more popular.
Barramundi, Balmain or Moreton Bay bugs, abalone, and of course, prawns are just some of the native seafood worth queuing for.
Technically a junk food, Tim Tam biscuits are so famous, so overwhelmingly popular, that they deserve their own spot on this list.
The original Tim Tams are the best: A chocolate-coated sandwich of two malted chocolate biscuits with chocolate cream filling.
Arnott’s, the manufacturers, now export to more than 40 countries around the world, so you can get your fix whether you’re skiing the slopes of Niseko, in Japan, or catching rays on a Tahitian beach.
Uncle Tobys began producing oats way back in 1893. But it wasn’t until the 1970s, when convenience foods started hitting the shelves, that they developed their now famous muesli bars.
The ultimate lunchbox treat or after-school snack, kids had the luxury of choosing not only the flavor, but also the texture.
Many a playground war has been fought over which was best – crunchy or chewy. For the record, we’re firmly in the crunchy camp.
These days the range has grown to include yoghurt and choc-chip toppings. There’s even a lamington flavor.
No round-up of Aussie foods would be complete without this ubiquitous salty brown spread, which turns 100 on October 25.
Twenty million jars of Vegemite are sold each year – that’s one for every Australian citizen.
Now owned by Bega Cheese, there was great joy when the icon returned to Australian ownership several years ago.
No one else quite understands the appeal of our favorite toast topping.
For those living in countries where it’s not yet exported, Vegemite comes in massive 560 gram jars and travel-sized tubes.
While there are similar cereals available around the world, there’s nothing quite like “Australia’s favorite breakfast.”
These small biscuits made from wholegrain wheat are occasionally available in supermarkets overseas, but they generally sell out pretty quickly.
Aussie mums have been known to stock up on them on trips to the motherland.
Best eaten with a little bit of sugar, some chopped banana and a lot of milk, Weet-Bix is promoted as family-friendly health food. But we’d love them even if they weren’t good for us.
Another product of sunny Queensland, XXXX (pronounced four-ex) originated in Victoria in 1878 before moving north, where it is still produced today.
XXXX has endeared itself to Aussies as a great brew and a big supporter of sports and small communities.
It’s not widely available outside of Australia, but if you’re an expat in China or Dubai, you may be able to find it in a bar near you.
Small freshwater crustaceans, yabbies are similar to lobsters – both prized as delicacies.
They’re hardy little creatures, and if you grew up on a farm chances are you spent your summers fishing for yabbies in the local creek.
Yabbies have a lot of meat on them, mostly in the tail and claws, and it tastes sweet and succulent when cooked right.
Expats might find these clawed crustaceans in restaurants, but you’re unlikely to find them in your local supermarket.
The zucchini fritter is yet another delicious byproduct of immigration.
Depending on who you ask, they’re either Turkish and served with yogurt, or Greek, in which case they come with tzatziki.
Either way, olive oil should ooze out when you take a bite.
In some parts of Australia, you can find zucchini fritters at a local takeaway,next to the potato scallops and Chiko Rolls.
These fried pancakes may have more health benefits than your average fried snack, but they are no less delicious.
Big tech companies are continuing a turnaround from last year, as Alphabet, Microsoft and Snap kicked off earnings season with strong sales results for the quarter ended in September.
Google parent company Alphabet on Tuesday reported quarterly sales of $76.69 billion, up 11% from the same period in the prior year. The company also posted profits of $19.69 billion for the quarter.
Meanwhile, Microsoft posted 13% year-on-year sales growth to $56.5 billion, also beating expectations. Microsoft’s quarterly profits hit $22.3 billion, up 27% from the year-ago period.
Snapchat parent Snap on Tuesday reported a return to sales growth in the September quarter, after two consecutive quarters of declining sales. The company reported revenue of nearly $1.2 billion, an increase of 5% from the same period in the prior year and ahead of analysts’ projections. The company reported a net loss of $368 million.
The strong results come after Microsoft, Alphabet, Snap and other tech companies carried out mass layoffs and other cost cutting moves over the past year following a difficult 2022 when advertisers and other clients cut back on their spending due to concerns over the macroeconomic environment.
Despite beating Wall Street’s sales expectations, shares of both Alphabet (GOOGL) and Snap (SNAP) each dipped around 5% in after-hours trading following the reports, although Snap’s quickly regained some ground. Microsoft (MSFT) shares gained around 4% in after-hours trading.
“Q3 tech season has been quite strong thus far,” Tejas Dessai, research analyst at investment fund GlobalX said in a statement. “These numbers clearly defy concerns of near term economic weakness looming.”
Google’s advertising business generated quarterly revenue of $59.6 billion, up from $54.5 billion in the prior year. YouTube ads, meanwhile, garnered some $7.9 billion in revenue, up roughly 12% year-over-year.
YouTube Shorts, the company’s TikTok competitor, hit a milestone 70 billion daily views last quarter, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said on a call with analysts Tuesday afternoon.
Google’s cloud business, however, reported revenue of $8.41 billion — missing analysts’ estimates.
Jesse Cohen, a senior analyst at Investing.com, attributed Alphabet’s after-hours stock fall to the “relatively weak performance in its Google cloud platform, which is at risk of falling further behind [Microsoft’s] Azure and [Amazon’s] AWS.” Still, despite taking a hit in 2022 amid a broader tech sector downturn, shares for Alphabet have climbed roughly 56% since the start of 2023, beating the tech-heavy Nasdaq index.
Google’s report comes as the tech giant is in the antitrust hot seat. US prosecutors officially opened a landmark antitrust trial against Google last month with sweeping allegations that the company engaged in anticompetitive behavior to maintain its dominance over search. (As the legal showdown rages on, Google has continued to deny allegations that it operated illegally.)
Google also confirmed last month plans to lay off hundreds of staffers in its recruiting division, as it continues cost cutting efforts in some areas. These more targeted layoffs came after Alphabet in January cut around 12,000 jobs — about 6% of its workforce.
Still, Google has signaled that it remains committed to investing heavily in generative artificial intelligence technology. Last month, Google rolled out a major expansion of its Bard AI chatbot tool.
“As we expand access to our new AI services, we continue to make meaningful investments in support of our AI efforts,” Pichai said on the call. “We remain committed to durably re-engineering our cost base in order to help create capacity for these investments, in support of long-term sustainable financial value.”
Microsoft’s recent investments in AI technology helped boost its sales in the September quarter, especially in its key cloud division. Sales from Microsoft’s “intelligent cloud” business — its biggest revenue driver — grew 19% from the year-ago quarter to $24.3 billion.
Revenue from the company’s “productivity and business processes” business, which includes LinkedIn and Office commercial and consumer products, also grew 13% year-over-year to $18.6 billion.
“Microsoft is firing on all cylinders and AI is clearly driving growth,” Cohen said in a research note following the company’s report. “The results indicated that artificial intelligence products are stimulating sales and already contributing to top and bottom-line growth.”
But economic jitters among consumers appear to still have some impact on the company’s bottom line. Devices revenue, which includes sales of laptops, tablets and Xbox consoles, decreased 22% year-over-year, despite a 3% sales increase in the overall “more personal computing” segment. Ongoing concerns about a potential economic slowdown could continue to weigh on the company as it heads into the crucial holiday device sales season.
The report is Microsoft’s first since the company closed its $69 billion acquisition of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard earlier this month. While the deal didn’t factor into this quarter’s results, it’s expected to supercharge the company’s gaming business.
“Microsoft now controls 30 game studios and some of the most well-known games across the industry,” Edward Jones analyst Logan Purk said in a research note earlier this month. “With a massive cloud network and now a compelling library of games, Microsoft has a leg up on peers” in gaming, he said.
Following the Activision takeover, “we’re looking forward to one of our strongest first-party holiday [game] lineups ever, including new titles like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3,” CEO Satya Nadella said on an analyst call Tuesday. The company said it expects roughly $400 million of operating expenses in the fourth quarter to come as a result of the acquisition.
Snap said its sales growth was driven in part by its ongoing efforts to revamp its advertising technology, following changes to Apple’s app tracking policies that took a hit to the business models of Snapchat, Facebook and other platforms.
“We are focused on improving our advertising platform to drive higher return on investment for our advertising partners, and we have evolved our go-to-market efforts to better serve our partners and drive customer success,” CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement.
Snap also reported that it now has 406 million daily active users, up 12% compared to the year-ago quarter. And time spent watching Spotlight — Snapchat’s TikTok clone — grew 200% year-over-year, according to the company.
The company also recently announced that it had reached more than 5 million subscribers to its Snapchat+ subscription program, a key effort to diversify its revenue.
Snap said Tuesday that its chief operating officer, Jerry Hunter, plans to retire. Hunter, who spent seven years at the company, will step down from his role as of the end of the month, but will remain at the company until July 1, 2024, to support the transition.
The company noted that some advertisers temporarily paused their spending following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. Because of the “unpredictable nature” of the war, Snap declined to provide formal guidance for the fourth quarter, but said its internal forecast assumes year-over-year quarterly revenue growth between 2% and 6%.
An off-duty pilot who was riding in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight en route to San Francisco on Sunday is facing dozens of attempted murder charges after he tried to shut down the plane’s engines mid-flight, authorities say.
The suspect, identified as Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph D. Emerson, 44, attempted to cut off fuel to the engines but the quick action of the aircraft’s captain and first officer kept the engines from failing completely, the airline said, adding Emerson was subdued by the flight crew.
The flight was forced to divert to Portland, Oregon, where the suspect was taken into custody by the Port of Portland police, the port said in a statement.
Emerson has been charged in Oregon with 83 felony counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, booking records show.
Authorities do not believe the incident was an act of terrorism or ideologically motivated violence, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN’s Josh Campbell. The source noted the suspect may face additional federal charges.
Here’s what we know.
After taking off from Everett, Washington, on Sunday, Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 – operated by regional carrier Horizon Air – reported a “security threat related to an off-duty Alaskan Airlines pilot, identified as Captain Joseph Emerson, who was traveling in the flight deck jump seat,” the airline said in a statement.
Pilots will sometimes ride in a cockpit “jump seat” when traveling in their official capacity or commuting between airports.
While in the cockpit, Emerson had tried to shut down both of the Embraer 175’s engines by pulling its fire extinguisher handles, the airline said.
“The fire suppression system consists of a T-handle for each engine; when pulled, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement to CNN. “After they are pulled, some residual fuel remains in the line.”
The airline said the quick reaction of the crew to reset both handles helped restore the flow of fuel and prevent the engines from cutting out.
“Our crew responded without hesitation to a difficult and highly unusual situation, and we are incredibly proud and grateful for their skillful actions,” the airline said in a statement.
The plane was at cruise altitude when the incident occurred, Capt. Mike Karn, senior manager of flight security for American Airlines, said in a memo circulated at his airline.
The flight crew detained the suspect and the plane was diverted to Portland International Airport, the Port of Portland said in a statement.
“I think he’s subdued,” one of the plane’s pilots can be heard saying in air traffic control audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and are parked.”
Once the flight landed in Portland around 6:30 p.m., the suspect was taken into custody by Port of Portland police officers, the port said.
No injuries were reported on the flight, the FBI said.
All passengers were later able to fly to San Francisco with a new crew and aircraft, the airline said, noting it is “reaching out to each of them individually to discuss their experience and check-in on their well-being.”
Emerson has been detained at the Multnomah County Detention Center as both the FBI and the Port of Portland police investigate the incident, authorities said.
The FBI’s Portland field office confirmed its investigation in a statement Monday and assured travelers there is “no continuing threat related to this incident.”
The Federal Aviation Administration also said it is supporting local law enforcement in the investigation.
The FAA said it has briefed other airlines on preliminary details of the incident and informed carriers the incident is not related to “current world events” – apparently referring to the war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.
Passengers describe their emergency landing
Two passengers on the flight told CNN that the airline crew maintained a calm environment on the plane as the incident played out.
Aubrey Gavello, one of the passengers, said she didn’t realize something was wrong until a flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker that the plane needed to land immediately.
“We didn’t know where we were landing and we didn’t know what was wrong. But (the flight attendant) assured us we were safe,” Gavello said on “Laura Coates Live” Monday night.
Later, the pilot informed passengers through the loudspeaker that there had been a “disturbance in the cockpit,” said Alex Wood, who was seated at the front of the plane. Wood said he was wearing headphones and slept through the incident.
“I was right by the cockpit, but nothing woke me up. Nothing was loud enough, nothing was rambunctious enough to wake me up,” Wood said.
After the plane landed, about five police officers boarded the plane and escorted the suspect off the aircraft, Gavello recalled. She noted the suspect was calm and cooperative and had his hands secured by zip ties.
“Props to the Alaska crew for keeping everyone calm,” Gavello said.
“It was all handled super well,” said Wood.
The pair said they didn’t realize the gravity of the situation Monday, when they woke to news headlines about the suspect trying to shut down the plane engines.
“I’m honestly grateful that we didn’t know anything when they rebooked us and got us on a second plane,” Gavello said. “I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable doing that if we had all the information.”
Emerson’s neighbor, Ed Yee, told CNN it was “very shocking” to hear of the suspect’s alleged actions.
“He seems like a really nice guy. Nothing abnormal about him,” Yee said.
Emerson has worked in aviation for at least two decades, according to information shared by Alaskan Airlines.
He first joined the Alaska Air Group in 2001 as a first officer with Horizon. In 2012, Emerson left Horizon and joined Virgin America as a pilot.
After Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America in 2016, Emerson became a first officer with Alaska and worked about three more years to become a pilot for the airline, according to the airline statement.
“Throughout his career, Emerson completed his mandated FAA medical certifications in accordance with regulatory requirements, and at no point were his certifications denied, suspended or revoked,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement.
FAA records show Emerson held an Airline Transport Pilot certification with ratings to fly the Airbus A320, Boeing 737, Canadair Regional Jet, and De Havilland Dash 8. He did not hold a certification to fly the ERJ 175, those records indicate, the type of airplane in use during Sunday’s incident.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Tom Emmer, a leading Republican candidate to be speaker of the House, baselessly said there were “questionable” practices in the 2020 presidential election.
Later, Emmer signed an amicus brief in support of a last-ditch Texas lawsuit seeking to throw out the results in key swing states.
Though he would vote to certify the results on January 6, 2021, the comments and actions show Emmer flirted with some of the same election denial rhetoric as far-right members of the Republican caucus.
Speaking with the radio show for the far-right publication Breitbart News 12 days after the election, Emmer baselessly suggested that mail-in ballots might have “skewed” the election against Trump.
“I think that you will see the courts, if nothing else, this president is making sure that he stays focused and his team stays focused on these questionable election practices,” Emmer said. “We’re gonna find out – if it’s accurate – how much they skewed the outcome of the election in Georgia and elsewhere.”
“I had one of my colleagues telling me in Georgia that where we got voter ID we’re doing great, where we can’t reasonably identify the voter, we’re getting killed,” he added, saying he hoped the state would restrict vote by mail in the then-upcoming January Georgia Senate runoff elections.
Emmer was quieter than many Republicans in the aftermath of the 2020 election. But in interviews and public comments, reviewed by CNN’s KFile ahead of the speakership vote, Emmer refused to say Biden won the election and bashed the press for calling the race.
Speaking to local news outlets in early December 2020 – after results had been certified in all swing states – Emmer attacked the press for calling the race for Joe Biden.
“Everybody has the right to count every vote. Right now, we’re in a process where the media wants to call the race, the media wants to create this situation that they’re the ones that determine when people are done with the process,” Emmer said. “It’s about making sure that everybody – people that voted for Joe Biden, people who voted for Donald Trump, or people who voted for somebody else – that they know every legitimate vote is counted and they have confidence in the outcome.
“There’s a process,” Emmer added. “The process is the votes are cast, if there’s a question, there are recounts, there are signature verifications. This time across the country, mail-in ballots threw a whole new curveball into it. And then if you have specific areas where there’s more to be done, you do have the right to go to a court to have a difference of opinion result. That’s all following the process. It’ll be resolved soon.”
Emmer later defended signing the amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton to invalidate 62 Electoral votes in swing states won by Biden – which would have effectively thrown the election to Trump. The lawsuit was rejected by the US Supreme Court.
“This brief asserts the democratic right of state legislatures to make appointments to the Electoral College was violated in several states,” Emmer said in a statement published in the local St. Cloud Times. “All legal votes should be counted and the process should be followed – the integrity of current and future elections depends on this premise and this suit is a part of that process.”
Speaking at a forum on Dec. 17, 2020, Emmer acknowledged Biden’s win was certified by the Electoral College days earlier but said the process still had yet to play out and declined to call Biden president-elect when prompted.
“The media would like to declare the ultimate end to this process. I think certain elected officials would like to declare the end of this process, but as someone who was in a recount himself 10 years ago, I know that we need to respect the process whether you agree with it or not,” Emmer said. “Because once it’s over you’ve got people that are going to be on one side or the other, and they’ve all got to be satisfied that our election was conducted in a fair and transparent manner.”
China and the Philippines on Sunday accused each other of causing collisions in a disputed area of the South China Sea, the latest in a string of maritime confrontations between the two countries that have heightened regional tensions.
In a statement, Philippine authorities said a Chinese Coast Guard ship carried out “dangerous blocking maneuvers” that caused it to collide with a Philippine vessel carrying supplies to troops stationed in Ayungin Shoal, also known as Second Thomas Shoal, in the Spratly Islands chain.
China’s move was “provocative, irresponsible and illegal” and “imperiled the safety of the crew” of the Philippine boats, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said.
In a second incident Sunday, the Philippine task force said a Chinese maritime militia vessel collided with a Philippine coast guard ship, which was on the same mission to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre. Manila grounded the navy transport ship on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 and has manned it with Filipino marines to enforce its claims to the area.
In a statement Sunday, the Chinese Coast Guard accused the Philippines of violating international marine law and threatening the navigation safety of Chinese ships.
It accused the first Philippine ship of trespassing into the waters of what it calls the Nansha islands and Renai Reef, prompting the Chinese Coast Guard ship to intercept “in accordance with the law,” and resulting in a “minor collision.”
In the second incident, the Chinese Coast Guard said the Philippine Coast Guard vessel “purposely provoked trouble and reversed course,” causing a collision with a Chinese fishing boat.
Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea, as well as most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles away from China’s mainland.
In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.
Beijing has ignored the ruling.
No injuries were reported in either collision Sunday, which marks the latest in a series of recent flashpoints between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waterway.
In September, the Philippine Coast Guard released video of a Filipino diver cutting a Chinese-installed floating barrier in a disputed area of the waterway that had prevented Filipino boats from entering.
It came just days after after the Philippine Coast Guard accused China’s maritime militia of turning vast patches of coral near the Palawan island chain into a bleached and broken wasteland.
China’s foreign ministry dismissed those allegations as “false and groundless.”
In the days since a blast ripped through the packed Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of Palestinians, dueling claims between Palestinian militants and the Israeli government over culpability are still raging. But forensic analysis of publicly available imagery and footage has begun to offer some clues as to what caused the explosion.
CNN has reviewed dozens of videos posted on social media, aired on live broadcasts and filmed by a freelance journalist working for CNN in Gaza, as well as satellite imagery, to piece together what happened in as much detail as possible.
Without the ability to access the site and gather evidence from the ground, no conclusion can be definitive. But CNN’s analysis suggests that a rocket launched from within Gaza broke up midair, and that the blast at the hospital was the result of part of the rocket landing at the hospital complex.
Weapons and explosive experts with decades of experience assessing bomb damage, who reviewed the visual evidence, told CNN they believe this to be the most likely scenario – although they caution the absence of munition remnants or shrapnel from the scene made it difficult to be sure. All agreed that the available evidence of the damage at the site was not consistent with an Israeli airstrike.
Israel says that a “misfired” rocket by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, a claim that US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday is backed up by US intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel is “not responsible.”
Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad (or PIJ) – a rival group to Hamas – has denied responsibility.
The Israel-Hamas war has triggered a wave of misleading content and false claims online. That misinformation, coupled with the polarizing nature of the conflict, has made it difficult to sort fact from fiction.
In the past few days, a number of outlets have published investigations into the Al-Ahli Hospital blast. Some have reached diametrically different conclusions, reflecting the challenges of doing such analysis remotely.
But as more information surfaces, CNN’s investigation – which includes a review of nighttime video of the explosion, and horrifying images of those injured and killed inside the hospital complex – is an effort to shed light on details of the blast beyond what Israel and the US have produced publicly.
Courtesy “Al Jazeera” – Gaza City, October 17
On Tuesday evening, a barrage of rocket fire illuminated the night sky over Gaza before the deadly blast, according to videos analyzed by CNN.
An Al Jazeera camera, located in western Gaza and facing east, was broadcasting live on the channel at 6:59 p.m. local time on Tuesday night, according to the timestamp. The footage appears to show a rocket fired from Gaza traveling in an upwards trajectory before reversing direction and exploding, leaving a brief, bright streak of light in the night sky above Gaza City. Just moments later, two blasts are visible on the ground, including one at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.
By verifying the position of the camera, CNN was able to determine that the rocket was fired from an area south of Gaza City. CNN geolocated the hospital blast by referencing nearby buildings just west of the complex. Footage taken from a webcam in Tel Aviv pointing south towards Gaza, that CNN synched with the Al Jazeera live feed, shows a volley of rockets from Gaza shortly before the blast.
Several weapons experts told CNN that the Al Jazeera video appeared to show a rocket burning out in the sky before crashing into the hospital grounds, but that they could not say with certainty that the two incidents were linked – due to the challenges of calculating the trajectory of a rocket that had failed or changed course mid-flight.
“I believe this happened – a rocket malfunctioned, and it didn’t come down in one piece. It’s likely it fell apart mid-air for some reason and the body of the rocket crashed into the car park. There, the fuel remnants caught fire and ignited cars and other fuel at the hospital, causing the big explosion we saw,” Markus Schiller, a Europe-based missile expert who has worked on analysis for NATO and the European Union, told CNN.
“But it’s impossible for me to confirm. If a rocket malfunctioned… it is impossible to predict its flight path and behavior, so I wouldn’t be able to draw on usual analysis drawing on altitude, flight path and the burn time,” he added.
Retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a former deputy director of the US National Security Agency, and a CNN military analyst, said that the aerial explosion was “consistent with a malfunctioning rocket,” adding that the streak of light was consistent with “a rocket burning fuel as it tries to reach altitude.”
Chad Ohlandt, a senior engineer at the Rand Corporation in Washington, DC, agreed that the bright flash of light suggested that the solid rocket motor was “malfunctioning.”
There has been some speculation on social media that the breakup of the rocket could have been caused by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. But experts said there is no evidence of another rocket intercepting it, and Israel says that it does not use the system in Gaza.
At 7 p.m., Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, posted on its Telegram channel that it had bombarded Ashdod, a coastal Israeli city north of Gaza, with “a barrage of rockets.” A few minutes later, PIJ said on Telegram that its armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, had launched strikes on Tel Aviv in response to the “enemy’s massacre of civilians.”
Another nighttime video of the blast, which appears to have been filmed on a mobile phone from a balcony and was also geolocated by CNN, captures a whooshing sound before the sky lights up and a large explosion erupts.
From X – Gaza City, October 17
Two weapons experts who reviewed the footage for CNN said that the sound in the video was not consistent with that of a high-grade military explosive, such as a bomb or shell. Both said that it was not possible to form any definitive conclusions from the audio in the clip, caveating that the mobile phone could have affected the reliability of the sound.
A leading US acoustic expert, who did not have permission to speak publicly from their university, analyzed the sound waveform from the video and concluded that, while there were changes in the sound frequency, indicating that the object was in motion, there was no directional information that could be gleaned from it.
Panic and carnage
Inside the hospital, the sound was deafening. Dr. Fadel Na’eem, head of the orthopedic department, said he was performing surgery when the blast sounded through the hospital. He said panic ensued as staff members ran into the operating room screaming for help and reporting multiple casualties.
“I just finished one surgery and suddenly we heard a big explosion,” Dr. Na’eem told CNN in a recorded video. “We thought it’s outside the hospital because we never thought that they would bomb the hospital.”
After he left the operating theater, Dr. Na’eem said he found an overwhelming scene. “The medical team scrambled to tend to the wounded and dying, but the magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming.”
Dr. Na’eem said that it wasn’t the first time the hospital had been hit. On October 14, three days earlier, he said that two missiles had struck the building, and that the Israeli military had not called to warn them.
“We thought it was by mistake. And the day after [the Israelis] called the medical director of the hospital and told them, ‘We warned you yesterday, why are you still working? You have to evacuate the hospital,” Dr. Na’eem said, adding that many people and patients had fled before the blast, afraid that the hospital would be hit again.
CNN could not independently verify the details of the October 14 attack described by Dr. Na’eem and has reached out to the IDF for comment. The IDF has said it does not target hospitals, though the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have hit medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.
While it is difficult to independently confirm how many people died in the blast, the bloodshed could be seen in images from the aftermath shared on social media. In photos and videos, young children covered in dust are rushed to be treated for their wounds. Other bodies are seen lifeless on the ground.
One local volunteer who did not give his name described the gruesome aftermath of the blast at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, saying that he arrived at 8 a.m. and helped to gather the remains of people killed there.
“We gathered six bags filled with pieces of the dead bodies – pieces,” he said. “The eldest we gathered remains for was maybe eight or nine years old. Hands, feet, fingers, I have here half a body in the bag. What were they doing, what did they do. None of them even had a toothbrush let alone a weapon.”
A freelance journalist working for CNN in Gaza went to the scene the following day, interviewing eyewitnesses and filming the blast radius in detail, capturing the impact crater, which was about 3×3 feet wide and one foot deep. Some debris and damage were visible in the wider area, including burned out cars, pockmarked buildings and blown out windows.
Eight weapons and explosive experts who reviewed CNN’s footage of the scene agreed that the small crater size and widespread surface damage were inconsistent with an aircraft bomb, which would have destroyed most things at the point of impact. Many said that the evidence pointed to the possibility that a rocket was responsible for the explosion.
Marc Garlasco, a former defense intelligence analyst and UN war crimes investigator with decades of experience assessing bomb damage, said that whatever hit the hospital in Gaza was not an airstrike. “Even the smallest JDAM [joint direct attack munition] leaves a 3m crater,” he told CNN, referring to a guided air-to-ground system that is part of the Israeli weapons stockpile provided by the US.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a British weapons expert who was part of an Amnesty International team investigating weapons used by Israel during the Gaza War in 2009, told CNN the size of the crater led him to rule out a heavy, air-dropped bomb. “The type of crater that I’ve seen on the imagery so far, isn’t large enough to be the type of bomb that we’ve that we’ve seen dropped in, in the region on many occasions,” he said.
An arms investigator said the impact was “more characteristic of a rocket strike with burn marks from leftover rocket fuel or propellant,” and not something you would see from “a typical artillery projectile.”
Cobb-Smith said that the conflagration following the blast was inconsistent with an artillery strike, but that it could not be entirely ruled out.
Others said the damage seen at the site – specifically to the burned-out cars – did not seem to suggest that the explosion was the result of an airburst fuze, which is when a shell explodes in the air before hitting the ground, or artillery fire. Patrick Senft, a research coordinator at Armament Research Services (ARES), said that he would have expected the roofs of the cars to show significant fragmentation damage and the impact site to be deeper, in that case.
“For a 152 / 155 mm artillery projectile with a point detonation fuz (one that initiates the explosion upon hitting the ground) I would expect a crater of about 1.5m deep and 5m wide. The crater here seems substantially smaller,” Senft said.
An explosives specialist, who is currently working in law enforcement and was not authorized to speak to the press, said it’s likely that the shrapnel from the projectile ignited the fuel and flammable liquid in the cars, which is why the fireball was so big. These kinds of explosions generate a shockwave that is particularly deadly to children and the frail.
The same specialist, who has spent decades conducting forensic investigations in conflict zones around the world, also said the damage at the crater site, and at the scene, was not congruent with damage normally seen at an artillery shelling site.
Without knowing what kind of projectile produced the crater, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the direction that it came from. However, the debris and ground markings point to a few possibilities.
There are dark patches on the ground fanning out in a southwesterly direction from the crater. The trees behind it are scorched and a lamppost is entirely knocked over. In contrast, the trees on the other side of the crater are still intact, even with green leaves.
This would be consistent with a rocket approaching from the southwest, as rockets scorch and damage the earth on approach to the ground. If the munition was artillery, however, these markings could indicate it came in from the northeast, spewing debris to the southwest. But if the projectile malfunctioned and broke apart in the air, as CNN’s analysis suggests, the direction of impact reflected by the crater would not be a reliable finding.
Israel has presented two contrasting narratives on which direction the alleged Hamas rocket flew in from.
In an audio recording released by Israeli officials, which they say is Hamas militants discussing the blast and attributing it to a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad (or PIJ), a “cemetery behind the hospital” is referenced as the launch site. CNN analyzed satellite imagery for the days prior to the attack and found no apparent evidence of a rocket launch site there. CNN could not verify the authenticity of the audio intercept.
The IDF also published a map indicating the rocket had been launched several kilometers away, from a southwesterly direction, showing the trajectory towards the hospital. The map is not detailed but it indicates a rocket launch site that matches a location CNN has previously identified as a Hamas training site. Satellite imagery from this site indicates some activity in the days prior to the hospital blast but CNN cannot determine whether a rocket was launched from there and has also asked the IDF for more details about its map.
Until an independent investigation is allowed on the ground and evidence collected from the site the prospect of determining who was behind the blast is remote.
“An awful lot will depend on what remnants are found in the wreckage,” Chris Cobb-Smith told CNN. “We can analyze footage, we can listen to audio, but the definitive answer will come from the person or the team that go in and rummage around the rubble and come up with remnants of the munition itself.” Getting independent experts there will prove challenging given the war still raging, and Israel’s looming ground offensive in Gaza.
Marc Garlasco, the former defense intelligence analyst and UN war crimes investigator, says there are signs of a lack of evidence at the Al-Ahli Hospital site.
“When I investigate a site of a potential war crime the first thing I do is locate and identify parts of the weapon. The weapon tells you who did it and how. I’ve never seen such a lack of physical evidence for a weapon at a site. Ever. There’s always a piece of a bomb after the fact. In 20 years of investigating war crimes this is the first time I haven’t seen any weapon remnants. And I’ve worked three wars in Gaza.”
Footage CNN collected the day after the blast shows a large number of people traversing the site. The risk that amid the chaos and panic of war, the evidence will be lost or tampered with, is high. Even before this conflict, accessing sites was challenging for independent investigators. Cobb-Smith has investigated in Gaza before.
“The local authorities did not give me free access to the area or were very unhappy that I was trying to investigate something that had clearly gone wrong from their point of view.”
I was on vacation and hanging out quietly in the hotel room with my friend when, out of nowhere, she screamed “Zoo Pals are back!”
We immediately tried to buy some. But to our misfortune, they were sold out. For days we refreshed the page to see if they were back in stock. Sure enough, I got my Zoo Pals a few weeks later.
I’m almost embarrassed to share that Zoo Pals are paper plates that feature the bright, adorable faces of animals like pigs, turtles, ducks and whales. Each plate has one main section and two subsections for the animal’s ears or feet. In 2014, Hefty, the maker of Zoo Pals, discontinued them.
As a child, Zoo Pals were a game-changer. That meant broccoli didn’t have to, God forbid, touch my chicken nuggets, and theyalso provided a special area for dipping the nuggets in ketchup. And I had an incentive to finish my plate so I could see my Zoo Pal’s face again.
As an adult, I no longer have such needs.But $6.99 was a small price to pay for a walk down memory lane.
Adults are increasingly shelling out for relics of their youth and for items, ranging from flip phones to film cameras to Tamagotchis, that evoke a late 20th-century or turn-of-the century nostalgia. That demand has created a treasure-trove of sales in particular for toys and products, like my Zoo Pals, originally geared to children.
Toy recipients ages 18 and up — also known as “kidults” — represented about 17% of total toy sales in the United States for the 12 months ending in June 2023, according to data consumer research group Circana shared with CNN. That’s up four percentage points from 2021 and up a whopping eight percentage points from 2019.
In total, toy sales for adults increased by $1.7 billion to $6.4 billion from June 2021 to June 2023, according to Circana data.
The trend of adults buying toys for themselves is relatively new, but longing for the glory days of childhood is not. So how come adults lately have been willing to spend so much money on toys to relive the past?
The pandemic drove more people to revisit their youth
Adults started purchasing more toys for themselves after the pandemic began. Covid ushered in heightened levels of anxiety and it caused people to think about dying more, explains Krystine Batcho, a licensed psychologist who teaches at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.
Both factors are associated with “greater nostalgia,” said Batcho, whose research focuses on the psychology of nostalgia. Batcho created the Nostalgia Inventory, a survey that’s been widely used to assess what makes someone more inclined to feel nostalgic.
For instance, her research and other research she’s studied point to millenials and members of Gen Z being in life stages that are prime for feeling nostalgic. “The transition away from childhood and adolescence to adulthood entails a bittersweet conflict between the desire to grow into independence and the desire for the carefree innocence and security of childhood,” she said.
And, in general, people become more nostalgic during difficult times and in threatening circumstances, Batcho added.
During the pandemic, as people were looking for ways to entertain themselves at home or in small groups they turned to social media for ideas, Juli Lennett, Circana’s toy industry advisor, told CNN. That helped fuel an increase in purchases for games, puzzles, collectibles, trading cards, building sets and more, she said.
“Consumers found like-minded toy consumers and tribes formed around certain toy categories and brands. It continues to this day,” Lennett said.
In 2021, Lego launched an entire product line designed for adults that can be found under the “Adults Welcome” section of its site. “In a world of distractions, LEGO Sets for Adults offer a focused, hands-on, mindful activity. A creative recharge. A zone of zen. A place to find your flow,” a post on Lego’s site states.
Mattel Inc.’s American Girl doll line has also seen an influx of purchases made by kidults over the past few years, “and it continues to grow in popularity,” Jamie Cygielman, the president of American Girl, told CNN.
That started to take off in 2021 when American Girl re-released six of the original dolls the company had produced to celebrate its 35th anniversary. The dolls, priced at $150, began to sell out the first day they were listed online, said Cygielman. More than half of those purchases “were women purchasing for themselves, not for a child,” she said based on a subsequent survey American Girl conducted.
“So we started really leaning into it a bit more,” she said. That meant re-releasing more dolls and doll outfits adults grew up with as well as adding more alcoholic beverages and food items that appeal to adults to its in-store café menus.
“Any given day as you walk into our café, you’ll see tables of young adults with not a child in sight,” said Cygielman. Many of them come there to celebrate birthdays and bachelorette parties, often with their dolls sitting in clip-on chairs beside them.
Most recently, American Girl re-released two doll outfits that were originally sold in 1999.
TikTokers and Instagramers had a field day seeing those and rushed to post about it.
Since American Girl creates individual stories featuring historical eras like the Colonial period or World War II to complement the dolls they sell, users on social media started posting things like, “We need an American Girl doll who went to college in 2016.”
The TikTok account that posted that request, @inbloombyemily, received nearly 200,000 likes on her video where she described the doll’s story and curated outfits and accessories which included a Svedka bottle of strawberry lemonade vodka.
American Girl hasn’t seized the opportunity to actually make most of the dolls the memes capture, said Cygielman.
“It’s a sincere form of flattery, but we don’t necessarily want to author it ourselves,” she said. “We’re still laser-focused on our core customer, which is that young girl and her caregiver gift giver.”
As for the kidult trend, there are some signs that it could slow, Lennett said.
“As consumers have less money in their wallets due to macroeconomic conditions, they are spending less on discretionary categories like toys,” she said. “If the conditions continue, we can expect a pullback in toy spending for adults.”
But Batcho, the psychologist, notes that nostalgia can be healthy in hard times.
“Nostalgic memories remind people of better times and can encourage them to seek solutions and move toward a more optimistic future,” she said. “Nostalgia has also been found to increase a sense of meaning and purpose in life. By strengthening social connectedness and feelings of belonging, nostalgia counteracts loneliness.”
Even though the darkest days of the pandemic are, for the most part, in the rearview mirror there’s still “a nostalgic longing for the security and stability of pre-pandemic life,” Batcho said.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan again failed to win the House speaker’s gavel in a second vote on Wednesday, faring worse than he did during the first round of voting one day earlier. The loss raises serious questions over whether the Ohio Republican has a viable path forward as he confronts steep opposition and the House remains in a state of paralysis.
Despite the defeat, Jordan has vowed to stay in the race. The House is expected to hold a third speaker vote on Thursday at noon ET. Without a speaker, the chamber is effectively frozen, a precarious position that comes amid conflict abroad and a potential government shutdown next month.
The conservative Republican’s struggle to gain traction has also highlighted the limits of Donald Trump’s influence in the speaker’s race after the former president endorsed Jordan.
As pressure grows on Republicans to find a way out of the leadership crisis, some are pushing to expand the powers of the interim speaker, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, though such a move would not be without controversy and has divided Republicans.
During the first round of voting on Tuesday, 20 House Republicans voted against Jordan. On Wednesday, that number rose to 22, showing that the opposition against the candidate has grown. There were four new Republican votes against Jordan and two that flipped into his column. Given the narrow House GOP majority, Jordan can only afford to lose a handful of votes and the high number of votes against him puts the gavel far out of reach.
Following his second defeat on the floor, Jordan indicated that he is dug in on pressing ahead.
“We don’t know when we’re going to have the next vote but we want to continue our conversations with our colleagues,” he said, adding: “We’ll keep talking to members and keep working on it.”
Jordan is a polarizing figure in the speaker’s fight, a complicating factor in his effort to lock down votes. He is a staunch ally of Trump, has a longstanding reputation as a conservative agitator and helped found the hardline House Freedom Caucus. As the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, he has also been a key figure in House GOP-led investigations.
It took former Speaker Kevin McCarthy 15 rounds of voting in January to secure the gavel. But Jordan faces an uphill climb amid the deep divisions within the House GOP conference and the resistance he faces.
As the speaker battle drags on, tensions and frustration have risen among House Republicans. Some of the lawmakers who have voted against Jordan in the speaker’s race have railed against what they have described as a pressure campaign against them.
Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas derided what he called the “attack, attack, attack” tactics of Jordan allies against his Republican opponents.
“Frankly, just based on what I’ve been through – I can only speak to myself and what my staff has been through over the last 24 or 48 hours – it is obvious what the strategy has been: Attack, attack, attack. Attack the members who don’t agree with you, attack them, beat them into submission,” he said.
GOP Rep. Don Bacon’s wife received anonymous text messages warning her husband to back Jordan. Bacon has been a vocal holdout against Jordan and was one of the 20 Republican members that did not back Jordan on the floor in Tuesday’s vote.
“Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is,” read one of the messages sent to Bacon’s wife and obtained by CNN through Bacon.
Bacon’s wife responded to that text saying, “he has more courage than you. You won’t put your name to your statements.”
GOP lawmaker voted for a congressman he didn’t want to be Speaker. Hear why
Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said in a statement that she has “received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls” after flipping her speaker vote Wednesday, instead casting a ballot for House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger.
Russell Dye, a spokesman for Jordan, condemned the threats against Miller-Meeks, saying: “This is abhorrent and has no place in civil discourse. No one should receive threats and it needs to stop. We have condemned these actions repeatedly. It is important that Republicans stop attacking each other and come together.”
And Jordan wrote on X that “no American should accost another for their beliefs.”
“We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. It’s abhorrent,” he added.
Opponents to the congressman’s bid so far have included centrist Republicans concerned that the face of the House GOP would be a conservative hardliner as well as lawmakers still furious at the small group of Republicans who forced out McCarthy and then opposed House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s bid for the gavel.
Scalise initially defeated Jordan inside the GOP conference to become the speaker nominee, but later dropped out of the race amid opposition to his candidacy.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
Rite Aid, which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, is now preparing to shed almost 100stores nationwide as part of its restructuring efforts.
The first tranche of stores to be sold — both leased and owned — is located in nine states, according to A&G Real Estate Partners, which is advising the drug store chain on its real estate portfolio. The states include California (17 stores), Maryland (4), Michigan (16), New Jersey (8), New York (17), Ohio (4), Oregon (2), Pennsylvania (17), New Hamphire (2) and Washington (10), Alabama (1), Idaho (1).
The writing has been on the wall for some time for Rite Aid, the third-biggest standalone pharmacy chain in the US, as the entire drug store retail sector struggles to compete with Amazon and big-box chains like Walmart, Target and Costco moving deeper into the space and offering more customer-friendly alternatives to the nationwide pharmacy chains.
Compounding its problems were legal troubles stemming from accusations of filing unlawful opioid prescriptions for customers.
Rite Aid is in much worse financial shape than its competitors. Over the past six years, Rite Aid has tallied nearly $3 billion in losses.
While it has secured $3.5 billion in financing and debt reduction agreements from lenders to keep the company afloat through its bankruptcy, Rite Aid said it would accelerate store closures and sell off some of its businesses, including prescription benefit provider Elixir Solutions. Bankruptcy could also help resolve the company’s legal disputes at a vastly reduced cost.
As it reevaluates its portfolio of stores, these are the Rite Aid locations that are currently up for sale:
SEC Alabama Ave. & Pike St. in Monroeville, Alabama
920 East Valley Blvd in Alhambra, California
571 Bellevue Road in Atwater, California
3029 Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa, California
139 North Grand Ave. in Covina, California
20572 Homestead Road in Cupertino, California
24829 Del Pradoin Dana Point, California
7859 Firestone Blvd. in Downey, California
8509 Irvine Center Drive in Irvine, California
15800 Imperial Hwy. in La Mirada, California
30222 Crown Valley Pkwy. in Laguna Niguel, California
4046 South Centinela Ave. in Los Angeles, California
499 Alvarado St. in Monterey, California
1670 Main St. in Ramona, California
1309 Fulton Ave. in Sacramento, California
901 Soquel Ave. in Santa Cruz, California
19701 Yorba Linda Blvd. in Yorba Linda, California
25906 Newport Road in Menifee, California
1600 North Main St. in Meridian, Idaho
5808 Ritchie Hwy. in Baltimore, Maryland
5 Bel Air South Pkwy. in Bel Air, Maryland
728 East Pulaski Hwy. in Elkton, Maryland
7501 Ritchie Hwy. In Glen Burnie, Maryland
35250 South Gratiot Ave. in Clinton Township, Michigan
36485 Garfield Road. in Clinton Township, Michigan
1900 East 8 Mile Road. in Detroit, Michigan
25922 Middlebelt Road. in Farmington Hills, Michigan
924 West Main St. in Fremont, Michigan
715 South Clinton St. in Grand Ledge, Michigan
3100 East Michigan Ave. in Jackson, Michigan
15250 24 Mile Road in Macomb, Michigan
1243 U.S. 31 South in Manistee, Michigan
15181 Telegraph Road in Redford, Michigan
320 N Main St. in Redford, Michigan
51037 Van Dyke Ave. in Shelby Township, Michigan
109 North Whittemore St. in St. Johns, Michigan
102 North Centerville Road in Sturgis, Michigan
9155 Telegraph Road in Taylor, Michigan
47300 Pontiac Trail in Wixom, Michigan
205-209 Main St. in Berlin, New Hampshire
Grove St. and Route 101 in Peterborough, New Hampshire
37 Juliustown Road in Browns Mills, New Jersey
1426 Mount Ephraim Ave. in Camden, New Jersey
1636 Route 38, Suite 49 in Lumberton, New Jersey
210 Bridgeton Pike in Mantua, New Jersey
108 Swedesboro Road in Mullica Hill, New Jersey
Route 33 and Robbinsville- Edinburg Road in Robbinsville, New Jersey
773 Hamilton St. in Somerset, New Jersey
1434 South Black Horse Pike in Williamstown, New Jersey
836 Sunrise Hwy. in Bay Shore, New York
452 Main St. in Buffalo, New York
15 Arnold St. in Buffalo, New York
901 Merrick Road in Copiague, New York
577 Larkfield Road in East Northport, New York
2 Whitney Ave. in Floral Park, New York
115-10 Merrick Blvd. in Jamaica, New York
2453 Elmwood Ave. in Kenmore, New York
3131 Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown, New York
700-43 Patchogue-Yaphank in Medford, New York
4188 Broadway in New York, New York
195 8th Ave. in New York, New York
1033 St. Nicholas Ave. in New York, New York
593 Old Town Road in Port Jefferson, New York
101 Main St. in Sayville, New York
65 Route 111 in Smithtown, New York
397 Sunrise Hwy. in West Patchogue, New York
120 South Main St. in New Carlisle, Ohio
Euclid & Strathmore in East Cleveland, Ohio
1204 Gettysburg Ave. in Dayton, Ohio
2323 Broadview Road in Cleveland, Ohio
981 Medford Center in Medford, Oregon
4346 N.E. Cully Blvd. in Portland, Oregon
2722 West 9th St. in Chester, Pennsylvania
5990 University Blvd. in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania
1709 Liberty Ave. in Erie, Pennsylvania
6090 Route 30 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania
301 Eisenhower Drive in Hanover, Pennsylvania
1730 Wilmington Road in New Castle, Pennsylvania
700 Stevenson Blvd. in New Kensington, Pennsylvania
350 Main St. in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania
5612 North 5th St. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2401 East Venango St. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Protests erupted across the Middle East following the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital as Israeli and Palestinian officials traded accusations over who was to blame just hours before US President Joe Biden is set to arrive in Tel Aviv.
Hundreds of people were likely killed in the blast on Tuesday at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City, where thousands were shelteringfrom Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.
CNN cannot independently confirm what caused the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.
But the blast marks a dangerous new phase in Israel’s war with Hamas, which threatens to spill over regionally. While Israelis grieve those killed in Hamas’ terror attacks on Israeli soil and families plea for the return of loved ones taken as hostages, millions of civilians in Gaza are at risk of injury, death or starvation as vital supplies have been cut to an area that is impossible to leave amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
Palestinian officials blamed ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident. But Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said no Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes took place in the area at the time of the blast, claiming to have intelligence pointing to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group to Hamas in Gaza.
Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, described “unparalleled and indescribable” scenes after the blast.
“Ambulance crews are still removing body parts as most of the victims are children and women,” Al-Qudra said. “Doctors were performing surgeries on the ground and in the corridors, some of them without anesthesia.”
In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza
Video geolocated by CNN from inside the al-Shifa Hospital, where some victims of the blast were taken, shows chaotic scenes with injured people packed into the crowded facility, doctors treating the wounded on the hospital floor and an emergency worker calling out as he carries an injured child.
Images show women crying out and terrified children covered in black dust huddled together on the hospital floor.
Calling the deadly hospital blast “unacceptable,” UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said hospitals are sacrosanct and the killings and violence must stop.
“Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed – horrifically – in a massive strike… including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable,” Turk said in a statement.
President Biden, who is en route to Tel Aviv for a high-security wartime visit to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion.”
But the fallout from the blast threatens to derail US diplomatic efforts to ease the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, where concerns are mounting over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave’s population.
Jordan canceled a planned Wednesday summit between Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of the meeting earlier Tuesday in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.
Biden was scheduled to visit Amman after his trip to Tel Aviv, though a White House official said the trip was “postponed.”
“There is no point in doing anything at this time other than stopping this war,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera Arabic early Wednesday. “There is no benefit to anyone in holding a summit at this time.”
The blast has added fuel to rising anger in the region over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Israeli forces have laid siege to the coastal enclave controlled by Hamas following the October 7 attacks on Israel in which the Islamist militant group killed at least 1,400 people and took more than 150 hostages, including children and the elderly.
Protests condemning the hospital explosion have erupted in multiple cities across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces.
In the Jordanian capital Amman, angry protesters attempted to gather near the Israeli Embassy in the Rabieh area but security forces pushed them away. Two activists told CNN on Tuesday that Jordanian security forces using tear gas to disperse crowds.
In Lebanon’s Beirut, hundreds of protesters gathered in the square that leads to the US Embassy on Tuesday and tried to break through security barriers, according to a CNN team there.
Hamas said more than 500 people were killed in the bombing. The Palestinian Health Ministry earlier said preliminary estimates indicate that between 200 to 300 people died in the blast.
The hospital tragedy comes as health services in Gaza are on the brink, with no fuel to run electricity or pump water for life-saving critical functions. UN agencies have warned that shops are less than a week away from running out of available food stocks and that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases.
While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.
Israel has insisted it was not responsible for the hospital bombing.
The IDF presented imagery Wednesday which it said shows the destruction at the hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike.
In the 30-second montage, the IDF claimed that a fire broke out at the hospital as a result of a failed rocket launch by Islamic Jihad. The imagery included fire damage to several vehicles in the hospital parking lot. The IDF said there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from an airstrike.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN Wednesday the “first packet of information” was “evidence that clearly supports the fact that it could not have been an Israeli bomb.”
Islamic Jihad has denied Israel’s assertions that a failed rocket launch was responsible for the hundreds of civilian casualties at the hospital.
The group described Israeli accusations as “false and baseless” and claimed it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, according to a statement Wednesday.
The US is also analyzing intelligence provided by Israel on the explosion, which includes signals intelligence, intercepted communications and other forms of data, according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.
Several nations have condemned Israel following the explosion. Pakistan called it “inhumane and indefensible” and Palestinian observer to the UN Riyad Mansour said Israeli officials were being dishonest in blaming Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The UN Security Council will hold an open meeting Wednesday morning on developments in the Middle East, including the hospital bombing and both Israel and Palestinian representatives are expected to speak.
More than a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,000 people, including 1,032 girls and 940 boys, and wounded 12,500 in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Tuesday. Casualties in Gaza over the past 10 days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014.
Conditions are dire for the 2.2 million people caught in the escalating crisis and now trapped in Gaza and those on the ground warn that nowhere is safe from relentless Israeli airstrikes and the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation.
Urgent calls for help are mounting and diplomatic efforts to secure a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza have ramped up in recent days.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has led intense efforts across the Middle East, on Tuesday said the US and Israel “have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza.”
But officials have said the Rafah border crossing – the only entry point in and out of Gaza that Israel does not control – remains extremely dangerous.
On the Egyptian side of the crossing, a miles-long convoy of humanitarian assistance is awaiting entry into Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN.
“Until now, there is no safe passage that has been granted” as they do not “have any authorization or clear, secure routes for those convoys to be able to enter safely and without any possibility of their being targeted,” he said.
He added that the crossing was bombed four times in the past few days.
The same New York City administration to launch a “Rat Action Plan” is back with an “Artificial Intelligence Action Plan.”
Mayor Eric Adams on Monday unveiled a citywide AI “action plan” that pledged – in broad-brushstrokes – to evaluate AI tools and associated risks, boost AI skills among city employees and support “the responsible implementation of these technologies to improve quality of life for New Yorkers,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office.
The city’s 51-page AI action plan establishes a series of steps the city will take in the coming years to help better understand and responsibly implement the technology that has taken the tech sector and broader business world by storm in recent months.
While government use of automated technologies has often courted controversy, New York City’s approach to AI, so far, seems to be focused on laying a framework for future AI use-cases as well as engaging with outside experts and the public.
The first step listed in the city’s AI action plan is establishing an “AI Steering Committee” of city agency stakeholders. The document goes on to list nearly 40 “actions,” with 29 of those set to be started or completed within the next year. The city said it will publish an annual AI progress report to communicate the city’s updates and implementation of the plan.
Also on Monday, city officials said the government was piloting the first citywide AI-powered chatbot to help business owners navigate operating and growing businesses in New York City. The AI chatbot, already available in beta on the official city of New York website, was trained on information from more than 2,000 NYC Business web pages.
The chatbot uses Microsoft’s Azure AI services, per a disclaimer on the tool.
In a statement announcing the AI action plan, Mayor Adams acknowledged “the potential pitfalls and associated risks these technologies present,” and pledged to be “clear-eyed” about these.
The mayor also expressed hope that the action plan will “strike a critical balance in the global AI conversation — one that will empower city agencies to deploy technologies that can improve lives while protecting against those that can do harm.”
Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday, a casualty of a miserable environment for drug stores, exacerbated by its runner-up status to bigger chains and expensive legal battles for allegedly filling unlawful opioid prescriptions.
The bankruptcy was not a surprise. Its bigger rivals, CVS and Walgreens, are also facing many of the same problems. They, too, are closing stores as Amazon and big-box chains like Walmart, Target and Costco serve as more customer-friendly alternatives to nationwide pharmacy chains.
But Rite Aid is in much worse financial shape than its competitors and unable to weather the storm that has been beating down on the industry.On Thursday, it filed a notice to the US Securities and Exchange Commission saying it would be unable to file its latest quarterly financial report because it was looking at “strategic alternatives,” which is Wall Street speak for “considering bankruptcy.”
In that filing, the company said it expected its losses would increase significantly in the past quarter, which is saying something, considering it lost about three quarters of a billion dollars between March 2022 and March 2023 — and another $307 billion between March and May this year. Over the past six years, Rite Aid has tallied nearly $3 billion in losses.
At the beginning of June, the last time the company filed a financial report, Rite Aid had just $135.5 million of cash on hand -— and $3.3 billion in long-term debt, which exceeded the value of the company’s assets by nearly $1 billion. With rising interest rates, that debt wasn’t cheap to finance.
“It was always a matter of when, not if, Rite Aid would file for bankruptcy,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in a note to investors. “The company has been deep in the red for the past six years.”
The company said in a statement it had secured $3.5 billion in financing and debt reduction agreements from lenders to keep the company afloat through its bankruptcy.
It said it would accelerate its pace of store closures and sell off some of its businesses, including prescription benefit provider Elixir Solutions. Bankruptcy could also help resolve the company’s legal disputes at a vastly reduced cost.
As part of the bankruptcy plan, Rite Aid appointed a new CEO, Jeff Stein, who will also serve as the head of restructuring and a board member. Stein, in the statement, said the company plans to remain in business.
“With the support of our lenders, we look forward to strengthening our financial foundation, advancing our transformation initiatives and accelerating the execution of our turnaround strategy,” he said. “In doing so, we will be even better able to deliver the healthcare products and services our customers and their families rely on -— now and into the future.”
Rite Aidhas had an interim CEO since January 2023.
Rite Aid’s losing battle against mounting debt was exacerbated by its legal troubles stemming from accusations of filing unlawful opioid prescriptions for customers.
The Department of Justice filed suit against the company in March, claiming that it knowingly processed “unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances.” That stands in violation of the False Claims Act and Controlled Substances Act. The government accused Rite Aid of missing “obvious red flags” when it filled the prescriptions for addictive pain killers.
When the US Justice Department filed its lawsuit, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the department would use “every tool at our disposal” to hold Rite Aid accountable for contributing to the opioid epidemic.”
Walgreens, CVS and others settled similar lawsuits over the past few years, but they remain in better financial shape and were largely able to weather the tens of billions of dollars owed to various government agencies in settlements.
More than half a million people have died from drug overdoses in the United States between 1999 and 2020, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Rite Aid is a distant third-largest nationwide standalone pharmacy chain in the United States — and the seventh largest pharmacy overall, when taking into account big box chains. It has more than 2,200 stores in 17 states.
It was offered a $17 billion lifeline in 2015 when Walgreens offered to buy the chain. But the deal was met with stiff scrutiny from US regulators who feared the combination would violate federal antitrust laws and reduce competition in the drug store market.
Ultimately, in 2017, the companies agreed to a smaller, $4.4 billion deal, in which Walgreens bought just under 2,000 Rite Aid locations, leaving Rite Aid diminished in stature and unable to compete at the scale of its bigger rivals.
— CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn and Juliana Liu contributed to this report
A Chicago-area landlord has been arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after authorities said he stabbed and killed a 6-year-old boy and seriously wounded his mother, allegedly because the tenants are Muslim.
According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, Joseph M. Czuba, 71, has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Authorities say they were called to the residence in unincorporated Plainfield Township, Illinois, approximately 40 miles outside Chicago, just before noon on Saturday after a woman called 911 saying her landlord had attacked her.
When deputies arrived, they found Czuba sitting outside and the victims in a bedroom. The boy had been stabbed 26 times, and his mother had been stabbed over a dozen times, the sheriff’s office said.
The victims were taken to the hospital, but the boy later died from his injuries, authorities said. His mother is recovering in a local hospital and expected to survive.
The sheriff’s office said Czuba did not make a statement to detectives after being brought to the Will County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Complex, but investigators were able to determine the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”
The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a news release identifying the victims as Hanaan Shahin, 32, and her son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.
CAIR said they had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years without trouble with Czuba, but in texts to the boy’s father from the hospital after the attack, Shahin said he “knocked on their door, and when she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling, ‘You Muslims must die!’” according to the CAIR statement.
On Saturday, Israel’s military said its forces are readying for the next stages of the war in response to the unprecedented October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. At least 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Sunday.
Nearly 1 million Gazans have been forced from their homes in the week since the Hamas attack and the ensuing Israeli retaliation, UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestinians, said Saturday.
Czuba was transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting his initial court appearance, according to the sheriff’s office. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
