The redheaded baby brothers who were abducted from Israel on Oct. 7, becoming an international symbol of Hamas’ brutality over their nearly two months in captivity, are dead along with their mother, the Palestinian terror group said Wednesday.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military arm, announced the deaths of three Israel hostages, including abducted brothers Ariel Bibas, 4, and Kfir Bibas, who was only 10 months old and had just learned to crawl when he was kidnapped.

Hamas claims the young hostages, and their mother, Sherry Silverman Bibas, were killed in an Israel Defense Force bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Shiri Bibas is seen in a short video clip as she was kidnapped with her two young children.X

The IDF posted a response to the report on X, formerly Twitter, saying they are “examining the reliability of the information” before adding, “The responsibility for the safety of all the abductees and abductees in the Gaza Strip lies fully with the terrorist organization Hamas.”

The Bibas family also issued a statement on the claims, which was shared on X.

It reads: “Our family is updated on the latest statement from Hamas. We are waiting for military authorities to confirm or, hopefully, refute the news soon. We thank the Israeli people for the warm embrace but we ask to maintain our privacy in this very complex moment.”

The brothers’ deaths were announced Wednesday via Telegram. Family members revealed earlier today they did not believe any of their family members were on the list of hostages set to be released Wednesday.

Sherry Bibas was kidnapped along with her two sons from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza border on Oct. 7.

Kfir was the youngest of about 30 children who were taken hostage.

Shiri and her husband, Yaden Bibas, were in their home’s safe room when the Hamas attack began. Yaden is believed to still be in captivity.

Hamas has lied or misled about the fate of hostages in the past. Captive Hanna Katzir, 76, who they’d said died in an Israeli air strike earlier this month, was among the hostages Hamas released on Saturday, alive and well.

A crew member who was recovered from the ocean after a U.S. military Osprey aircraft carrying eight people crashed Wednesday off southern Japan has been pronounced dead, coast guard officials said.

The cause of the crash and the status of the seven others on board were not immediately known, coast guard spokesperson Kazuo Ogawa said.

The Osprey was carrying eight crew and is an Air Force aircraft, a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak to the media said on condition of anonymity. While the Marine Corps flies most of the Osprey aircraft that are based in Japan, the Air Force also has Ospreys deployed there.

Earlier reports had said the aircraft was carrying six or eight people.

The official could not provide further information pending notification of next of kin.

The Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter, but during flight can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster like an airplane.

Ospreys have had a number of accidents in the past, including in Japan, where they are deployed at both U.S. and Japanese military bases. In Okinawa, where about half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are based, Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters Wednesday that he will ask the U.S. military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan.

Coast guard spokesperson Ogawa said it received an emergency call Wednesday afternoon from a fishing boat near the crash site off Yakushima, an island south of Kagoshima on the southern main island of Kyushu.

Coast guard aircraft and patrol boats found one person identified only as a male who was later pronounced dead by a doctor at a nearby port, he said. They also found gray-colored debris believed to be from the aircraft and an empty inflatable life raft in an area about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) off the eastern coast of Yakushima, Ogawa said.

The coast guard said it planned to continue searching through the night.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the Osprey disappeared from radar a few minutes before the coast guard received the emergency call. The aircraft requested an emergency landing at the Yakushima airport about five minutes before it was lost from radar, NHK public television and other media reported.

NHK quoted a Yakushima resident as saying he saw the aircraft turned upside down, with fire coming from one of its engines, and then an explosion before it fell to the sea.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he planned to seek a further explanation from the U.S. military, but declined to say whether he would seek a temporary suspension of Osprey operations in Japan.

Ogawa said the aircraft had departed from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi prefecture and crashed on its way to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

Japanese Vice Defense Minister Hiroyuki Miyazawa said it had attempted an emergency sea landing and quoted the U.S. military as saying its pilot “did everything possible until the last minute.”

U.S. and Japanese officials said the aircraft belonged to Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. U.S. Air Force officials at Yokota said they were still confirming information and had no immediate comment.

Yokota Air Base is home to U.S. Forces Japan and the Fifth Air Force. Six CV-22 Ospreys have been deployed at Yokota, including the one that crashed.

There are many ways to view this week’s unusual debate between Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gavin Newsom of California: Red State vs. Blue. A presidential candidate vying for attention in the 2024 cycle vs. an ambitious governor possibly setting ground work for the next one.

It’s also a battle of the two Disney governors.

The two men share a constituent in that multi-billion-dollar entertainment company — headquartered in California near its original park, Disneyland, while the larger Disney World is in Orlando. Both have leveraged that relationship, but in opposite ways. And while Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger has said the company plans to “quiet the noise” in the culture wars, the company hasn’t silenced itself completely since its showdown with DeSantis.

“If I were Newsom, I’d bring it up,” said Rick Foglesong, a retired political science professor who wrote a book, “Married to the Mouse,” about the history of Disney’s enormous influence in Florida. He’s working on a sequel to update it for the DeSantis era, called “Divorcing the Mouse.”

“I’d bring up that DeSantis is hurting his state’s economy, or potentially hurting it, as a way of undermining DeSantis … running on the basis of his success in Florida,” Foglesong said.

The debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Thursday, will be broadcast by Fox News and moderated by host Sean Hannity.

In the 20 months since the DeSantis-Disney fight erupted over a law that restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, Disney hasn’t objected publicly to any DeSantis-backed bills. But in federal court, its lawyers continue to confront the DeSantis administration after Disney sued the governor over his attempt to strip the company of some of its self-governing powers.

That move by DeSantis came after Disney opposed the Parental Rights in Education law — which critics dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” — prompting the company to accuse the governor of violating its First Amendment rights. The first major hearing in that case is scheduled for Dec. 12 in Tallahassee.

The company has yet to resume political donations to Florida state politicians. Campaign finance records show no major donations from the historically prolific donor to any Florida candidates of either party in Tallahassee since March 2022.

Across the country in California, Mickey Mouse’s wallet has remained open. In the time since its Florida giving ceased, Disney has donated more than $175,000 to candidates in California, according to state campaign finance records, although that pace of donations was slower than the previous year. Among recent donations was a $10,000 check to Newsom’s 2022 reelection campaign.

However, Disney’s money didn’t stay in Sacramento. Campaign finance paperwork shows that its contribution was part of $10 million left over from Newsom’s reelection that was transferred to a federal political action committee — one that the California governor has since been using to finance attacks on DeSantis and other Republicans.

That federal committee, called Campaign for Democracy PAC, fueled Newsom’s April trip to Sarasota to criticize DeSantis’ conservative overhaul of New College.

It’s also the source of money for a recent pre-debate TV ad, in which Newsom criticizes DeSantis’ support of a six-week ban on most abortions in Florida. The ad ran in Florida and Washington, D.C., on Nov. 19 during Sunday Night Football and was slated to appear on Fox News during Hannity’s show for a week, according to Campaign for Democracy.

Does that mean Disney is picking a side in the Newsom-DeSantis jockeying?

Not quite. Nathan Click, a spokesperson for the Campaign for Democracy PAC, confirmed that the money transfer happened in bulk and Disney played no role in directing its check to Newsom’s new committee.

Still, Newsom is friendlier with the corporation, though their relationship hasn’t been completely without drama. He named Iger, the Disney CEO, to a high-profile COVID-19 economic task force during the pandemic. Iger then resigned that task force after Newsom was reluctant to let theme parks reopen in the state and after Disney had already announced 28,000 layoffs — at a time when Disney World had resumed operations in Florida.

When Disney scrapped plans in May to build a $1 billion office campus in Orlando’s Lake Nona neighborhood, Newsom took a victory lap. The 2,000 jobs that would have moved across the country instead remained in his state. Disneyland Resort alone employs more than 34,000 people just in Orange County, California, according to Disney.

“Authoritarian policies have consequences,” he said in a news release then that didn’t mention DeSantis by name.

Earlier this month — 16 days before the scheduled debate and amid the company’s legal wrangling with DeSantis — Disney released a report it commissioned that pegged its annual benefit to Florida at $40.3 billion. The report, from the international forecasting firm Oxford Economics, found that Disney generates more than 263,000 jobs in the state, far beyond the number solely of its own workforce.

DeSantis in August told CNBC that “we’ve basically moved on” from the fight with Disney and encouraged the company to drop its federal suit. He mentioned that he and his wife, Casey, got married at Disney World in 2009, which he pointed to as proof that he hasn’t always had a negative relationship with the company.

“All we want to do is treat everybody the same and let’s move forward,” DeSantis said, adding that Disney had “extraordinary privileges” of self-governance compared to other theme parks in the state. The measured comments were a tone shift from his previous threats that included building a state prison near Disney World.

Foglesong said he’s not sure the company is content to sit on the sidelines.

“Disney doesn’t want to get out too far in front and be negative like they’re from another political party, but they also can’t just wait and see,” he said. “It’s not in Disney’s interest to fan the flames. It’s in their interest to win.”

Joe Biden told 813,000 more Americans that he has wiped their student loan debt on Tuesday, meaning the president has forgiven a total of $127 billion for 3.5 million borrowers.

The former students will soon receive an email from Biden notifying them that their debt has been forgiven – despite the fact that his plan to cancel $400 billion in debt was rejected by the Supreme Court in June.

The email read: ‘Congratulations — your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve.’

Biden’s headstrong push for the relief program coincides with the looming 2024 election and desire to get young voters on board.

A White House spokesperson said Tuesday: ‘The president is committed to fighting for hardworking American families, making sure we get them a little more breathing room, and allowing them to support themselves and their families.’

At the beginning of October, Biden canceled another $9 billion in student loan debt, giving relief to 125,000 borrowers.

The move came as borrowers prepare for payments to restart after a three-year pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Americans who are saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree has become the norm,’ Biden said in remarks at the White House.

He argued canceling student loan debt is good for the economy as borrowers will spend their payment money on other items.

‘This kind of relief is life-changing for individuals and their families. But it’s good for our economy as a whole as well. By freeing millions of Americans from the crushing burden of student debt it means they can go and get their lives in order. They can think about buying a house. They can start a business. They can be starting a family. This matters. This matters to their daily lives,’ the president said.

In total, 3.6 million borrowers will have had $127 billion in debt wiped out since Biden took office.

‘My administration will continue to use every tool at our disposal to help ease the burden of student debt so more Americans can be free to achieve their dreams. It’s good for our economy. It’s good for our country. And it’s going to change their lives,’ he said.

Federal student loan payments resumed on October 1.

In June, the Supreme Court canceled Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which promised up to $20,000 in debt relief for low- and middle-income borrowers, the administration has continued to find other ways to provide debt relief.

In the aftermath Biden said he would pursue new measures to provide student loan relief.

He’s been relying on a patchwork of different programs to chip away at debt, such as public service loan forgiveness and the SAVE Plan, which lowers payments by tying them to borrowers’ income.

Meanwhile earlier this month, the Biden administration got a big slap on the wrist by one of its own agencies for failing to put strong anti-fraud safeguards in its original plan to hand out $430 billion in student loan relief.

In a blistering report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) exposed shortcomings in Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan – which has since been squashed by the Supreme Court – saying it opened the door to fraud.

‘We found that Education quickly approved borrowers for debt relief without applying key practices to prevent fraud. For example, it didn’t verify certain borrowers’ self-reported income before approving them for relief.’

In addition, it said that the department approved over 12 million borrower applicants ‘without evaluating the accuracy and outcomes of its application process.’

And 2 million students were set to be automatically approved based on their self-reported income without the Education Department deploying ‘any tools to verify these borrowers’ incomes or ensure they were eligible for relief.’

A sports reporter who accused a young Chiefs fan of racism against both black people and Native Americans has learned that not only was the child not wearing blackface, but he is a Chumash Indian to boot.

Deadspin reporter Carron Phillips accused Holden Armenta of mocking black people after seeing a picture in profile which did not show the half of his face painted in the red of his beloved football team.

Phillips also slammed Holden’s Native American headdress and his ‘Tomahawk Chop’ gesture claiming the little boy had ‘found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time’.

This evening it emerged that the youngster has Native American heritage himself with a grandfather serving on the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, and that the team’s multi-ethnic squad had enthusiastically joined in with Holden’s ‘Indian’ chopping gesture.

‘Just stop already,’ the boy’s mom Shannon Armenta wrote on Facebook, ‘He is Native American.’

Phillips’ remarks caused a storm of debate when he plucked out the picture of Holden among the 65,000-strong crowd at the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium on Sunday.

‘It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once,’ he wrote in his blog on the sports website.

‘This is what happens when you ban books, stand against Critical Race Theory, and try to erase centuries of hate,’ he wrote in his blog on the sports website.

‘You give future generations the ammunition they need to evolve and recreate racism better than before.’

Other websites picked up on the story with some slamming broadcaster CBS for zooming in on Holden’s outfit.

‘Everyone is making a massive deal out of this and only trying to show one side of his face to push their narrative,’ protested Real Kansas City Chiefs Fans on Facebook.

Deadline found itself corrected by content curators on social media platform X when it tweeted the story.

‘The kid is not wearing ‘blackface’,’ they wrote.

‘The Deadspin article is purposely deceiving. As several fans in attendance noted, the other half of his face is painted red.’

And X owner Elon Musk weighed in on the controversy, congratulating his team for spotting the error.

‘Another @CommunityNotes win exposing deception,’ he tweeted.

Within hours other pictures of the boy emerged showing his face painted in the full red and black team colors, but the Pulitzer nominated reporter was unabashed.

‘For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse,’ he tweeted.

‘Y’all are the ones who hate Mexicans but wear sombreros on Cinco.’

A secretive CIA office has been coordinating the retrieval of crashed UFOs around the world for decades, multiple sources told Daily Mail.

One source said that at least nine apparent ‘non-human craft’ have been recovered by the US government – some wrecked from a crash, and two completely intact.

Three sources briefed on those alleged top secret operations told DailyMail.com that the Office of Global Access (OGA), a wing of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Science and Technology Directorate, has played a central role since 2003 in orchestrating the collection of what could be alien spacecraft.

The three sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, have all been briefed by individuals involved in those alleged UFO retrieval missions.

Though the shocking claims sound like they come from a science fiction novel, they are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting the US government could indeed be hiding advanced vehicles that were not made by humans.

Former top intelligence officer David Grusch told Congress as much in an explosive public hearing in July.

The same month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sponsored an extraordinary bill to allow disclosure of ‘recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence’ – which has now passed in the Senate.

Sources who spoke to DailyMail.com shed light on how the CIA has allegedly coordinated the secret recovery and storage of these alleged crashed or landed UFOs.

‘There’s at least nine vehicles. There were different circumstances for different ones,’ one source briefed by UFO program insiders told DailyMail.com. ‘It has to do with the physical condition they’re in. If it crashes, there’s a lot of damage done. Others, two of them, are completely intact.’

The source said the CIA has a ‘system in place that can discern UFOs while they’re still cloaked,’ and that if the ‘non-human’ craft land, crash or are brought down to earth, special military units are sent to try to salvage the wreckage.

Another source with knowledge of the OGA’s role said that they specialize in allowing the US military to secretly access areas around the world where they would usually be ‘denied’ – for example behind enemy lines.

‘They are basically a facilitator for people to get in and out of countries,’ the source said. ‘They are very clever at being able to get anywhere in the world they want to.’

Multiple sources briefed on the OGA’s activities told DailyMail.com that most of its operations involve more conventional retrieval missions, such as stray nuclear weapons, downed satellites or adversaries’ technology.

But they claimed some missions coordinated by the OGA have involved retrieval of UFOs.

‘The task at hand is simply to get it into custody and protect the secrecy of it,’ one source said. ‘The actual physical retrieval is by the military. But it’s not kept under military control, because they have to keep too many records. So they start moving it out fairly quickly into private hands.’

Documents published by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in December 2016 showed that the OGA was one of 56 offices in the CIA, with its chief and deputy making up two of a total 286 director-level officials in the spy agency.

An unclassified organizational chart published by the CIA in October 2015 lists the OGA among nine offices in the ‘Science and Technology’ wing of the agency.

Late CIA expert Jeffrey Richelson wrote in a 2016 book on the agency that the OGA was established in 2003, and cited a CIA description that it ‘integrate[s] analysis, technology, and tradecraft to attack the most difficult targets, and to provide worldwide collection capability.’

A 255-word biography of former OGA deputy director Doug Wolfe, published by an aerospace conference in 2017, says that he ‘helped start the Office of Global Access’.

Wolfe’s bio cryptically adds that he ‘was responsible for leading and managing strategic, unwarned access programs that deliver intelligence from the most challenging denied areas’ and ‘served as program manager with responsibility for the end-to-end system acquisition of an innovative new source and method for the IC [Intelligence Community].’

Two sources told DailyMail.com that the OGA coordinates with Special Operations Forces such as SEAL teams or Delta Force under the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), or nuclear weapons experts such as the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), to collect the crashed or landed craft.

But another source, who has briefed members of Congress on alleged crash retrievals, said that NEST had not been involved in any of these operations.

A spokesperson for the agency also denied involvement.

‘[NEST] personnel encounter materials from unknown origins on a regular basis,’ a spokesperson said. ‘In fact, one of NEST’s missions is to help determine the origin of nuclear material interdicted outside of regulatory control or used in a nuclear device.

‘During its operations, NEST has never encountered any material related to UAP.’

In a written statement, a JSOC spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We have nothing for you on this.’

A former SEAL team member told DailyMail.com that they had been on operations coordinated by the CIA to retrieve high-value stray enemy weapons, and that they knew of colleagues who had been on similar operations where they recovered technology that appeared highly advanced – though not necessarily out-of-this-world.

‘Absolutely that happens,’ the ex-SEAL said. ‘Even ordinance or a weapon that we’ve never seen, we recover and bring it back.’

One source said that the Air Force Special Operations Command’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron, based at Pope Field Army Airbase in North Carolina, has also been involved in securing areas for UFO crash retrievals.

Sources said the CIA office then often hands the wreckage or material over to private aerospace contractors for analysis, where it is not subject to rigorous government audits and can be shielded with protections for trade secrets.

‘The CIA is the portfolio manager or owner of the UAP [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] crash retrieval operation,’ one source, who has shared their information with Congress, told DailyMail.com.

‘The Department of Energy national labs are materials analysis contractors whenever recovered radioisotopes are involved but not always just radioisotope materials. The aerospace-defense industry are also contractors that specifically do not handle any recovered radioisotopes, but they handle the other non-radioactive material – and intact craft.’

Multiple sources said that many of the people involved in these programs may not even realize they are dealing with non-human craft, due to the intense security and compartmentalization of information in such top secret programs.

In an interview on Wednesday with podcaster Joe Rogan, whistleblower David Grusch gave an example of engineers in the Manhattan Project of the 1940s not realizing they were working on fuses for the atom bomb that would eventually be dropped on Japan.

Late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the New Yorker in 2021 that top defense company Lockheed Martin was one of the private contractors holding potentially alien wreckage.

‘I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials,’ he said.

As majority leader, Reid was one of the ‘Gang of Eight’, a select group of top lawmakers given access to the country’s most closely held secrets too sensitive to share widely in Congress.

But even he was denied access to these alleged programs, he told the magazine.

‘I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve that. I don’t know what all the numbers were, what kind of classification it was, but they would not give that to me.’

Reid helped set up a new UFO investigation office in the Pentagon in 2008 to probe the regular encounters US military pilots and other armed forces members had with strange objects in the sky and sea.

In June, former top intelligence officer Grusch came forward with claims that while working for the Pentagon’s UFO office he discovered the US had a secret program trying to glean new technology from multiple ‘non-human’ craft it had obtained, dating as far back as the 1930s.

The former National Reconnaissance Office staffer’s claims were deemed ‘urgent and credible’ by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, whom Grusch says he gave documents evidencing his story, and introduced to around 40 witnesses involved in the alleged ‘reverse engineering’ UFO programs in July 2021.

Earlier this year Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio told TV news station NewsNation that he had spoken to some of these ‘first-hand’ program insiders, who allegedly worked to glean new technology from potentially alien captured craft.

‘There are people that have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years,’ Rubio said in the June 26 interview.

‘Some of these people still work in the government. A lot of them are very fearful. Fearful for their jobs, fearful for their clearances, fearful of their career. Some of them are fearful of harm coming to them.

‘Most of these people, at some point or maybe even currently, have held very high clearances and high positions within our government.

‘Some of these claims are things that are beyond the realm of what any of us has ever dealt with.

‘If it’s even partially true, then somebody’s broken the law. There’s been some violations. Because these things have to be disclosed to Congress.’

Top lawmakers appear to be taking seriously the claims of UFOs hidden in secret bunkers.

Senate leader Schumer co-sponsored a bill to create a review board with presidential-level powers, with the aim of uncovering and disclosing any non-human craft or even bodies, held by the US government.

It requires all government agencies to turn over evidence of any ‘recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence’ to a panel of experts, who can then choose to make the information public.

The Senate has voted in favor of Schumer’s bill. If passed in the House of Representatives, it will be added as an amendment to the annual military spending bill for 2024.

‘The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena,’ Schumer said in a July press release announcing the amendment.

Missouri Republican congressman Eric Burlison, part of an informal caucus of lawmakers campaigning for greater transparency on UFOs, told DailyMail.com that the sources’ claims gave him and his colleagues a lead to follow in their investigations.

‘These are the kind of specific programs we’ve been trying to get the names of,’ he said. ‘It’s been so difficult because we can’t get that information with specifics from Grusch or from the [Intelligence Community] Inspector General.

‘I can’t confirm it’s true. But it certainly gives us a trail to follow.

‘I think that if it does exist, even if they give us no information beyond that, I think we owe it to the world to disclose that.’

Members of a Florida rapper’s entourage brutally attacked a young fan who had approached the musician for a photo on Monday night, leaving the man with a concussion and a brain bleed.

George Obregon, 20, is in critical but stable condition following the ruthless beating outside Club Skye in Tampa, where rapper Nardo Wick had performed earlier in the night, according to WFLA.

Obregon walked up to Wick, whose real name is Horace Walls III, and his entourage after the concert in the hopes of meeting his “favorite artist.”

Obregon, who had VIP tickets for the concert, was blindsided and knocked unconscious by one member of Wick’s entourage, disturbing social media footage showed.

As Obregon was frozen and leaned against a wall, a second man delivered at least three more punches as the defenseless fan fell and his head bounced off the ground.

“I want everyone to see what these motherf—ers did to my son,” George’s mother, Michelle Obregon, said Monday. “At no point was my son aggressive, at no f—in’ point did he show any sign of harm! My son wanted a stupid f—in’ picture with his favorite artist! And this is what he gets! I am sick to my stomach to think about how this could have turned out!

🚨JUST IN🚨: Appalling moment rapper Nardo Wick’s ‘entourage’ beats young Tampa fan George Obregon Jr who asked for photo. #News pic.twitter.com/SY5wc8lvN1

— Mèo Béo Tu Tiên❤️ (@TramcamYt) November 29, 2023

“Anyone who knows my son knows he is the sweetest and gentlest kid ever. No drugs, alcohol, gang, nothing! I am dying here and my f—in’ heart is hurting so bad I am sick to (my) stomach. I can’t stay quiet.”

Tampa police asked for assistance in identifying the two suspects.

“It’s not like we were running or anything,” Obregon’s friend and witness Connor Villa told TMZ. “George is just walking toward Nardo with his phone up, then the guys that were around him, they didn’t hit him at first. They just kind of looked at him. He’s like, ‘Hey, can I get a picture?’ Then out of nowhere, the guy hit him from the side.”

The outlet also obtained photos of a text exchange between Michelle Obregon and Wick’s mother, who is also his manager, in which the former provided updates on George Obregon’s condition.

Wick has since reached out to the Obregons, the rapper said in a statement Tuesday.

“I don’t condone what happened to my fan George after my show in any type of way,” Wick said. “I expressed to him and his mama how sorry and concerned I was that it happened to him, multiple times before anything was even posted or on the internet.”

The rapper, known for his 2021 hit “Who Want Smoke?,” condemned his entourage’s attack and said he “can’t control another grown man actions.”

“I sent his mama my number instantly the night it happened,” Wick added. “I was even gone make a post to try and find out who he was before his mama text me. I can’t control another grown man actions, I ain’t know that was gone happen, and I was mad when it happened.

“I tried to stop it as u can see in the video, and if somebody got the longer video you can see how mad I was, I love and appreciate all my fans and don’t condone in what happened at all dat s–t aint gangsta or cool in no type of way.”

Representatives for Wick told WFLA that the two suspects are “not his security nor are the individuals directly connected to Nardo.”

Eight of the nine men convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl in 2020 will not face jail time, according to German news outlet NIUS.

The 15-year-old girl was attending a party in Germany’s Hamburg Park in Sept. 2020 when she was allegedly dragged into the bushes and raped by 11 men, according to German news outlet NIUS.

Moment, verstehe ich das richtig? Eine 15-Jährige geht an einem Samstag auf eine Party im Stadtpark und wird im Gebüsch von neun Männern in vier Touren vergewaltigt. Während die neun Täter das Mädchen 2,5 Stunden (in Worten: zweieinhalb) lang gangrapen und einem Martyrium… pic.twitter.com/CQIHT2mIt4

— Jan A. Karon (@jannibal_) November 28, 2023

Two of the men were acquitted, while nine were found guilty, but only one of the nine received a prison sentence.

That 19-year-old defendant received only two years and nine months in prison, per NIUS.

The other eight defendants all received youth sentences of one to two years, which were all suspended under Germany’s preliminary probation law, the outlet reported.

The judgements are reportedly non-binding and not yet final, according to NIUS.

The German outlet noted that the 11 indicted suspects represented a range of nationalities.

Four were German, while others hailed from Kuwait, Poland, Egypt, Libya and Iran.

A female psychiatrist testifying on behalf of the defendants argued that their alleged gang rape was a “means of releasing frustration and anger” stemming from their “migration experiences and socio-cultural homelessness,” according to the Hamburger Morgenpost.

The female psychiatrist on the case, Nahlah Saimeh, claimed that the rapists might have used the gang rape as an instrument to “let out their anger and frustration relating to their migration background”.

Female solidarity, huh?

Such an insane level of betrayal. Sheer evil. pic.twitter.com/4SFEfj1Qz5

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) November 28, 2023

China has brought back masks and social distancing in a chilling echo of lockdown as they battle a mystery pneumonia outbreak four years on from Covid.

Alarming footage has emerged of mask-wearing crowds inside Chinese hospitals.

Areas in the north of the country such as Beijing and Liaoning have been hit the hardest, with reports emerging last week that hospitals are being overwhelmed with sick children.

A common bacterial infection called mycoplasma pneumoniae has circulated since May but is now showing ground glass opacity in lung scans – an indicator of severe respiratory illness.

Also known as “white lung syndrome”, many parents are deeply worried and are having to wait at least a day just for emergency care.

But China continues to insist that flu and the usual winter bugs are to blame for the latest outbreak, rather than a new virus, and can cope with the spike in sickness.

Local authorities, however, are already being called upon to open more fever clinics and promote vaccine uptake among children and the elderly.

“Efforts should be made to increase the opening of relevant clinics and treatment areas, extend service hours and increase the supply of medicines,” said ministry spokesman Mi Feng.

He also advised people to wear masks and called on local authorities to focus on preventing the spread of illnesses in crowded places such as schools and nursing homes.

But his statement comes after a Beijing children’s hospital told state media CCTV that at least 7,000 patients were being admitted daily to the institution, exceeding capacity.

It followed up the largest paediatric hospital in nearby Tianjin reportedly receiving more than 13,000 children through its doors.

The concerning spread of illness comes as the nation enters its first full winter season since lifting strict COVID-19 restrictions last December.

Professor Francois Balloux, from the UCL Genetics Institute, has blamed China’s strict lockdown lowering immunity for the “exit wave” sweeping across the country.

While the US and UK also saw spikes in infections like RSV and flu after pandemic rules were lifted, China’s have been on a bigger scale.

Things escalated further last week when the World Health Organisation (WHO) were forced into a rare public intervention, formally requesting further information from Beijing on the infections.

The WHO said no unusual or novel pathogens had been detected in data provided by China, however.

But both China and the WHO have been accused of a lack of transparency in their initial reports on the Covid pandemic.

It’s almost exactly four years to the date when the first Covid-19 cases were detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in the latter months of 2019.

And commentators have already highlighted how the wave of sickness was eerily similar to the reports that emerged just prior to Covid, which China was accused of covering up.

According to internal accounts in China, health authorities have asked the public to take children with less severe symptoms to clinics and other facilities.

At the moment, though, WHO says there is too little information to properly assess the risk of these reported cases of respiratory illness in children.

Former Vice President Mike Pence initially did not want to preside over the count of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, amid pressure from then-President Trump to overturn the election results, according to a new report from ABC News.

ABC News spoke with sources familiar with what Pence told federal investigators led by special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Sources told the outlet that investigators pushed Pence on personal notes he had taken during his vice presidency that were obtained by investigators from the National Archives.

The notes indicate that Pence had briefly decided that he would not oversee the counting of the electoral votes, writing that there were “too many questions” and that it would otherwise be “too hurtful to my friend,” which likely references Trump.

In August, Trump was indicted on four counts in the federal election interference case, which alleged the former president directed a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and was at the center of the campaign to block the certification of votes Jan. 6. Pence testified for several hours in front of the grand jury investigating the case in April.

According to ABC’s reporting, Pence told Smith’s team that his loyalty to Trump never wavered at the time. Sources described the former vice president telling investigators that his “only higher loyalty was to God and the Constitution.”

Investigators also pressed Pence on his recent memoir, which detailed some of the conversations he had with Trump about certifying the votes. The investigators were interested over the placement of a comma at one point in Pence’s book, which the former vice president said was a mistake, sources told ABC.

In his memoir, Pence wrote that he told Trump “You know, I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome” of the election on Jan. 6. However, Pence reportedly told investigators that the comma was not supposed to be there, which suggested that Trump knew Pence could not overturn the results when overseeing the election.

Smith cites the line from Pence’s memoir in his 45-page indictment against the former president.

Pence ended his four-month campaign for the White House last month. Since leaving office and throughout his campaign, Pence maintained that he did the right thing by not attempting to overturn the election results Jan. 6.

Pence could take the stand against Trump should Smith’s election case go to trial, which is currently slated to occur in March.

The special counsel’s office declined to comment on ABC’s report.

This article was updated.

The political network founded by the Koch brothers is endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary race, giving her organizational muscle and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place in Iowa.

The group announced its plans in a memo on Tuesday.

The commitment by the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, bolsters Ms. Haley as the campaign enters the final seven weeks before the first nominating contest. Since the first Republican primary debate, Ms. Haley has steadily climbed in polls, and is closely competing with Mr. DeSantis for the second-place slot in Iowa. Former President Donald J. Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the race.

Ms. Haley, who has described Mr. Trump’s time as past, has gained support from donors and her candidacy has received approval from elite opinion-makers, many of whom describe her as the best alternative to Mr. Trump.

But Ms. Haley’s campaign does not have the organizational strength that Mr. DeSantis does, thanks to work the super PAC affiliated with his campaign has been doing for much of the year.

The endorsement from the super PAC established by David and Charles Koch could help change that. It will give her access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people making phone calls to prospective voters in Iowa and beyond. The group also has money to spend on television advertisements.

It also helps fuel Ms. Haley’s momentum heading into the final weeks before voting begins.

Americans for Prosperity Action has been among the country’s largest spenders on anti-Trump material this year, buying online ads and sending mailers to voters in a number of states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. All told, the group has spent more than $9 million in independent expenditures opposing Mr. Trump.

One mailer in Iowa, paid for by AFP Action, shows images of Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden and reads, “You can stop Biden…by letting go of Trump.”

But so far none of that spending has benefited any of his rivals, who have been busily battling each other.

The Koch network is well financed, raising more than $70 million for political races as of this summer.

The group has been committed to opposing Mr. Trump’s return as leader of the Republican Party. In a February 2023 memo, Emily Seidel, the president of Americans for Prosperity, wrote, “We need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.”

Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, which has seen upheaval in recent days including the C.E.O. of his super PAC resigning, tried to throw cold water on the endorsement before it was even announced.

“Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign,” wrote a DeSantis spokesman, Andrew Romeo, on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, thirty minutes before A.F.P. Action officials announced the endorsement in a press call.

“No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different,” he wrote.

Hunter Biden is willing to testify before the House Oversight Committee — but only in public, according to a letter his attorney wrote to Republican lawmakers on Tuesday.

Chairman James Comer of the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena earlier this month to depose Hunter Biden on Dec. 13. In his letter, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Biden, accused Comer of selectively leaking information from closed-door depositions with other witnesses in his ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

“We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public,” Lowell wrote to Comer.

“We therefore propose opening the door.”

“Your empty investigation has gone on too long wasting too many better-used resources. It should come to an end,” Lowell continued. “Consequently, Mr. Biden will appear at such a public hearing on the date you noticed, December 13, or any date in December that we can arrange.”

Comer announced a slew of subpoenas on Nov. 8 targeting members of the president’s family, including Hunter Biden, brother James Biden, and former Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker, demanding they appear for depositions.

“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” Comer said in a statement earlier this month.

“Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence.”

Lowell called the subpoenas a “political stunt” at the time, adding, “Nevertheless, Hunter is eager to have the opportunity, in a public forum and at the right time, to discuss these matters with the Committee.”

In a lengthy memo, the White House accused House Republicans of abusing their power to conduct a smear campaign against the president and his family, saying they are “throwing spaghetti” at the wall after failing to produce evidence to support their allegations.

Rupert Murdoch is being deposed Tuesday as part of the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox Corp. by the voting technology company Smartmatic, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Murdoch is expected to sit for questioning in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the source.

It is the second time this year that Murdoch, 92, has been deposed in a high-stakes defamation lawsuit accusing Fox News of airing lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Under questioning in January as part of a similar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, Murdoch said that some Fox News hosts and personalities “endorsed” the false narrative that the election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump.

Fox paid $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s lawsuit, nearly half the $1.6 billion figure initially demanded by the voting company.

Smartmatic’s lawsuit accuses Fox and a handful of its hosts and guests of knowingly lying, or acting with reckless disregard for the truth, by entertaining or endorsing the false claim that the company rigged the election for President Joe Biden over Trump.

Smartmatic, which is suing in New York Supreme Court, is seeking “in excess of $2.7 billion” in damages it says were caused by the defendants’ “disinformation campaign.”

Murdoch is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed against Fox personalities Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro and former opinion host Lou Dobbs.

Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell are also included as defendants.

A New York appeals court in February declined an attempt by Fox to dismiss the defamation suit.

Murdoch officially stepped down as chair of Fox and News Corp. earlier this month, putting his son Lachlan in charge of both. The elder Murdoch is now chairman emeritus of the companies.

Amy Carter choked back tears on Wednesday as she talked about the love story of her parents, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter.

Her father, the former president Jimmy Carter, sat in the front row as she spoke. He arrived at his late wife Rosalynn’s memorial in wheelchair and underneath a blanket bearing her face in a heartbreaking goodbye to his wife of 77 years.

The 99-year-old sat in the front row with his family and alongside all the living first ladies – Melania Trump, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Jill Biden – and President Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.

The service was filled with love, laughter and tears – most of which came as Amy Carter talked about her parents, who met as children and married young.

Amy Carter admitted her part was ‘hard to read without crying so be patient,’ she pleaded.

‘My mom spent most of her life in love with my dad,’ she noted. ‘Their partnership and love story was a defining feature of her life. Because he isn’t able to speak to you today. I’m going to share some of his words about loving and missing.’

She then read from a letter Jimmy Carter wrote Rosalynn 75 years ago while serving in the Navy: ‘My darling every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are. While I’m away I tried to convince myself you could not be as sweet and beautiful as I remember.’

‘But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again. Does that seem strange to you? It doesn’t to me. Goodbye darling. Until tomorrow Jimmy.’

Amy Carter, 56, is the Carters’ youngest child and spent her pre-teen years in the White House, growing up in the public eye.

Jason Carter, a Carter grandson, said of Rosalynn Carter: ‘My grandmother doesn’t need a eulogy, her life was a sermon.’

He talked about how Rosalynn was like all other grandmothers, giving her grandkids a $20 on their birthday and ‘almost all of her recipes call for mayonnaise.’

‘She was born just a few years after women got the right to vote in this small town in the south where people were still plowing their fields behind mules,’ he said.

‘She shaped our national policy she faced down dictators herself on issues of human rights. She built the Carter Center from an idea into a powerhouse human rights.’

He praised her global humantarian missions, such as her work to eradicate guinea worm, pointing out the world has gone from 3.5 million cases a year to less than a dozen.

‘We’re in the last mile because she could see far and she kept going. She was not afraid of these long journeys,’ he said.

Tuesday’s memorial was Jimmy Carter’s first public appearance in almost a year. The former president did not speak during the service.

The Carters’ son James gave one of the eulogies for his mother, saying: ‘My mother was the glue that held our family together through the ups and downs and thick and thin of our family’s politics.’

James told stories of his family’s adventures in politics and the good humor his mother displayed during the tough times.

He credited his mother for getting him into rehab for his drug and alcohol addiction.

‘She saved my life,’ he said.

And he concluded with: ‘My mother, Rosalynn Carter was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And pretty to look at too.’

Ahead of Jimmy Carter’s arrival at the service, Melania Trump and Michelle Obama walked into together to take their front row seats.

The two former first ladies led the procession of VIPs into the memorial service, followed by Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, first lady Jill Biden and President Joe Biden.

Jimmy Carter sat in the first row with his sons, John William ‘Jack’ Carter, James Earl ‘Chip’ Carter III and Donnel Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Carter and his daughter, Amy Lynn Carter, during the service.

Amy was seen holding her father’s hand during a performance of ‘Morning Has Broken’ by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus.

Next to the family in the front row were the president, first lady, Bill Clinton and the former first ladies.

Billionaire Charlie Munger, the investing sage who made a fortune even before he became Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, has died at age 99.

Munger died Tuesday, according to a press release from Berkshire Hathaway. The conglomerate said it was advised by members of Munger’s family that he peacefully died this morning at a California hospital. He would have turned 100 on New Year’s Day.

“Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation,” Buffett said in a statement.

In addition to being Berkshire vice chairman, Munger was a real estate attorney, chairman and publisher of the Daily Journal Corp., a member of the Costco board, a philanthropist and an architect.

In early 2023, his fortune was estimated at $2.3 billion — a jaw-dropping amount for many people but vastly smaller than Buffett’s unfathomable fortune, which is estimated at more than $100 billion.

During Berkshire’s 2021 annual shareholder meeting, the then-97-year-old Munger apparently inadvertently revealed a well-guarded secret: that Vice Chairman Greg Abel “will keep the culture” after the Buffett era.

Munger, who wore thick glasses, had lost his left eye after complications from cataract surgery in 1980.

Munger was chairman and CEO of Wesco Financial from 1984 to 2011, when Buffett’s Berkshire purchased the remaining shares of the Pasadena, California-based insurance and investment company it did not own.

Buffett credited Munger with broadening his investment strategy from favoring troubled companies at low prices in hopes of getting a profit to focusing on higher-quality but underpriced companies.

An early example of the shift was illustrated in 1972 by Munger’s ability to persuade Buffett to sign off on Berkshire’s purchase of See’s Candies for $25 million even though the California candy maker had annual pretax earnings of only about $4 million. It has since produced more than $2 billion in sales for Berkshire.

“He weaned me away from the idea of buying very so-so companies at very cheap prices, knowing that there was some small profit in it, and looking for some really wonderful businesses that we could buy in fair prices,” Buffett told CNBC in May 2016.

Or as Munger put it at the 1998 Berkshire shareholder meeting: “It’s not that much fun to buy a business where you really hope this sucker liquidates before it goes broke.”

Munger was often the straight man to Buffett’s jovial commentaries. “I have nothing to add,” he would say after one of Buffett’s loquacious responses to questions at Berkshire annual meetings in Omaha, Nebraska. But like his friend and colleague, Munger was a font of wisdom in investing, and in life. And like one of his heroes, Benjamin Franklin, Munger’s insight didn’t lack humor.

“I have a friend who says the first rule of fishing is to fish where the fish are. The second rule of fishing is to never forget the first rule. We’ve gotten good at fishing where the fish are,” the then-93-year-old Munger told the thousands of people at Berkshire’s 2017 meeting.

He believed in what he called the “lollapalooza effect,” in which a confluence of factors merged to drive investment psychology.

A son of the heartland

Charles Thomas Munger was born in Omaha on Jan. 1, 1924. His father, Alfred, was a lawyer, and his mother, Florence “Toody,” was from an affluent family. Like Warren, Munger worked at Buffett’s grandfather’s grocery store as a youth, but the two future joined-at-the-hip partners didn’t meet until years later.

At 17, Munger left Omaha for the University of Michigan. Two years later, in 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, according to Janet Lowe’s 2003 biography “Damn Right!”

The military sent him to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to study meteorology. In California, he fell in love with his sister’s roommate at Scripps College, Nancy Huggins, and married her in 1945. Although he never completed his undergraduate degree, Munger graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1948, and the couple moved back to California, where he practiced real estate law. He founded the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in 1962 and focused on managing investments at the hedge fund Wheeler, Munger & Co., which he also founded that year.

“I’m proud of being an Omaha boy,” Munger said in a 2017 interview with Dean Scott Derue of the Michigan Ross Business School. “I sometimes use the old saying, ‘They got the boy out of Omaha but they never got Omaha out of the boy.’ All those old-fashioned values — family comes first; be in a position so that you can help others when troubles come; prudent, sensible; moral duty to be reasonable [is] more important than anything else — more important than being rich, more important than being important — an absolute moral duty.”

In California, he partnered with Franklin Otis Booth, a member of the founding family of the Los Angeles Times, in real estate. One of their early developments turned out to be a lucrative condo project on Booth’s grandfather’s property in Pasadena. (Booth, who died in 2008, had been introduced to Buffett by Munger in 1963 and became one of Berkshire’s largest investors.)

“I had five real estate projects,” Munger told Derue. “I did both side by side for a few years, and in a very few years, I had $3 million — $4 million.”

Munger closed the hedge fund in 1975. Three years later, he became vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

‘We think so much alike that it’s spooky’

In 1959, at age 35, Munger returned to Omaha to close his late father’s legal practice. That’s when he was introduced to the then-29-year-old Buffett by one of Buffett’s investor clients. The two hit it off and stayed in contact despite living half a continent away from each other.

“We think so much alike that it’s spooky,” Buffett recalled in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald in 1977. “He’s as smart and as high-grade a guy as I’ve ever run into.”

“We never had an argument in the entire time we’ve known each other, which is almost 60 years now,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick in 2018. “Charlie has given me the ultimate gift that a person can give to somebody else. He’s made me a better person than I would have otherwise been. … He’s given me a lot of good advice over time. … I’ve lived a better life because of Charlie.”

The melding of the minds focused on value investing, in which stocks are picked because their price appears to be undervalued based on the company’s long-term fundamentals.

“All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for,” Munger once said. “You must value the business in order to value the stock.”

But during the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, when Berkshire suffered a massive $50 billion loss in the first quarter, Munger and Buffett were more conservative than they were during the Great Recession, when they invested in U.S. airlines and financials like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs hit hard by that downturn.

“Well, I would say basically we’re like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon that’s ever happened comes,” Munger told The Wall Street Journal in April 2020. “We just want to get through the typhoon, and we’d rather come out of it with a whole lot of liquidity. We’re not playing, ‘Oh goody, goody, everything’s going to hell, let’s plunge 100% of the reserves’ [into buying businesses].”

The philanthropist/architect

Munger donated hundreds of millions of dollars to educational institutions, including the University of Michigan, Stanford University and Harvard Law School, often with the stipulation that the school accept his building designs, even though he was not formally trained as an architect.

At Los Angeles’ Harvard-Westlake prep school, where Munger had been a board member for decades, he ensured that the girls bathrooms were larger than the boys room during the construction of the science center in the 1990s.

“Any time you go to a football game or a function there’s a huge line outside the women’s bathroom. Who doesn’t know that they pee in a different way than the men?” Munger told The Wall Street Journal in 2019. “What kind of idiot would make the men’s bathroom and the women’s bathroom the same size? The answer is, a normal architect!”

Munger and his wife had three children, daughters Wendy and Molly, and son Teddy, who died of leukemia at age 9. The Mungers divorced in 1953.

Two years later, he married Nancy Barry, whom he met on a blind date at a chicken dinner restaurant. The couple had four children, Charles Jr., Emilie, Barry and Philip. He also was the stepfather to her two other sons, William Harold Borthwick and David Borthwick. The Mungers, who were married 54 years until her death in 2010, contributed $43.5 million to Stanford University to help build the Munger Graduate Residence, which houses 600 law and graduate students.

Asked by CNBC’s Quick in a February 2019 “Squawk Box” interview about the secret to a long and happy life, Munger said the answer “is easy, because it’s so simple.”

“You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles. You deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they’re so trite,” he said.

“And staying cheerful … because it’s a wise thing to do. Is that so hard? And can you be cheerful when you’re absolutely mired in deep hatred and resentment? Of course you can’t. So why would you take it on?”

Hamas and Israel released more hostages and prisoners under terms of a fragile cease-fire that held for a fifth day Tuesday as international mediators in Qatar worked to extend the truce.

In the latest swap since the cease-fire began Friday, Israel said 10 of its citizens and two Thai nationals were freed by Hamas and had been returned to Israel. Soon after, Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners. The truce is due to end after one more exchange Wednesday night.

For the first time, Israel and Hamas blamed each other for an exchange of fire between troops and militants in northern Gaza. There was no indication it would endanger the truce, which has enabled humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.

CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, who heads Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, were in Qatar, a key mediator with Hamas, to discuss extending the cease-fire and releasing more hostages, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to visit the region this week.

Israel has vowed to resume the war to end Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities once it’s clear that no more hostages will be freed under the deal. That would almost certainly require expanding its ground offensive from northern Gaza to the south, where most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is now crowded. It’s unclear where they would go if Israel does so as Egypt has refused to accept refugees and Israel has sealed its border.

The Biden administration told Israel it must avoid “significant further displacement” of and mass casualties among Palestinian civilians if it resumes its offensive, and that it must operate with more precision in southern Gaza than it has in the north, according to U.S. officials.

Hamas and other militants still hold about 160 hostages out of 240 seized in their Oct. 7 terrorist attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. Israel has said it is willing to extend the cease-fire by one day for every 10 additional hostages that Hamas releases, according to the deal brokered by the Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. But Hamas is expected to make much higher demands for the release of captive Israeli soldiers.

HOSTAGES AND PRISONERS RELEASED

The latest group of Israeli hostages freed from Gaza — nine women and a 17-year-old — was flown to hospitals in Israel, the Israeli military said. The hostages were handed over on a street crowded with cheering people, AP video showed. The 17-year-old girl could be seen walking alongside Hamas militants to a waiting Red Cross Jeep with her small, white-haired dog named Bella.

Tuesday’s hostage release brought to 60 the number of Israelis freed during the truce. An additional 21 hostages — 19 Thais, one Filipino and one Russian-Israeli — have been released in separate negotiations since the truce began.

Before the truce, Hamas released four Israeli hostages, and the Israeli army rescued one. Two other hostages were found dead in Gaza.

The latest swap brought to 180 the number of Palestinian women and teenagers freed from Israeli prisons.

A federal court in Rhode Island on Monday dismissed the latest case attempting to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s ballot over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s the fourth court this month to deliver a setback to anti-Trump activists who are trying to keep the GOP presidential front-runner off state ballots in 2024.

John Castro, a long-shot presidential candidate, had filed cases arguing that Mr. Trump is prevented from running for president due to the Constitution’s insurrection clause, which essentially says anyone who led a rebellion can’t serve in federal office.

But on Monday, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee, dismissed Mr. Castro’s case in Rhode Island. The Supreme Court previously refused to hear a challenge from Mr. Castro out of Florida.

“The American people have the unassailable right to vote for the candidate of their choosing at the ballot box, something the Democrats and their allies driving these cases clearly disagree with,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung. “President Trump believes the American voters, not the courts, should decide who wins next year’s elections and we urge a swift dismissal of all such remaining bogus ballot challenges.”

It’s the latest victory for Mr. Trump. Liberal advocacy groups have appealed lower court rulings in Colorado and Michigan that would keep Mr. Trump on the primary ballot next year, asserting that the Constitution’s clause on insurrection forbids him from being reelected following the 2021 Capitol attack.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog group, filed an appeal on behalf of a group of voters with the Colorado Supreme Court, after a trial judge rejected their claim that Mr. Trump can’t be on the state’s primary ballot. The state’s Supreme Court is expected to hear the case on Dec. 6.

The judge in Colorado reasoned that Mr. Trump did engage in an insurrection, but that the insurrection clause of the Constitution preventing rebels from serving in office didn’t apply to the presidency.

Earlier this month, a Michigan judge gave the former president a partial win, saying Michigan’s secretary of state can’t keep his name off the 2024 primary ballot.

Opponents of the president have also appealed that decision, asking the Michigan Supreme Court to issue a decision by Friday as they try to bypass an appeals court.

The Minnesota Supreme Court also dismissed a case on Nov. 8 in an order, saying it couldn’t prevent the state party from putting Mr. Trump‘s name on their ballot. It left the general election issue to be decided at a later date, saying advocates can renew their challenge.

New Hampshire officials have also moved to keep Mr. Trump on the ballot there.

The Netherlands is experiencing an uptick in pneumonia cases among children, marking the second country to report an outbreak of this type this week.

The Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), a research institute in Utrecht, around 25 miles south of Amsterdam, reports that 80 of every 100,000 children between ages 5 and 14 came down with pneumonia last week.

This is the largest outbreak of pneumonia NIVEL has recorded in recent years. At the peak of the 2022 flu season, when pneumonia cases were most common, there were 60 recorded cases for every 100,000 children in the age group.

A news outlet in the Netherlands said neither NIVEL nor the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the Dutch equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), could give an explanation as to why pneumonia cases were increasing.

Mysterious pneumonia cases in China have also begun to raise alarms. First reports emerged last week that children’s hospitals in Beijing and the province of Liaoning were overrun by children coming in with pneumonia.

Chinese officials told the World Health Organization that no new pathogens were detected in the outbreak, and instead the illnesses were caused by known seasonal viruses such as the flu and RSV, along with the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Officials said that strict COVID measures, which were lifted at the end of 2022, left the population vulnerable to these annual viruses.

Now, during the first flu season since the lifting of the nation’s strict COVID lockdowns, the population is being ravaged by the annual bugs.

However, COVID-related measures have been gone in the Netherlands for some time, making it unclear what would cause such a spike this year.

Some fear that officials in China are covering up the early stages of an epidemic, however.

The nation was largely criticized for its initial response to the discovery of COVID-19 almost exactly four years ago, and some have seen the current situation as an echo of the past.

Elon Musk visited a kibbutz in southern Israel on Monday alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to witness firsthand the violence inflicted by Hamas terrorists against civilians on October 7.

Sporting a protective bulletproof vest, Musk viewed the burnt and destroyed homes in the kibbutz near the Gaza border, where more than 50 people were murdered. About 20 more were taken hostage or are missing. Musk was able to witness where terrorists butchered entire Israeli families.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and @ElonMusk toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza this morning.

The Prime Minister showed Musk the horrors of the massacre at the kibbutz on Saturday October 7th.https://t.co/prW0e5Cvbc pic.twitter.com/kR74F61qaf

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 27, 2023

The Times of Israel reported that Musk also watched a 44-minute video of what happened on October 7. The video was compiled from hundreds of videos that Hamas terrorists filmed of themselves joyously murdering, beheading, burning, and raping innocent Israelis.

One of the street’s Musk toured is a neighborhood of one bedroom homes for young people, where all the residents are believed to have been murdered, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson told The Daily Wire during a tour of the site earlier this month.

AFTERMATH OF HAMAS MASSACRE ON KFAR AZA, ISRAEL

“It was jarring to see the scene of the massacres as well as to see the short film afterwards that showed more of innocent people getting killed,” Musk said in an X Space with Netanyahu, during which they discussed what they saw.

“It was troubling in that movie, especially to see the joy experienced by people that were killing innocent civilians, including kids and babies and defenseless people essentially,” Musk said. “It’s one thing if, obviously, if civilians die, accidentally, but it’s another thing to revel in the joy of killing civilians. That’s evil.”

“The rebuttal is often made, ‘Well, Israel has killed civilians in Gaza,’ but there is an important difference here, which is that Israel tries to avoid killing civilians, doing everything it can to avoid killing civilians,” Musk said, adding that Israel does not express joy when innocent life is lost like Hamas does.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and @ElonMusk held a meeting today, following their tour of Kfar Aza this morning.

The PM showed Musk sections of the film that was prepared by the IDF Spokesperson and which shows the horrors of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th. pic.twitter.com/4h5h4GNFfL

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 27, 2023

Musk said that he found the “massive protests in almost every major city in favor of Hamas” very troubling.

When Netanyahu said that Israel needs to get “get rid of the poisonous regime” inside Gaza the same way that the United States and allies did in Germany and Japan during World War II, Musk responded: “There’s no choice.”

Musk added that while it was imperative that the terrorists all be eliminated, it would also be critical to help rebuild Gaza the same way that the allies did with Germany and Japan.

Musk also said that it was important to start cracking down on overt anti-Semitic propaganda against Israel that is used to brainwash Muslims and others into wanting to kill Jews.

Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei will meet with a top security aide to U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, the White House confirmed on Monday, after the libertarian lunched with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in New York.

The meal with the former U.S. leader, a Democrat largely on the opposite side of the ideological fence from Milei, marked an especially surprising part of the incoming Argentine president’s first foreign trip after winning a run-off vote earlier this month.

Earlier on Monday, Milei arrived in New Jersey with a small group of advisors, including former central banker Luis Caputo, the frontrunner to be his economy minister, and his campaign manager sister Karina Milei, his office said in a statement.

Upon arriving in the United States, Milei first visited the tomb of a well-known orthodox Jewish rabbi before having lunch with Clinton, according to a statement from the president-elect’s office.

On Tuesday, Milei will meet with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, while his economic advisers are scheduled to meet with senior U.S. finance officials to discuss the president-elect’s economic priorities.

Meetings will also take place with officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Milei’s office previously announced, aimed at explaining Milei’s economic plans, which on the campaign trail included dollarizing Argentina and shuttering its central bank.

Argentina is the IMF’s largest debtor nation as it struggles to tame inflation approaching 150%.

Milei will take office on Dec. 10 at a time when over two-fifths of Argentina’s population is in poverty and a recession looms for South America’s second-largest economy.

Earlier on Monday, Reuters reported that a previously announced visit to Buenos Aires from former U.S. President Donald Trump – seen by many as much closer to Milei ideologically – is unlikely to happen, according to a source close to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.